Front Office Model for Scouting

[PSUColonel]

I would love to see a more sophisticated front office structure for scouting. As it stands now, it's just way to simplistic, and as a result, not very fun to manage.

The Scouting Order
General Manager or Director of Operations
Director of Scouting
Assistant Director of Scouting
Special Assignment Scouts or Advance Scouts
National Crosschecker
Regional Scout
Area Supervisor
Part Time Scout
Associate Scout or "Bird Dog"
Not all Major League teams have scouts designated for each of these positions. For example, the Assistant Director of Scouting may be the National Crosschecker, or the National Crosschecker is also a Special Assignment Scout.



How This All Works .......
An associate scout or "bird dog" sees you play and files a report with the MLB club -- The associate scout recommends that his Area Supervisor come to see you play.
Note: Associate scouts are usually unpaid volunteers that work directly for an Area Scout. Part Time scouts will sometimes work directly for an Area Supervisor, covering a portion of his territory.

The Area Supervisor will come to watch a player, at the recommendation of an Associate Scout or based on the reports from another Area Supervisor that may have seen the player at a tournament or showcase, in his territory.
Note: Area Supervisors are many times assigned "Pro Coverage" where they scout and evaluate minor league talent. This is for the purpose of future trades, the rule five (5) draft, etc.

If the Area Supervisor determines that the player is good enough he may recommend that the Regional Scout or National Crosschecker come to see the player. All scouts file reports with the parent club after evaluating a potential future draft selection.
The National or Regional Crosschecker will fly in to see the player in a game situation, if at all possible. He will compare your ability to others he has seen from across the nation and report his findings.
The National Crosschecker is responsible for comparing the prospect in Illinois with the one in Texas and another one in California, etc.

National Crosscheckers will log many thousands of car and air miles over the course of one season.

If the National Crosschecker thinks you have very early draft round selection potential, the Director of Scouting may come to see you play.

The Scouting Director is in charge of a MLB team's entire scouting operation, both domestic and foreign. He works closely with the front office staff. (General Managers or Director of Operations)
As the June draft approaches the MLB team may invite the player to their home stadium for a "pre-draft" workout.
At this work-out all of the team's "top level" scouts will be evaluating the player. This usually will include the Special Scouts and Advance Scouts, the Scouting Director, National Crosschecker and probably the General Manager or Director of Operations.

The Scouting Director usually has the final say in where a player is selected in the draft, for his MLB team. After the first twenty (20) rounds (different with each club) the Scouting Director will rely on his staff to help him with the draft.
This is a simplified overview of how the scouting process works. Many players are drafted each year without having been seen by a National Crosschecker or Regional Scout. But NO early round selections are made without complete agreement and evaluation of the top level scouts, for that team.

In the later rounds players are drafted on the recommendations of an Area Scout that is trusted by the Director of Scouting. Few, if any players are ever drafted solely on the recommendation of an Associate Scout (bird dog).

[RamMan12]

I agree that there should be a more complex/sophisticated scouting system. I think to start off though, there should be a model more like FM or what OOTP had in the past. I would prefer to see at least area scouts because it's kind of weird to have a scouting "director" traveling across the globe to find hidden players while also having to keep a bead on domestic play.

[SiN8]

I really enjoy OOTP's simplified scouting. While the complicated model in FM was perhaps more realistic, it wasn't any fun to micromanage scouts. It's a nightmare to keep track of multiple reports from different times and scouts. Also, whenever a scout leaves, you lose all of their reports. Does a GM really track this in real life or do they delegate that to the scouting director?

[zukes]

A great idea. I loved the old scouting system. Not sure if something this in depth is needed, but having three or more scouts would be nice to have again. Of course, for those that like it the way it is, maybe it could be optional.

[fintach]

I think this would be a great option for those who want more detail.

Personally, I don't want to manage my scouting to that fine a level.

(Note to those who say, "But real general managers. . ." I look at it this way, as a GM, I hire the best scouting director I can and delegate.)

Thus, I ask only that if we get a broad, deep scouting system like this, that the simpler version remain available as an option. I'd hate to see it become a choice between heavy detail and no scouts/real ratings.

