Anyone else hate their Scout?

[kcyr41]

My Scout is kind of a jerk. Every year, without fail, all of my top draft picks show up for camp and immediately lose 10-20 points (of 80) on their potential rating.

I get that sometimes they make mistakes, but how come he never makes that mistake in the other direction?!?

Or maybe I'm still just mad at him for the time he convinced me to use my 1st round pick on a pitcher who retired from baseball to go play football one month into his first season of Rookie ball.

[Pelican]

Question. What level of accuracy do you use? My scouts are high accuracy. They aren’t perfect, but their observations and ratings help. After the draft, it’s up to the minor league staff to bring out the best in prospects.

[kcyr41]

Mine is set to Normal. I don't see "High" as an option but perhaps that's because I made the mistake of not playing in Commissioner Mode.

[kcyr41]

And I have prioritized for (game) years hiring high development coaches. It seems like every year I draft someone with a 72 rating and by April of the following year he's a 48. Sometimes they recover some of that rating but just as often they're just a mediocre player.

[Pelican]

That substantial ratings loss is troubling. I would not expect that, unless the guy was injured, or the scout was way way off on his evaluation. I use high accuracy because I’m not a “fog of war” person. I want reliable intel. Even with that, I still screw up. But “Normal” accuracy should not yield the declines you are seeing - particularly with good coaching staff

[Pelican]

And I always play in Commissioner mode, with house rules to prevent taking unfair advantage as GM.

Where are you on TCR? I play with fairly high randomness, recalc off, and I don’t recall talent rating changes anything like that.

[thenewchuckd]

[QUOTE=kcyr41;5132745]My Scout is kind of a jerk. Every year, without fail, all of my top draft picks show up for camp and immediately lose 10-20 points (of 80) on their potential rating./QUOTE]

Unfortunately this is where we're at on default settings right now. 20 points is big, 10 points is fairly normal. I expect all my top prospects to lose at least 5 points per year to TCR. If they stay flat, it is a big win. 20 points in a year is unusual but not unheard of.

Play with 100% accurate scouting and you'll see it is not just a scout issue. No doubt your scout makes some errors but TCR is a bitch.

It is a race to average. This is especially bad for high schoolers and amateurs, because they have more time to drop. My observations and what *I think* is happening:

-guy is born with top ratings the game can offer (or close to it)
-TCR hits him, the only way for him to go is down

Similarly - and it doesn't happen incredibly often - but too often enough to be concerning. Guys are born with terrible potential. The only way they have to go is up. TCR hits them often enough, they're superstars.

It gets to the point, you sim out often enough and look at the top players - they're pretty evenly divided between 1st round picks and late round picks.

Of course, there is another way... A way that actually could make scouting important:

-All guys are born with low ratings
-They are born with a probability of being 80 rated, 70 rated, 60 rated, 50 rated, 40 rated, 30 rated and even 20 rated
-The scout gives you his best estimate of the probability of being these levels (hey dude: this guy will almost certainly be a superstar! this guy won't make the majors but maybe he'll play at AAA!)
-TCR uses the background probabilities to determine player growth

Instead, TCR is used in exactly the same way on all players. And high potential players can only go down.

[kcyr41]

@thenewchuckd I think you hit the nail on the head there. It's always bugged me (in an amusing way) that every year there are like 15 amateurs between international FAs and the draft that rate at 80/80 potential, and yet there are ten or fewer 80s in the league - obviously there can't be that many 80s out there.

I totally accept that scouts will be wrong, and the rate of error will be higher for younger players, but simple logic would conclude that there's no way there can be that many 80s in a particular class. I'd much rather have my scout tell me the ONE guy who he thinks has the best chance to be an 80 than shotgun the false promises all over the map.

[Pdubya64]

It looks like a least some of this will be addressed in the upcoming patch. The beta is out today.