[Syd Thrift]

I've been doing stats only for years now - I do have defensive/speed/other ratings on and I turn on potential for the draft - because I just don't like the way OOTP or, to be fair, every other game that displays its ratings and tries to do "scouting", works. It's way too accurate for veteran players, for one, meaning that when a vet falls off you will know about it by the next scouting report (in reality, a scout might be the last person to be able to tell you a guy's fallen off, or else your scout should be a lot less accurate with vets; they should come in telling you that player X has dropped off when he actually hasn't, or that player Y is showing up to spring training in the Best Shape of His Life and is therefore due to be better when actually he's not).

Also, scouts, you know, scout people. The ratings they assign are based on watching them play or do things playing-adjacent, like showing up to batting practice. I think this does mean that you can't really have an accurate "current" report during the offseason unless the guy's playing in the winter leagues, and to some extent I think that report ought to be based on what the scout "saw". Like, if a scout is assigned to work the league for a week, gets to see a particular player play in 3 games, and he goes 0-12 in that time... well, you wouldn't rate him 20/20 but you'd be able to dive deeper into why he went ofer.

I understand that the game does all these things as a means to abstract something that is very complex and also at points very subjective. I prefer not to have that overlay. FWIW even with scouting turned off, you can click into a player's scouting page and read the scout's and OSA's latest take on the player in question (the Mad Libs style reports grade guys on what is basically a 1-5 scale for most things).