Scouting Frequency

PSUColonel · 12-08-2016, 11:18 PM

I am curious to see what people think about the current scouting system. i am not in love with it because I think scouts should actually have to scout players. That doesn't mean micromanagement, but rather broad direction. For instance I feel you should have to make some strategic decisions on how you spend your scouting resources. Obviously how much you budget for scouting should matter, but so should where you concentrate your efforts. As it stands now, every two months (or however often you have scouting frequency set) you magically get a report on every player in the game whether the player has even played in a game or not. This brings me to my first point:

1. Players should actually have to play in games in order to be scouted.

2. perhaps the money we spend on scouting should not be buying just accuracy, but perhaps instead it should be purchasing plate appearances. Plate appearances in the sense that the more money you spend on scouting, the more updates you get on a player.

So if you decide to put a lot of money into scouting minor league players, but not so much into the draft, you might get a scouting update for players in the minors every 100 plate appearances. So the scouting reports would not all happen magically on one day. The college/HS players might get updated only every 150 or 200 plate appearances, depending on the amount of money spent. (this idea also feeds into the idea college & HS players should have 4 years of stat lines generated without feeders) The same would hold true with internationals.

Now there should probably be a baseline of some sort for each category. For instance when it comes to the MLB, you should probably be guaranteed an end of season scouting report on all players even if you don't spend a dime on MLB scouting. The problem in doing this, is obvious...it is far less accurate. The more times you scout a player, the more and more accurate reports become.

So for example: my scouting budget looks like this:

The maximum amount you can spend on scouting is 24M...the baseline is 8M. So the obvious question becomes what is the price of a single PA? Obviously the more money you spend on scouting, the more updates you get with fewer PA...the less you spend, the more PA in between updates. No artificial fog of war would really be needed here, since accuracy becomes more apparent with every new report. So if you are spending more money to get reports, you will inherently get them more often, and they will also inherently be more and more accurate as you go (provided you continue spending the money..think of a player in A- one year, and 2 years later he's in AAA. Your budget may not be the same)

In this case I'd be getting more reports (fewer PA required) for amateur and minor league players. Less for International players. (international players could be handled similarly to college/HS prospects in that they have stat lines which a generated. To determine the accuracy of the report, we's have a formula. That formula cannot be determined until we figure out what a good price for each plate appearance should be. I'll need some math guys to help on this one.)

Out of curiosity....what scouting frequency are people using? bi-monthly, season start & end?

saturn2187 · 12-09-2016, 09:38 AM

My online league uses monthly scouting reports.

I like this idea a lot -- gives you a real reason to invest more heavily in scouting, and it can be put on top of the current Accuracy ratings.

As it stands now, in a league such as mine you can get away with not spending a lot of Scouting, because the accuracy is High and you get reports monthly.

However, even with the accuracy still on High, you'd want to invest more money into it to keep on top of changes regularly.

PSUColonel · 12-09-2016, 03:36 PM

The same would apply to pitchers using IP instead.

BIG17EASY · 12-09-2016, 04:38 PM

I agree with the point about players getting updated scouting reports when they haven't played, particularly in the offseason or players who are on the DL for a long time. That's not realistic in any way.

I'm ok with the current system of updated scouting reports on all players every month. If I want a new scouting report on a specific player, I ask for it and get an updated one at that point. My problem with that system is we can only get an update on one player each day. That's completely unrealistic. If the scout we have is actually a scouting director with a team of unseen scouts working for him (as the manual suggests), then we should be able to send a list of players we want reports on and get them instantaneously (although I'm ok with the idea that they would be e-mailed to us the next day). We shouldn't need 10 days to get scouting reports on 10 players, assuming those unseen scouts are out scouting players constantly. I'd even be OK with the scouting reports including a "last seen" date that tells us when the last time was that one of our scouts watched this player in person. If we think it's out of date, we can then ask for an updated report that takes 3-5 days for the scout to see the player in action.

In early versions of OOTP, we had multiple scouts and had to give them specific assignments, which the idea I just threw out comes very close to replicating. It was very tedious and the current system was a big improvement over constantly having to send scouts to different areas of the country or world to scout players. At some point there has to be a balance in the scouting system between it being realistic and being practical.

