International prospects

[YanksFan]

Is anybody as annoyed with this part of the game as i am? I can't imagine a real life scout going to their GM and saying hey i found this kid in (insert country here) i think we should take a look at'em then turning around and projecting the kid to have literally no MLB talent at all. Every email i read from my scout about "discovering" a prospect is a waste of time. They all have awful ratings and no potential. What gives?

[dmacgreg37]

Originally Posted by YanksFan

Is anybody as annoyed with this part of the game as i am? I can't imagine a real life scout going to their GM and saying hey i found this kid in (insert country here) i think we should take a look at'em then turning around and projecting the kid to have literally no MLB talent at all. Every email i read from my scout about "discovering" a prospect is a waste of time. They all have awful ratings and no potential. What gives?

For the most part, I totally agree. That said, it hasn't been every one for me. Several of mine have been good, including a 4.5* and 2 - 4* prospects in one league in 3 seasons.

[Nunyer]

I wouldn't say it's a total waste of time... While my international scouting hasn't produced any all-stars yet, one of my current utility infielders was an international scouting find from merry old England. About 2.5 seasons with the big club, he's appeared in 141 games, hitting .248 with 14 HRs. So that's at least something.

[justtxyank]

Agreed. I turned the feature off because it was pointless.

[HuachucaThunder]

I have had the same issue in a couple of fictional leagues I created. I found that with increasing the amount of money towards International scouting, your scout MAY find some better talent. In the current league I have created, my scout has found a 5 star shortstop and two 4 star pitchers

[injury log]

I'm not sure how you think this works in real life. Teams sign a lot of guys out of the DR and Venezuela for nominal bonuses. I very much doubt those teams' scouts think many of those players are future big leaguers, let alone future stars. In most cases, I'd imagine the players have one or two interesting tools - good bat speed, good athleticism, a good arm, feel for a changeup, whatever. No one really has a clear idea what these guys will become at age 16, but any scout who walked into his GM's office once a month and said "hey, I've found another future All Star we can sign for $5000!" wouldn't keep his job for very long.

When I've simmed ahead a decade or two and checked the top 100 prospects list, I've typically found that 2 of the top 20 prospects are international discoveries (not the international amateur FAs). I haven't checked if that proportion holds throughout the top 100 list, but if it does, that would put 10 international finds on the list. Which means each team has, in a given year, about a 1/3 chance to have discovered, a few years previous, a current top 100 prospect. Not so bad for guys you get for free.

[D-BacksJosh]

I have 6 players in my international complex. One player has a 4.5 star potential rating. However, the rest are 'dumb as a brick'. I would have to agree that I don't understand why my scout (who is legendary and excellent in all categories) would present this type of prospect to me. Unless of course he is spending most of his time blowing his bloated salary in Dominican pesos at the cantinas in Santa Domingo then actually scouting players.

[D-BacksJosh]

Originally Posted by injury log

I'm not sure how you think this works in real life. Teams sign a lot of guys out of the DR and Venezuela for nominal bonuses. I very much doubt those teams' scouts think many of those players are future big leaguers, let alone future stars. In most cases, I'd imagine the players have one or two interesting tools - good bat speed, good athleticism, a good arm, feel for a changeup, whatever. No one really has a clear idea what these guys will become at age 16, but any scout who walked into his GM's office once a month and said "hey, I've found another future All Star we can sign for $5000!" wouldn't keep his job for very long.

When I've simmed ahead a decade or two and checked the top 100 prospects list, I've typically found that 2 of the top 20 prospects are international discoveries (not the international amateur FAs). I haven't checked if that proportion holds throughout the top 100 list, but if it does, that would put 10 international finds on the list. Which means each team has, in a given year, about a 1/3 chance to have discovered, a few years previous, a current top 100 prospect. Not so bad for guys you get for free.

I see what you are saying. However there are plenty of 17 year olds in the first year player draft that have reasonable potential ratings. So I don't see why it would be harder to find a player with reasonable potential ratings just because they are a year younger.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by YanksFan

Is anybody as annoyed with this part of the game as i am? I can't imagine a real life scout going to their GM and saying hey i found this kid in (insert country here) i think we should take a look at'em then turning around and projecting the kid to have literally no MLB talent at all. Every email i read from my scout about "discovering" a prospect is a waste of time. They all have awful ratings and no potential. What gives?

The int complex and international discovery part of the game are working exactly as intended and are extremely similar to real life.

Using the Yankees as an example, given your user name:

In 2006 (As far back as Baseball Ref has player info) the Yankees had 68 different players play for either of their two Dominican Summer League teams.

Of those 68 players, two have played in the majors up to this point. Abraham Almonte and Zoilo Almonte.

As you can see they've combined for all of 100 MLB at bats.

Looking beyond players who eventually played in the majors shows the following.

Only 27 of those 68 players were even good enough to play in the American minor leagues, half of whom never made it out of the Gulf Coast League.

So in a given year in real life, out of 68 players in the Yankees international complex only 15 or so were even good enough to ever make it out of rookie league ball.

Honestly I don't see why you'd have any reason to complain about how OOTP is doing this. OOTP gets it right here. In fact if anything the talent level of the international finds in OOTP should probably be decreased to match that of real life, but in any case, certainly not increased.

[YanksFan]

Originally Posted by D-BacksJosh

I see what you are saying. However there are plenty of 17 year olds in the first year player draft that have reasonable potential ratings. So I don't see why it would be harder to find a player with reasonable potential ratings just because they are a year younger.

This.