I wonder, though. If I had all this depth available as an option -- would I try it and get sucked in?

[PSUColonel]

Not every player is actually scouted as they are in OOTP, and it is my hope that more work will going into creating a "virtual baseball world" ala FM, where you have to actually strategize how you want to delegate scouting.

[Biggio509]

Actually all players are scouted in FM too. You just don't get the scouting report until you scout that tells about hidden ratings like intelligence and personality. Depending on your options you see all or at least some hidden ratings for every one in the country if your knowledge is good enough and at least all the players on a team in that country.

Essentially the only difference is the ability to get a report on hidden ratings and info on how much your scout thinks it will take to sign the guy. OOTP could work the same way hiding things like greed, want to play for a winning team, and personality. I don't see a big benefit unless you have a team blend system like FM does. They could look at player attribute masking meaning that you don't see all ratings until the player is scouted or depending on the scout scouted multiple times. Still in baseball the stats show enough to make this needed.

Now if potentials or some potentials staid hidden I could be for that if amateur scouting determined how much ratings of a player outside say the BA top 100 you see. But that is the only real place I see it enhancing the game.

Maybe instead of a cost of scouting a country you would have to assign a scout and his ratings determine how good the reports are and his salary determined the cost. So you would want a good potential scout scouting foreign countries since hidden players are usually young.

[PSUColonel]

That's a good suggestion Biggio

[Ktulu]

Scouting can certainly be improved (in many ways), but that's a ridiculous amount of micro management which doesn't add much, if anything, in terms of interesting decision making. All of that can be abstracted to two simple things: the resources you commit to scouting and the evaluations your scouting returns.

It's equivalent to adding a dozen coaching/instruction/training positions to the minor league level in an effort to improve the player development system, or setting the individual concession item prices to arrive at your total stadium revenue per game.

OOTP needs more interesting decisions, not numerous tedious ones which in the end boil down to one true decision anyway. Deciding how many resources to put into scouting at the expense of payroll/draft/player development is a much more interesting decision than deciding who to hire to be a part time scout in Hickville county.

I like detail, but not at the expense of unnecessary micromanagement. Take the player strategy screen, is it cool that you can decide how often to "Guard Lines", during innings 4-6, while you are leading by 3 runs? Maybe for a couple people, but for the rest it's totally irrelevant to the overall picture.

The goal of scouting in OOTP is to 1) Create a "fog of war" so that you don't know for sure that a guy rated X in contact is going to hit .xxx all the time; and 2) to create interesting opportunity cost decisions for the overall strategy of your franchise, or in gaming terms: create multiple strategies to "win the game".

[MimesisBTG]

Great topic! I would be content with a more modest approach that added more scouting reports instead of more scouts. In other words, you would still only have to hire one scouting director, but he would provide you with reports from multiple scouts within the organization. This way, when I'm trying to evaluate a player, I am able to weigh the opinion of several scouts within my organization rather than just the director himself.

I'm not sure how these other reports would be generated or whose player preferences they would reflect, but it's just a thought

[PSUColonel]

Thought I'd bring this one up again

[jpeters1734]

First off, sorry for digging a thread up from its grave. I was searching the forum for an answer for something and found this.

I agree that micro managing low level scouts would be insanely tedious and not fun. Hiring a scouting director and giving him a budget is a much better way to go about it. But I think the way the game presents the reports to you needs to change.

I'll start with the international discoveries. Instead of saying that your scouting director has finished a trip to Venezuela and brought back player a, why not have the email come from the scouting director but he says one of his oversee scouts had recommended signing this kid and he agreed? That way, the game recognizes the fact that there is more than one scout in an organization.

I would also like to see a progression of the scouting reports, although this would only make sense if you have feeder league players for you draft. You get an initial report from your area supervisor which could be inaccurate given his scope. Then you'll eventually get a report from a national cross checker which would be more accurate since it's compared to the players across the country. Then eventually before the draft, you will get a report from a top level scout.

May be that's too in depth. Perhaps I should just assume that the report I get every two months has already gone through all the stages. I will stick by my suggestion that the way the reports are presented needs to change. Recognize that there are multiple levels of scouting and it should be just fine.