NoOne · 12-09-2016, 09:32 PM

i use monthly updates, but bi-monthly isn't much different. if you do it less often than bi-monthly you will have to depend on stats a lot more for minor league promotions/demotions during the season. MiL-related stuff is greatly affected by this setting. i check for promo/demo after ratings are updated... very rarely after only 1 month's time.

i'd point out it's a scouting director, but the label isn't the important part. it's assumed that each team would have many, many scouts. so, i think from certain perspectives it's covering alot of your points.

as far as the personell side and such, they are scouting everyday. the money is also the quality of people you are hiring etc etc. you could have it affect how much you cover, too.. .but then you have to start adding layers of sophistication.

a minimum threshold to cover the entire league per scouting update isn't a bad idea though... this would change the balance of thigns, and hopefully the entire picture would also be adjusted. even something simple would have a ripple effect. or, you simply hire the same # of scouts but they aren't very good.

what i would like to see change is the initial ratings and scouting inaccuracy. we already have a larger %error for younger players, a good thing. what i don't like is that potential changes so greatly.

scouts make mistakes more often than players not living up to expectations. if they aren't working hard they try to trade them or send messages, etc etc (see bruce rondon and many others, some success stories, some not). it's pure hubris to think that our (prof. scouts) perceptions of these kids at 18-22 is anywhere near accurate. the proof is in the pudding, too. look at what a crapshoot it is inthe draft after the first 5-10 picks or even just after the first round. that does not give much confidence in scout's ability in RL.

so, they should hid it more by amplifying scouting inaccuracy even more for the 18-22 amatuer draftees and reduce random changes to a more consistent force throughout a career... randomness is not affected by age or experience, lol... it should be a constant thing, if it is even a real thing.

it's part of the balance of the game, so it's a good idea to use it, nonetheless (TCR). otherwise, drafts are too predictable. so, the same problem applies as the op's suggestions....

best case: maybe one year they re-vamp it with a thorough and logical breakdown of measurable forces/behaviours from real life. Bottom - to - top design, or else adding a suggestion here and a suggestion here from multiple sources will just make it an irrational mess.

threads dealing with socuting should all be linked and mined for a perspectives, but some are more logical than others (nothing to do with this thread specifically).

12-08-2016, 11:18 PM	#1
PSUColonel Hall Of Famer Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 13,107	Scouting Frequency I am curious to see what people think about the current scouting system. i am not in love with it because I think scouts should actually have to scout players. That doesn't mean micromanagement, but rather broad direction. For instance I feel you should have to make some strategic decisions on how you spend your scouting resources. Obviously how much you budget for scouting should matter, but so should where you concentrate your efforts. As it stands now, every two months (or however often you have scouting frequency set) you magically get a report on every player in the game whether the player has even played in a game or not. This brings me to my first point: 1. Players should actually have to play in games in order to be scouted. 2. perhaps the money we spend on scouting should not be buying just accuracy, but perhaps instead it should be purchasing plate appearances. Plate appearances in the sense that the more money you spend on scouting, the more updates you get on a player. So if you decide to put a lot of money into scouting minor league players, but not so much into the draft, you might get a scouting update for players in the minors every 100 plate appearances. So the scouting reports would not all happen magically on one day. The college/HS players might get updated only every 150 or 200 plate appearances, depending on the amount of money spent. (this idea also feeds into the idea college & HS players should have 4 years of stat lines generated without feeders) The same would hold true with internationals. Now there should probably be a baseline of some sort for each category. For instance when it comes to the MLB, you should probably be guaranteed an end of season scouting report on all players even if you don't spend a dime on MLB scouting. The problem in doing this, is obvious...it is far less accurate. The more times you scout a player, the more and more accurate reports become. So for example: my scouting budget looks like this: The maximum amount you can spend on scouting is 24M...the baseline is 8M. So the obvious question becomes what is the price of a single PA? Obviously the more money you spend on scouting, the more updates you get with fewer PA...the less you spend, the more PA in between updates. No artificial fog of war would really be needed here, since accuracy becomes more apparent with every new report. So if you are spending more money to get reports, you will inherently get them more often, and they will also inherently be more and more accurate as you go (provided you continue spending the money..think of a player in A- one year, and 2 years later he's in AAA. Your budget may not be the same) In this case I'd be getting more reports (fewer PA required) for amateur and minor league players. Less for International players. (international players could be handled similarly to college/HS prospects in that they have stat lines which a generated. To determine the accuracy of the report, we's have a formula. That formula cannot be determined until we figure out what a good price for each plate appearance should be. I'll need some math guys to help on this one.) Out of curiosity....what scouting frequency are people using? bi-monthly, season start & end? Last edited by PSUColonel; 12-08-2016 at 11:19 PM.

