[CBeisbol]

Another reason, so thank you Brad for getting me to think more about this. Even someone arguing in bad faith can help clarify one's thoughts on a subject.

I recently had a poor fielding third baseman that I played at first base for a season. After the season I noticed on the scouting report that their defense rating increased from 3 to 5. Oh, good, I thought, maybe they will be good enough to move back to third.

Alas, it appears the defense rating changed not because their actual skill changed, but because their position changed. Though, of course I can't know if any of the underlying skills improved because, absurdly, that's not tracked in the game.

Anyway, it appears that in instances like this, the scouting report is misleading. The player shows an improvement in defense although it appears there was no actual improvement.


This player was on my team, so it was easy to recognize what had happened. But, imagine a different scenario

This time the player was not on my team. So, I wasn't familiar with them and was instead relying in my scout - since that's their job - to tell me about the player. Both their current abilities and in changes in those abilities over time. This player moved from first base to third base, thus *showing* a decrease in defense rating in the faulty scouting report.

If I were thinking of acquiring this player, all I would see was a decrease in defense. Thst decrease may, but more likely, may not be real. But, one might say, you could look at the defense tab and figure out what happened. Sure. But why that extra step instead of including the relevant information on the scouting report?

And if the player did either improve or decline defensively while also changing positions? Those changes are hidden by the way the scouting reports are currently set up. If their underlying ratings did increase while they moved to a more difficult position? Range, arm and error avoidance could all go from, say 40 to 45, but overall defense could still show a decline. Absolutely misleading.

Some players' scouting reports show fluctuations in defense rating. But, is this because the players' defensive skill was changing? Or simply because their position was changing? And, again, for players who change positions, any real changes in defensive ability are hidden due to the position changes.

For players who change positions, the defense rating in the scouting report compares apples to oranges (first basemen to third basemen). It should compare apples to apples (range rating), oranges to oranges (arm rating) and pears to pears (error avoidance).


A scouting report that shows accurate and useful information, is better than one that does not. In my opinion.




Did this player's defense get worse? Get better? Stay the same?

Why should defense be constrained to a single number in the scouting report when it is composed of 3 different factors?

Why not do the same with offense? Why isn't offense constrained to a single number? You can see here this player had a drop in contact rate, but an increase in eye. Is that relevant information? If so, why is it more relevant than a player who had an increase in avoid error and a decrease in range? If not, why is it included in the scouting report?


Edit: perhaps that information (on changes to arm, range and avoid error) are available in the Player Development report. Though I can only recall seeing changes to overall defense recorded. Even if they are, they should still be recorded in the scouting report and the graphs.

1) it's more how actual scouting works
2) it's more useful
3) it's more analogous to how offense is scouted in OOTP

The same goes for baserunning.

And if there are users, like BraDK, who are incapable of handling the increased information, then give them the option to turn it off.