Poor talent in recent Draft Years

[Curve Ball Dave]

Originally Posted by The Wolf

Maybe we should take a poll and see how many like the new system better than the old system.

I like it.

The difference is in 13 and older versions, that five star guy you get in the fifth round would crash to a one star a year later and then rebound to a three star after some seasons in the Minors. Now, that same guy starts out at a star and half and gradually becomes a three star after the same amount of time in the minors.

I like drafting guys after the fifth round or so and looking for tools. Find one or two things good about the guy and draft on the hope that other facets will improve over time. That how it works in IRL.

I'm starting my fifth season. It's the first day of Spring Training and my minors have produced the same number of players of the same quality as they did before.

[Rastafreaky]

Originally Posted by Curve Ball Dave

I like it.

The difference is in 13 and older versions, that five star guy you get in the fifth round would crash to a one star a year later and then rebound to a three star after some seasons in the Minors. Now, that same guy starts out at a star and half and gradually becomes a three star after the same amount of time in the minors.

I like drafting guys after the fifth round or so and looking for tools. Find one or two things good about the guy and draft on the hope that other facets will improve over time. That how it works in IRL.

I'm starting my fifth season. It's the first day of Spring Training and my minors have produced the same number of players of the same quality as they did before.

Pretty much sums up my thoughts on the matter. Find a guy late that has maybe one of the five tools and hope the other tools come around. No reason that guy should start out at 3+ stars. In my most recent draft, I was still picking into the 25th round and finding guys that fit this criteria. For example, a guy might have 3 contact potential and 6 gap potential with a high work ethic. Take him and hope you get lucky contact wise. Plenty of similar scenarios in the very late rounds.

[The Wolf]

I accept it as being more realistic.

But I do think it's a lot less fun.

[olivertheorem]

I will grant that having a lot of guys who are more or less equally bad with low POT is more realistic. As mentioned by others, what we're missing is that factor used by real-life teams to differentiate between these guys past the first few rounds, whatever it is (and it probably varies a fair bit between teams).

I think we need three new items on the scouting report:

Floor - The worst he's likely to be (somewhere between current and potential)
Ceiling - The best he can possibly be (essentially the current POT rating)
Risk - percentage chance he hits his ceiling (and very few players should be anywhere near even 90%)

I have no idea how you'd calculate the floor (have the game project out at average development for 5 years?), and figuring out how to properly display the risk would be tough, but at least it would give you something more to go on when drafting later on.

[Walsh06]

I think the new way is better for enjoyment mentality (if thats a thing). Before it was all negative. You were drafting guys in the hope they dont really suck. Now you are drafting in the hope that they will be good. This alone makes it better for me.

[hlywd61]

Old system or at least a happy medium. I would rather have false hopes, then play a lottery every year.

[byzeil]

I believe a big goal of OOTP is realism. I've read numerous times on the boards that if something can't be proven statistically it doesn't belong in the game. So if realism is the goal then the new system fits in because it is more realistic than the old.

I like the new system.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by Curve Ball Dave

I like it.

The difference is in 13 and older versions, that five star guy you get in the fifth round would crash to a one star a year later and then rebound to a three star after some seasons in the Minors. Now, that same guy starts out at a star and half and gradually becomes a three star after the same amount of time in the minors.

I like drafting guys after the fifth round or so and looking for tools. Find one or two things good about the guy and draft on the hope that other facets will improve over time. That how it works in IRL.

I'm starting my fifth season. It's the first day of Spring Training and my minors have produced the same number of players of the same quality as they did before.

Yes, as far as I can tell the players have not changed. The only thing that changed is the way they are presented, and that is a good thing even if some find it boring. I actually prefer drafting a guy that is properly rated 1* and knowing I'm doing it because he has work ethic and the highest contact rating(pick whatever skill or tool you like) remaining in the draft rather than drafting the same guy with a 4* inflated rating and wondering "why did all of the other teams select 1-2* players and leave this 4* guy for me?"

Originally Posted by Rastafreaky

Pretty much sums up my thoughts on the matter. Find a guy late that has maybe one of the five tools and hope the other tools come around. No reason that guy should start out at 3+ stars. In my most recent draft, I was still picking into the 25th round and finding guys that fit this criteria. For example, a guy might have 3 contact potential and 6 gap potential with a high work ethic. Take him and hope you get lucky contact wise. Plenty of similar scenarios in the very late rounds.

