See, now that's additional information. Remember, in the case of that player, I'm comparing two sets of projections with zero dollars scouting.

That the player was drafted 23rd overall indicates he's not a total turd.

He's currently 48 overall. That's really not bad for a HS player. He probably ends up between my (useless) 75 zero Adv projection, and your (informed) pre-draft 84. Let's say 80 overall. Certainly not 91.

Original point - my predraft projection for him , with zero scouting, was useless. Sure, I could go ahead and draft a player like that. Suppose maybe every player I saw with my 20 mil College looked terrible. But whatever the player ended up being would be pure luck. I might as well just put 4 million bucks into both categories and draft lottery tickets.

Posted by donaldjl on 8/17/2017 8:23:00 PM (view original):
Just out of curiousity. How often have the crayon wielders been close enough on projections that it has been more beneficial to grab that guy and skip the "marginal" bench warmer?

Often enough. In most drafts my $20M scouts see 3-5 all-stars, another 10-12 legit major league guys, and maybe another 15 or so guys with a limited role (def SS/C, speed/bsr guys, low dur/sta relievers, etc.) If your other side is 0M, you'll see maybe a dozen prospects on that side total, including late round trash. If your other side is 6M, you'll see 100-150 more guys, with ratios about 1/3 to 1/2 what your "strong" side sees. You can't draft guys who aren't on your draft board, and if you're putting serious cash into amateur scouting, it's a reasonable value proposition to add another quarter to third of that money to tack on another 100-150 guys into your potential draft pool.

The thing about amateur drafts is that the player rating patterns don't deviate much, so with a little practice and spending a little time looking back at the draft later on, you can see where the scouting engine is fuzzy and make adjustments. Even on the very fuzzy projections, not every individual projection is fuzzy, and the individual inaccurate projections are not random. Through pattern recognition you can identify which projections are out of place and so are likely bad. Once you do that you can begin to see what more reasonable projections are likely to be and you can slot those 4M-6M players back into your draft order based on the more reasonable projections.

^^ What saintonian just said. The more experience you get, the better you get each season than the previous. After awhile you are as savvy at 14 as you used to be at 20

Posted by saintonan on 8/21/2017 10:05:00 AM (view original):

Posted by donaldjl on 8/17/2017 8:23:00 PM (view original):
Just out of curiousity. How often have the crayon wielders been close enough on projections that it has been more beneficial to grab that guy and skip the "marginal" bench warmer?

Often enough. In most drafts my $20M scouts see 3-5 all-stars, another 10-12 legit major league guys, and maybe another 15 or so guys with a limited role (def SS/C, speed/bsr guys, low dur/sta relievers, etc.) If your other side is 0M, you'll see maybe a dozen prospects on that side total, including late round trash. If your other side is 6M, you'll see 100-150 more guys, with ratios about 1/3 to 1/2 what your "strong" side sees. You can't draft guys who aren't on your draft board, and if you're putting serious cash into amateur scouting, it's a reasonable value proposition to add another quarter to third of that money to tack on another 100-150 guys into your potential draft pool.

The thing about amateur drafts is that the player rating patterns don't deviate much, so with a little practice and spending a little time looking back at the draft later on, you can see where the scouting engine is fuzzy and make adjustments. Even on the very fuzzy projections, not every individual projection is fuzzy, and the individual inaccurate projections are not random. Through pattern recognition you can identify which projections are out of place and so are likely bad. Once you do that you can begin to see what more reasonable projections are likely to be and you can slot those 4M-6M players back into your draft order based on the more reasonable projections.

Ok. I'll have to test that out sometime. Do you think that applies to IFAs too?

Mostly, yes. The more money you have in IFAs, the more guys you'll see - that part applies directly. IFA development can be modeled, but their development is different than amateur picks. Like amateur scouting, though, once you look at enough guys you'll see patterns emerge, even if those patterns are slightly different than draft picks.

