[NoOne]

think about what goes into ratings. ignoring overall/potential, so we don't have to get into stats with ai evaluation.

scouting accuracy
scouting budgets - MiL / MLB etc.. all different budgets.
the scout

*timing of scouting reports - just an update of ratings, though, so in this context ingored.

nothing else, right? so, these are the three factors you must consider.

i make some basic assumptions about the OSA. I assume it's a league baseline - i.e. baseline scouting ability, baseline scouting budget.

So, what is your scouting budget compared to baseline? how good is your scout compared to average?

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anyway simply put, if you spend more than baseline and have a "better" scout, then your scout's assessment has a greater probability of being more realistic... The osa should be viewed as a secondary tool, if this is the case. vice versa if the shoe is on the other foot. if the differences are negligible, then treat them equally.

use any difference as a red flag... relative to the concept expressed in the previous paragraph. that will dictate how you react to the discrepancy and which you should trust more (think betting on craps, play the odds, there is no such thing as "being due"). in general, the younger the age/less service time, the lower the probability of accurate ratings. so, be more maleable for the kids.

even with overspending on scouting and a legendary scout:
there will be many 18-20 year olds that you simply will not know if they are actually worthwhile or not. A few will still be figments or hidden to you until they play a few years in the majors. older players that you draft should experience scouting corrections sooner after being drafted, than the younger ones. age is definitely a factor along with service time. what else would they scale that effect to i the code?


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I also think about how they apply inaccuracy to the ratings... this is why i do not suggest averaging the osa and your scout when there is a difference... it would take a very very rare situation in which that works out that way.

they likely have 2 steps, a) % chance of being inaccurate (some way of selection or all, but % split between different degrees of inaccuracy), then b) a random amount of inaccuracy applied within a specified range -- possibly proportional possibly a specific value, it doesn't matter much in this context. maybe it's per player, maybe it's per ratings, maybe there are some sort of profiles it alots in certain proportions... no matter what it's performing the 2 basic things i mentioned. how it disperses it and to what degree.

so, one being accurate or not is comeplete exlcusive of the other (OSA and your Scout). so, don't average the numbers, that's based on fallacious reasoning that they are somehow dependent on each other during the process of apply inaccuracy. i see examples of each so i cannot say it favors one or the other (scout right, osa wrong .. scout wrong, osa right ... both wrong). unless you study it, i'd operate on the idea that it happends in random proportions as opposed to one more than the others and nothing to do with the resulting split between the two.

because all of this is actually defined, you can figure it out. you can know based on settings and budgets etc that the most a player can be under / overrated is X% or +/-X of their actual rating. good luck on that venture if you do.