12-09-2016, 09:38 AM	#2
saturn2187 All Star Reserve Join Date: Nov 2012 Posts: 528	My online league uses monthly scouting reports. I like this idea a lot -- gives you a real reason to invest more heavily in scouting, and it can be put on top of the current Accuracy ratings. As it stands now, in a league such as mine you can get away with not spending a lot of Scouting, because the accuracy is High and you get reports monthly. However, even with the accuracy still on High, you'd want to invest more money into it to keep on top of changes regularly.

12-09-2016, 03:36 PM	#3
PSUColonel Hall Of Famer Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 13,107	The same would apply to pitchers using IP instead.

12-09-2016, 04:38 PM	#4
BIG17EASY Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2006 Posts: 3,291	I agree with the point about players getting updated scouting reports when they haven't played, particularly in the offseason or players who are on the DL for a long time. That's not realistic in any way. I'm ok with the current system of updated scouting reports on all players every month. If I want a new scouting report on a specific player, I ask for it and get an updated one at that point. My problem with that system is we can only get an update on one player each day. That's completely unrealistic. If the scout we have is actually a scouting director with a team of unseen scouts working for him (as the manual suggests), then we should be able to send a list of players we want reports on and get them instantaneously (although I'm ok with the idea that they would be e-mailed to us the next day). We shouldn't need 10 days to get scouting reports on 10 players, assuming those unseen scouts are out scouting players constantly. I'd even be OK with the scouting reports including a "last seen" date that tells us when the last time was that one of our scouts watched this player in person. If we think it's out of date, we can then ask for an updated report that takes 3-5 days for the scout to see the player in action. In early versions of OOTP, we had multiple scouts and had to give them specific assignments, which the idea I just threw out comes very close to replicating. It was very tedious and the current system was a big improvement over constantly having to send scouts to different areas of the country or world to scout players. At some point there has to be a balance in the scouting system between it being realistic and being practical.

12-09-2016, 09:32 PM	#5
NoOne Banned Join Date: Apr 2015 Posts: 7,273 Infractions: 0/1 (3)	i use monthly updates, but bi-monthly isn't much different. if you do it less often than bi-monthly you will have to depend on stats a lot more for minor league promotions/demotions during the season. MiL-related stuff is greatly affected by this setting. i check for promo/demo after ratings are updated... very rarely after only 1 month's time. i'd point out it's a scouting director, but the label isn't the important part. it's assumed that each team would have many, many scouts. so, i think from certain perspectives it's covering alot of your points. as far as the personell side and such, they are scouting everyday. the money is also the quality of people you are hiring etc etc. you could have it affect how much you cover, too.. .but then you have to start adding layers of sophistication. a minimum threshold to cover the entire league per scouting update isn't a bad idea though... this would change the balance of thigns, and hopefully the entire picture would also be adjusted. even something simple would have a ripple effect. or, you simply hire the same # of scouts but they aren't very good. what i would like to see change is the initial ratings and scouting inaccuracy. we already have a larger %error for younger players, a good thing. what i don't like is that potential changes so greatly. scouts make mistakes more often than players not living up to expectations. if they aren't working hard they try to trade them or send messages, etc etc (see bruce rondon and many others, some success stories, some not). it's pure hubris to think that our (prof. scouts) perceptions of these kids at 18-22 is anywhere near accurate. the proof is in the pudding, too. look at what a crapshoot it is inthe draft after the first 5-10 picks or even just after the first round. that does not give much confidence in scout's ability in RL. so, they should hid it more by amplifying scouting inaccuracy even more for the 18-22 amatuer draftees and reduce random changes to a more consistent force throughout a career... randomness is not affected by age or experience, lol... it should be a constant thing, if it is even a real thing. it's part of the balance of the game, so it's a good idea to use it, nonetheless (TCR). otherwise, drafts are too predictable. so, the same problem applies as the op's suggestions.... best case: maybe one year they re-vamp it with a thorough and logical breakdown of measurable forces/behaviours from real life. Bottom - to - top design, or else adding a suggestion here and a suggestion here from multiple sources will just make it an irrational mess. threads dealing with socuting should all be linked and mined for a perspectives, but some are more logical than others (nothing to do with this thread specifically).