@damag

so I got my HS guy signed from the recent draft and he is yet another flop. A lot of his ratings are about as mediocre as listed but, the reason why I ranked him so high, the projected 92 VsR has now plummeted to a projected 68 VsR.

I think I have finally figured out what drives me bonkers about the fuzzy draft system. I've been looking at my HS picks over the last 5 seasons and I can't think of a time that a picks projected ratings have gone up after drafting them.

This is eapecially concerning because I have 0 ADV which means they usually over inflate the projected numbers. So, if I have a HS guy who was projected to a 92 VsR with my $20 million HS budgeting, and then I draft him and ADV says 68 and he is currently at 46 VsR, my guess is he is going to end up at 59-62?

....... college is a totally different story. >.>

Maybe it is a little too fuzzy, especially on the HS side of things. It does suck to get an 18 yr old player with low currents and think, man he's never gonna get to the bigs. But they do.

Not gonna dispute that that is kind of a shot to the nuts. However, I always think, once you draft a player (and especially if you have Zero Adv) stop looking at projections. I only look at the currents post draft. Your pitcher is a 46 vsR, that gives him a shot to get to 70+ if you do a great job developing him which is your responsibility. And pre-draft projections are a way to separate out the players. You drafted that player because you liked him better than the guys you ranked below him. I imagine their owners should be equally or more disappointed, unless the draft was intent on overselling only your one player.

Projections are like titties. You date a girl, looks like she's got 90+ titties, get her shirt off and they're only 70s. But you got some titties!

This is true.

Usually the game I play after the draft is: 'I could have had ________' because clearly I love torturing myself.

So my guy, Andrew Jefferies projected to mid 60's across the major hitting categories with a VsR of 92. Currently he is

Contact: 37
Power: 43
VsL: 36
VsR: 49
Eye: 56

I had Rando Cubillan ranked 11th (This was probably an error on my part) with similar hit ratings across the board but only a 69 VsR with a 82 VsL Currently he is:

Contact: 42
Power: 44
VsL: 53
VsR: 44
Eye: 41

......... I guess that is similar......... have HS prospects gotten worse? I feel like I haven't seen to many guys that could potentially make the bigs past the 20th pick?

So, here's my current quandary that everybody would love. Took over a team that won 37 games last season, so I have number 1 pick, limited ability to adjust scouting amounts. Have $20 mil college, 13 mil HS. Have a choice between stud JC shortstop projected overall 88 vs HS stud pitcher rated 92, may skip if not drafted first 5 rounds, so could be a trick to sign. Discussion above of 20-0 split or even 14-14 split in scouting very interesting, but how much do you all trust 20-13 comparison? I'd lean toward a stud pitcher; strong prospect class so I'll get somebody good, tough call

Posted by googooman on 10/8/2017 2:52:00 PM (view original):
So, here's my current quandary that everybody would love. Took over a team that won 37 games last season, so I have number 1 pick, limited ability to adjust scouting amounts. Have $20 mil college, 13 mil HS. Have a choice between stud JC shortstop projected overall 88 vs HS stud pitcher rated 92, may skip if not drafted first 5 rounds, so could be a trick to sign. Discussion above of 20-0 split or even 14-14 split in scouting very interesting, but how much do you all trust 20-13 comparison? I'd lean toward a stud pitcher; strong prospect class so I'll get somebody good, tough call

My $0.02...

20 mil College as accurate as you can get; SS projected 88 overall seems realistic. Unless some combination of projected hitting ratings looks like he won't hit well, seems like a lock to me.

13 mil HS, stud pitcher rated 92 overall... it's very rare to see a pitcher in the 90s. I'd have to say you're definitely seeing some projections that are exaggerated, the trick is to guess how many and by how much. In my experience cheaper scouting often exaggerates the DUR/STA combination. Also, if you're seeing him with, let's just say 95 vsR, what happens if he's only a 75?