[injury log]

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

Your distribution of countries for players found and successful is interesting in the range from DR down to PR even though each (and all in your survey) have excellent baseball quality. Why such a disparity in that case?

As you mention, it could be scouting quality; could you continue the test but reassign scouts to countries in reverse order? Population? DR has 2.5 times the population of PR. Could it be that, the number of cities and their populations in the cities.txt file? Or is it just sample size?

I've simmed forward a year (team record: 85-77), and Japan, at least, has caught up a bit. Updated numbers:

Dominican Republic: 31 [4]
Canada: 27 [2]
Cuba: 26 [1]
Japan: 24 [2]
Mex ico: 24 [3]
Puerto Rico: 15 [1]

Puerto Rico yielded only one new player in the year, despite the fact that my third best scout is there. Japan produced six new players, so have caught up to the other countries. It may just be sample size. Still I'll run a more extreme version of the test you suggest; I'll edit the scouts so three are as poor as possible, three as good as possible, and see how they perform. Now I've got baselines to judge their results.

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

Your age ranges by year are also noteworthy. The upper number seems to be increasing; does this mean there are hidden players out there who by random chance never get picked until much older, if at all? I think I remember reading somebody talking about his scout finding a 40-year-old prospect! If they are never "discovered," what happens to them? I guess we will never know the answer to that.

I think the hidden player pool will age as players aren't discovered, though weaker players will likely retire in their late 20s. I've certainly discovered players in their late 30s before, though they clearly had good ratings at one point, even if they were in decline when I found them (when you take over a team, and your head scout scouts all players, he also scouts hidden players, so you can sometimes see a player's ratings from several years ago when you first discover him). If I'm correct that newly generated hidden players are 23 and younger, then I wouldn't be able to find a player over 31 at the moment. I'm probably burning through the hidden players in my chosen countries as well, so I don't expect to find many older players unless I move to an unscouted country- something I'll try in a couple of years.

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

i.l., I'll keep reading if you want to keep doing the work.

I'll keep writing then!