Can we tone down OOTP created draft class overall potentials?

[Sweed]

This is really getting out of hand. There is nothing realistic about the potentials of players in OOTP created draft classes. The sad part is this is because when OOTP had realistic draft classes some (vocal minority?) complained it wasn't fun. **

All of my player creation development settings are default. I haven't nerfed nor increased any settings. Imported game so not OOTP's hand made new game draft class. Everyone in my class is OOTP created. None are from feeders.

My first draft class was just revealed in my imported game (so yes three years of my class was generated in v25 and v26). What this means is it's been a problem for a few versions now and not introduced in v27. Here's a screen shot and it is unbelievable what is there.

94 players have potentials of 60 or above. Think about that for a moment. If you win the World Series and pick last, at the end of the third round you can still get a 60 potential player.

35 players are 70 and above. Got to love it. Every team in the first round gets a 70 potential player in the draft.

15 players are 80 potential overall. Most drafts, if not all, never have one of these guys.

One problem is any player at 70+ should cause hype that is off the charts. When you have 35 of these guys in a draft the hype means nothing. Not because there are 35 of them, but because probably 34 if not all 35 have to have an overall potential rating crash. If they don't what is your league going to look like?

Now come the "why are my highly rated draft players always crashing?" complaints. IMHO this can be fixed in one of two ways. Make these players not crash. Hardly a good idea. Tone down these inflated potentials in the draft pool to be more realistic.

** For those that didn't like realistic classes because it wasn't fun. Are these overrated players the fun you were looking for? "I got a 65/80 overall in the third round!!" Yes you did, but the hype means nothing.

The argument when classes were realistic was "it's too hard, or not fun having to sort through all of the average players. They all look the same." Or "to see the differences I have to dig into individual ratings and that takes too much time." Meaning not fun. I'll agree it was more work, but IMHO worth the effort. Here's the thing, since this time the ratings scale went from 250ish to over 600. This results in being able to see small differences even using the overalls. Use 20/80 by 1's and all of those 40/80 to 49/80 players will sort nicely into 41/80 up to 49/80. Not as good as looking at individual ratings but good enough to draw your eye.

However one comes down on the realistic against fun factor they certainly can't think it justifies the overrated classes were are getting, can they? The pendulum has swung too far and needs to be adjusted. It's too late for v27 to do anything, we are where we are. But for OOTP 28 doing something with these draft classes really needs to be a high priority.

[Cwalker]

Completely agree with everything you said. I end up deleting a lot of prospects once the fictional classes become available to view during the season, just to cut down on the number of 60+ potential guys.

[atlbrave1]

I generally agree with this sentiment, however my issue with "more realistic" ratings is that player development feels more like a random number generator than anything else. Will one of my 50 Contact / 50 Power / 50 Eye improve? Who knows, I have 3 of these very similar guys in my system and hopefully one improves, but no real way of telling who or how.

I guess I just look at the potential ratings as if everything goes perfectly this is who I'll end up with. So I am looking at a 70 / 40 / 60 guy, a 50 / 80 / 60 guy and a 60 / 60 / 60 guy and can kind of dream on them if everything works out, but knowing that I'll probably end up with a 60/35/50, 45/65/60 and a 50/50/50 guy.

It is two sides of the same coin, but I think if they are going to put out "realistic" draft classes there needs to be something to differentiate these guys outside of changing scale to 1 point. I enjoy some fog of war and differentiation in prospects in the draft and just changing scale to choose between 52/48/48, 48/52/52 or 52/48/52 doesn't seem to do much for me.

[Ratbelly]

I feel like this was a problem in the last several verisions until they tuned it. I get a little confused why this would continually happen. I love this game, but it truly feels like in the future I need to let this cook until the all star break a bit. I am still playing 26 and waitiing until waiver wire, AI roster management, player creation is fixed.

[Baconi]

Yes the talent distribution is absurd. And is a big part of the reason why we end up with so many complaints about being unable to develop players to their potential - inevitably all of these ratings will fall so users see all their prospects losing POT and cry foul. They really need to go for a more realistic system that gives ratings based on expected value rather than maximum possible potential.
Also, the lower your scouting accuracy is, the worse the problem gets, i.e. the more 80 potential players show up. I like to play on very low scouting accuracy for further challenge and realism but that shouldn’t mean that there’s literally 75 prospects with a 70+ POT in a 16 team league… thats an actual number from a test save I did. Players should be rated relative to other ratings at that scouting accuracy, so the actual overall distribution of ratings should not change when scouting accuracy changes.

[Baconi]

I think it would be great if there was an option for more “realistic” ratings. So both camps could get what they want. Right now the inflated ratings are honestly killing a lot of the enjoyment and immersion for me, but I know other people might like it that way. If it just comes down to how the ratings are displayed, I think having options for rating scales should be a possibility.

[atlbrave1]

Using Fangraphs Future Value rankings, the 2026 draft will have one player at 55 Overall, 4 players at 50, 21 players at 45 (or 45+). As I recall, when the developers tried to reflect these types of grades, there was a pretty big uproar. I don't disagree that currently it isn't realistic, but if you have the 10th pick in the draft, you would be looking at a 45 guy, maybe one or two 40s and a bunch of 35 and below, and if I recall that made the last 15 rounds of the draft pretty much useless because there were a bunch of players who were so similar that there wasn't much point in trying to find a diamond in the rough because they were all just rough.

Does OOTP generally overrate all players as compared to MLB? Yep. But I think that is a design decision because in reality almost all MLB players are 45-55 overall guys with variations that make them a 60 or 40. Having farm systems stocked with guys with 40-55 potential may be realistic, but it is kind of boring.

The last thing is that I think that TCR would need to be tweaked if the ratings were changed. Right now it seems as though most talent adjustments are to the negative, where in reality at the prospect level, there are some increases but mostly player stay flat (i.e. just don't develop). Looking at top 100 prospect board from FanGraphs there are 110 players with 50 FV (only 30 at 55+), indicating that players "improve" (really it is just getting more information) from the draft.

As to my prior point how would players be differentiated at the draft to know who could make that leap? Or is it simply random? