Everyone in the draft pool sucks-- is this normal?

[lynchjm24]

Originally Posted by dawurm9

If done correctly, wouldn't every scout be producing outliers, including AI scouts? Or do they ignore their scouts, and use their true potential or OSA to make their picks?

Thanks for explaining all of this. I had always assumed I was getting hurt by the player development process - not my scout being consistently wrong. I gave up playing OOTP9 after 10 straight years of first round pick busts - not one even getting a sniff in the big leagues. In fact, I think only a few draft picks made it, and both were after the 15th round. I'm hoping to figure out the draft with this version, or else I'll likely stop playing this one as well.

I've tried turning scouting off recently, but that might be even more frustrating. Would I rather have scouts and see 3-5 star potential beyond the first round (even if they are the outliers mentioned above)? or turn scouting off and accept the fact that there is no ML-level talent after the 1st or 2nd round? Either way the draft process isn't nearly as interesting as it could, and should, be.

Yes, every teams scouts create outliers, but it's harder to consider since you can't see their scouts ratings.

The only reason you are seeing high potentials after round 1 is because of scouting error, none of those players ever start with high potential, only your scout thinks so and that's why they are left.

If you are consistently picking at the bottom of the first round and are listening to your scouts, every player you pick will have true potentials much lower then what your scout says. Unless they get lucky talent bumps, almost every player you ever pick in the draft will bust if you don't consider the OSA ratings.

[bwd]

Originally Posted by lynchjm24

That's because OOTP generates a true potential. Then it has all the teams scout the player. The majority of the scouted ratings are clustered near the true answer. If you are the high outlier, then most likely you are wrong. What players does your scout suggest in the draft? The players on which you are the highest outlier.

This certainly seems to be the crux of the problem.

Perhaps a workable solution would be a mix between the current system and the 2006-8 versions. You would employ maybe 3 scouts of your choice but instead having to direct and listen to each, they would give you a consensus rating and recommendation, to help weed out the outliers. Additionally, perhaps there could be an optional slider to adjust how much your scouts listen to or trust OSA, so that they at least factor the OSA general consensus into their scouting for you, and again help weed out the outliers.

[Pdubya64]

Originally Posted by Curtis

And I thought (until I read Lynchjim's post after yours) the problem was that after the first round all the remaining draftees are rated 20/20. So, I guess Pdubya64 was right.

This problem of few 21 or higher potential draftees came in with Version 9. In 2006/2007/8 You got six different opinions from six scouts. I arranged my wish list by how many scouts put a guy on their Top 20 list, regardless of where on the list they put him, so every draftee got a score from 6 to 0. I would still have 1's available on round 18 of a 25 round draft.

I loved that system, but most posters felt it was too labor-intensive, so Markus changed it. I'm not happy with the change.

Well, it should take some work to ferret-out the best talent IMO... if it were just another task on a GM's desk, then things are screwy.

Too many interacting pieces, I think I'll just lie down for a while...

[jar2574]

Lynch --

My drafting experiences mirror yours, and I try to avoid picks where my scout's views differ greatly from OSA's.

This doesn't bother me too much though, because I just pretend that OSA is like ESPN or other media that "rate" players.

These media guys compile opinions from throughout the country, and so they do a good job of picking young prospects.

My scout travels the country but can't see everyone on the board, and so he's going to overrate a few guys and miss some good prospects.

That's how I try to justify this in my head, anyway.

But I agree that using OSA will lead to better results in amatuer drafts. I don't use OSA much once a guy is in the majors though.

[Honorable_Pawn]

Originally Posted by bwd

I
Like someone else said I often only draft the first couple of rounds and then sim it, because why bother?

I pick to fill out the positions of my rookie team and Short-A team. If I let the AI pick I end up with 15 catchers and no outfielders.

Also, I look for guys with high work ethic and high intelligence. A higher work ethic means he is more likely to improve than a player with a lower work ethic. Intelligence helps determine how well a player learns a new position. These two reasons alone are very important reasons as to why I pick all 30 rounds.

[lynchjm24]

Originally Posted by jar2574

Lynch --

My drafting experiences mirror yours, and I try to avoid picks where my scout's views differ greatly from OSA's.

This doesn't bother me too much though, because I just pretend that OSA is like ESPN or other media that "rate" players.

These media guys compile opinions from throughout the country, and so they do a good job of picking young prospects.

My scout travels the country but can't see everyone on the board, and so he's going to overrate a few guys and miss some good prospects.

That's how I try to justify this in my head, anyway.

But I agree that using OSA will lead to better results in amatuer drafts. I don't use OSA much once a guy is in the majors though.

I do the same thing, it's the only way you can play and not smash your computer. It's just silly to pay a scout who I know is more 'accurate' then OSA and when he jumps up and down and tells me about a prospect he LOVES, I tell him.. sorry OSA doesn't agree.

It wouldn't even be so bad if I couldn't figure out what their real ratings are. I may as well turn scouts off, since using them I can triangulate the ratings anyway.

[neojonas]

I always tend to hire the best available scout and spend a lot on their budget, but the draft use to always be more or less a crapshoot. Now that I play with feeders it's a lot better. For one I've found that I have about twice as many guys rated at each potential rating. So if I had on average 3 players with 5 star potential before, I now see 6 players on average. Also, the biggest benefit of using feeders for drafting is the stats. I get to see 4 years of stats, see if they have been injury prone, etc. It's a lot more fun. I recommend trying that to improve your drafting experience.

[rjv3]

This is slightly off-topic but I have a quick question: If you have a college feeder league will those players be the only ones available on draft day or are there still high school age prospects/unknowns that are generated as well? I'm assuming it's just the feeder guys but I am unsure. Thanks!

[Bishop]

Originally Posted by rjv3

This is slightly off-topic but I have a quick question: If you have a college feeder league will those players be the only ones available on draft day or are there still high school age prospects/unknowns that are generated as well? I'm assuming it's just the feeder guys but I am unsure. Thanks!

depends on the options you use in the league setup section. You can use feeder leagues only, or feeder leagues and randomly created players. (In case your feeder leagues don't produce enough players for the draft.)

[zonk84]

I've only been testing a few games so far -- MLB 2009 and a couple fictionals with standard MLB setup -- and I think I'm in the "too few quality prospects" camp. I think people are confusing DEVELOPMENT with POTENTIAL -- yes, there are weak drafts, but every draft has a solid 3-5 rounds of talent that scouts think will be major leaguers (future utility players and middle reliever included....and do the math -- ~15% of drafted players reach the majors... that's roughly 135 or 3-5 rounds worth of picks).

Beyond picking the right ~135 players - there ought to be a good 135 players that the average scout believes have big league futures. I'm just not getting that. It's not that I'm expecting to get a blue chipper with the 2nd pick of the 2nd round, it's that my second overall pick is a crapshoot between a couple middle relievers with the stamina to perhaps move into the rotation or a couple OFs with average scores across the board.

In all but one of my tests (where I bumped up the player creation modifiers way too much), if I sort the draft pool by 'contact' talent -- literally half of page 1 is filled with pitchers with the standard 10-1-1-1 hitting talents... In other words, we're not talking the Babe Ruth type pitchers.

I'm still testing and tinkering, but the talent generation seems to have regressed -- ootp6.5 was really the best, though ootp9 came close... X seems to be in ootp2006 land for the time being...