I agree. After the wave of "good" players has been picked I then draft specific skills based loosely on my teams needs for the future but with more emphasis on taking the "best player available". Work ethic, as described by my scout, becomes the #1 factor in who I pick if all other things are equal.

No guys with work ethic and a skill I want\need? I go with the best skill. When in doubt I take the "best arm" I can find, you can never have too much pitching. You can't teach velocity and if the kid can learn a bit of control he may just make it.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by olivertheorem

I will grant that having a lot of guys who are more or less equally bad with low POT is more realistic. As mentioned by others, what we're missing is that factor used by real-life teams to differentiate between these guys past the first few rounds, whatever it is (and it probably varies a fair bit between teams).

I think we need three new items on the scouting report:

Floor - The worst he's likely to be (somewhere between current and potential)
Ceiling - The best he can possibly be (essentially the current POT rating)
Risk - percentage chance he hits his ceiling (and very few players should be anywhere near even 90%)

I have no idea how you'd calculate the floor (have the game project out at average development for 5 years?), and figuring out how to properly display the risk would be tough, but at least it would give you something more to go on when drafting later on.

Maybe I'm over simplifying or I haven't thought this all through but don't we already have the "factor used by real-life teams"? Work ethic.

What else would a scout see to base "floor, ceiling, and risk" on? The scout and you know the kid can throw 98mph with little control. What can the kid do to improve himself to get a shot at the show? Work his ass off, yes? Anything else? Not that I can think of.

He can kiss the managers ass. Schmooze everyone in the team office. Marry the owners daughter, give him\her grandchildren, be the greatest father\husband in the world. Some of these things may work in the business world. None of them are going to work in the business of baseball for a player. So again what can the player do besides work his ass off?

So to me work ethic covers all three of your bases.

Floor (doesn't work hard has a good chance of being very low)

Ceiling (as you say it is whatever the potential rating is)

Risk (the higher the work ethic the lower the risk) I'm no scout but would\do they really put a number on something like this? "This guy works hard I give him a 45% chance of making the show? Honest question as I simply don't know.

[olivertheorem]

So far as the floor goes, as I understand the idea it's "based on where he is now, his potential/ceiling, and makeup/work ethic, he's likely to be no worse than X when all is said and done." So it would have to be a set of projected ratings (or just a projected overall) about 5-6 years out (or maybe 27-age years out) using average development and coaching, and assuming no TCR impact.

I have no idea how scouts would evaluate risk in RL, and you're right it's probably not a percentage. But at least it could be a continuum like "very low - low - average - high - very high" based off his work ethic, intelligence, and anything else in the personality that influences it.

[DrSatan]

Originally Posted by olivertheorem

I have no idea how scouts would evaluate risk in RL, and you're right it's probably not a percentage. But at least it could be a continuum like "very low - low - average - high - very high" based off his work ethic, intelligence, and anything else in the personality that influences it.

I'm not sure if risk is the right word. Project might be a better term. For instance, maybe a HS kid has good tools, but needs to work on hitting junk, or speed up his swing or something. He's not necessarily someone you would want to spend a first round pick on, but he could be something special if he works on his flaws.

[OBSL Commish]

Originally Posted by DrSatan

This would be great. As it stands, there isn't much provided to the GM to seperate all the crap left over after the first few rounds. I mean, ratings wise a guy taken in the 30th round isn't much different than I guy taken in the 5th round. I be just as well drafting by cool names.

Enhance scouting report details, possibly alter potential ratings based on those reports, and add a risk/reward factor.

Example: The 16yr old internation prospect with huge potential should have a huge risk factor, while the 22yr old Division I College kid would have a lower risk factor. These are two extremes, but there's tons of room here.

Not only would this add to draft immersion; it would also add to scout immersion.

I completely agree with this and added it as a suggestion for OOTP 15.

[dodger300]

The biggest improvement in OOTP 14 over previous versions is you can no longer fill your bullpen with the best young arms in baseball. It use to drive me crazy when I would get to the fourth round and see a CL/MR who should have been a top ten overall pick still around. The AI would under evaluate these pitchers in the draft, but a year or two later you could get very good players by trading these pitchers away.

[nebradska]

Originally Posted by OBSL Commish

I completely agree with this and added it as a suggestion for OOTP 15.