I'm not expecting him to discover an All Star every month but it would make more sense to have a marginal projection of the kid then let the chips fall where they may in terms of on field performance, injuries, etc. My ratings scale is 1-20. The guys he's emailing me about have ratings in the 2-5 area. C'mon.

[D-BacksJosh]

Originally Posted by lukasberger

The int complex and international discovery part of the game are working exactly as intended and are extremely similar to real life.

Using the Yankees as an example, given your user name:

In 2006 (As far back as Baseball Ref has player info) the Yankees had 68 different players play for either of their two Dominican Summer League teams.

Of those 68 players, two have played in the majors up to this point. Abraham Almonte and Zoilo Almonte.

As you can see they've combined for all of 100 MLB at bats.

Looking beyond players who eventually played in the majors shows the following.

Only 27 of those 68 players were even good enough to play in the American minor leagues, half of whom never made it out of the Gulf Coast League.

So in a given year in real life, out of 68 players in the Yankees international complex only 15 or so players were even good enough to ever make it out of rookie league ball.

Honestly I don't see why you'd have any reason to complain about how OOTP is doing this. OOTP gets it right here. In fact if anything the talent level of the international finds in OOTP should probably be decreased to match that of real life, but in any case, certainly not increased.

I agree the outcome of the players careers on the international complex list is close to reality. I guess what I am trying to say is they could be presented a little more realistically when they are discovered. Surely my legendary scout can find someone with some leadership skills or good work ethics. Or at least say something nice about them somewhere in the report, especially if he felt compelled to alert me too him.

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by D-BacksJosh

I have 6 players in my international complex. One player has a 4.5 star potential rating. However, the rest are 'dumb as a brick'. I would have to agree that I don't understand why my scout (who is legendary and excellent in all categories) would present this type of prospect to me. Unless of course he is spending most of his time blowing his bloated salary in Dominican pesos at the cantinas in Santa Domingo then actually scouting players.

Email him to be sure and try El Agave.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by D-BacksJosh

I agree the outcome of the players careers on the international complex list is close to reality. I guess what I am trying to say is they could be presented a little more realistically when they are discovered. Surely my legendary scout can find someone with some leadership skills or good work ethics. Or at least say something nice about them somewhere in the report, especially if he felt compelled to alert me too him.

I get what you're saying.

All the scout's really alerting you to though, is that he found a player good enough to play in your int complex (DSL-VSL team). Nothing more or less than that.

So maybe the problem is that you shouldn't get a email alert for every time the scout finds a generic int complex player. I've never checked, is this something that can be turned off? The alert, that is.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by D-BacksJosh

I see what you are saying. However there are plenty of 17 year olds in the first year player draft that have reasonable potential ratings. So I don't see why it would be harder to find a player with reasonable potential ratings just because they are a year younger.

It's also worth noting that the int complex scout finds are meant to simulate all of the small signings of guys to fill out the Summer League rosters, not the signings of the high money, high potential players.

Those occur during the int free agency period, when you can compete to sign the better young guys who are generated separately from the scout finds.

So that's how you should get most of your high impact int complex guys into your org, through signing them in the special int free agency period, not through the scout signings.

[D-BacksJosh]

Originally Posted by lukasberger

It's also worth noting that the int complex scout finds are meant to simulate all of the small signings of guys to fill out the Summer League rosters, not the signings of the high money, high potential players.

Those occur during the int free agency period, when you can compete to sign the better young guys who are generated separately from the scout finds.

So that's how you should get most of your high impact int complex guys into your org, through signing them in the special int free agency period, not through the scout signings.

Good point. The engine for the game works fantastically, the problem is purely cosmetic. Which really isn't that big of a deal for me personally. The international complex was just introduced this year, I am sure it will be improved on in the future.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by D-BacksJosh

The international complex was just introduced this year, I am sure it will be improved on in the future.

Yeah, I hope so too.

Would really like to see stats for the int complex guys, even if they're just game generated.

Of course turning the int complexes into real DSL-VSL leagues and teams that actually play full schedules would be even better.

[SirMichaelJordan]

Originally Posted by YanksFan

Is anybody as annoyed with this part of the game as i am? I can't imagine a real life scout going to their GM and saying hey i found this kid in (insert country here) i think we should take a look at'em then turning around and projecting the kid to have literally no MLB talent at all. Every email i read from my scout about "discovering" a prospect is a waste of time. They all have awful ratings and no potential. What gives?

The prospects ur scouts find are usually less talented than the guys listed in the IFA list. Other than that, yes the written reports are going to tell you how bad those guys are. Sim some years, everything will pan out and your league wont lose talent 20 years later.

[injury log]

Two other things:

- while the vast majority of discoveries are going to look terrible when you find them, you definitely will sometimes find a really good looking prospect. Your scout's ability and scout spending will matter here;

- player development in OOTP for 16 year old international complex guys is absolutely crazy volatile. A lot of the guys you find who look horrible at first are going to look quite a bit better in a year or two - not necessarily MLB-good, but at least AA/AAA-good. And a few will turn into genuine big league players, some bench types, some regulars, the occasional star.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by YanksFan

This.

I'm not expecting him to discover an All Star every month but it would make more sense to have a marginal projection of the kid then let the chips fall where they may in terms of on field performance, injuries, etc. My ratings scale is 1-20. The guys he's emailing me about have ratings in the 2-5 area. C'mon.

As far as that goes, it's pretty much right on. Typically a player who has 5 ratings is someone likely to max out in R-SS.

2 ratings would likely indicate someone who'll never make it out of the complex.

As discussed, there should be quite a few of those guys.