Don't we kind of already indirectly have this exact thing? Older players are usually more polished in their overall ratings (thus, a higher floor) and there's no guarantee that young players will reach their potentials (thus, more risk). I think the things DrSatan mentioned are already in the game. They're not explicitly stated as "risk" and "floor," but we can infer from the information already available.

[Caporegime]

Originally Posted by byzeil

I believe a big goal of OOTP is realism. I've read numerous times on the boards that if something can't be proven statistically it doesn't belong in the game. So if realism is the goal then the new system fits in because it is more realistic than the old.

I like the new system.

^^This^^

[HH20xx convert]

Originally Posted by byzeil

I believe a big goal of OOTP is realism. I've read numerous times on the boards that if something can't be proven statistically it doesn't belong in the game. So if realism is the goal then the new system fits in because it is more realistic than the old.

I like the new system.

An amateur draft where your scouting department can't provide a meaningful overall rating difference for players beyond the first few rounds is incredibly unrealistic, in my opinion. This could be fixed without changing the new player evaluation system, and I hope it is patched into 14.

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by HH20xx convert

An amateur draft where your scouting department can't provide a meaningful overall rating difference for players beyond the first few rounds is incredibly unrealistic, in my opinion. This could be fixed without changing the new player evaluation system, and I hope it is patched into 14.

Good idea. Please post that in the Suggestions forum.

[endgame]

Overall, good discussion and good points raised. A couple of things come to mind while I am reading through the perceptions that may serve to address, at least minimally, a few concerns.

With regard to scouting, we need to re-examine and re-work the emphasis and return on scout quality and tandem scouting budget assignments, specifically in the Amateur category. For that matter, maybe all categories, but point being, I'm not sure there is enough demonstrable difference between an Excellent scout at Amateur coupled with a sizeable investment in Amateur scouting and an average scout with average allocation of monies in the same area. I recognize it can't be a hard-drawn line, but there should be a line, however grayed, and we should be able to realize returns and failures more often according to the correlation pairings of these two elements.

Secondly, the idea of risk is hard to measure from the scout's eye, other than what, at least I believe, the realities seem to infer and experts seem to support: the high school prospect has high risk with equally high potential returns, and the college prospect with even average tools has less risk, but lower potential to explode into stardom. I'm not a strong believer that the differences, again, are portrayed with enough emphasis in our gameplay.

Without utilizing scouting, it seems a bit more problematic, when in theory it should be clearer. Perhaps in a no scouting environment, the editor translation could reflect the 'risk vs return' possibilities in yet another rating or terminology that factored in the personality traits (if utilized), GM or organizational philosophies (again, not currently implemented with enough emphasis IMHO), and the organization's position opportunity existing at any given time.

In short, I think the presentations can be addressed through methodologies that do not necessarily involve revisiting the draft concept itself. The flood of high-end relievers are not pervasive anymore, which has been mentioned, and the enormous number of stars (overall stars, that is) available through 5 rounds is gone as well. These are both steps toward resembling the real-world difficulty of culling good opportunity beyond the first couple of rounds. We're headed in the right direction.

FWIW

[dkgo]

Originally Posted by HH20xx convert

An amateur draft where your scouting department can't provide a meaningful overall rating difference for players beyond the first few rounds is incredibly unrealistic, in my opinion.

do you have any evidence that shows current mlb scouting departments DO provide a meaningful difference after round 5?

2008 mlb draft

2008 Major League Baseball Draft - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

not even a single 6th round pick made it. it IS a complete crapshoot once you get out of the first two or three rounds. none of those picks are expected to make it to the majors, and 1 star is a fair rating for a player not expected to make the majors.

[HH20xx convert]

Originally Posted by dkgo

do you have any evidence that shows current mlb scouting departments DO provide a meaningful difference after round 5?

2008 mlb draft

2008 Major League Baseball Draft - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

not even a single 6th round pick made it. it IS a complete crapshoot once you get out of the first two or three rounds. none of those picks are expected to make it to the majors, and 1 star is a fair rating for a player not expected to make the majors.

My point is that scouting departments do have opinions throughout the draft, they do make recommendations based on their evaluations of the players available. Whether that process adds significant value is something that can be debated, but its existence is obvious. I believe the OOTP draft process should replicate that real-life process.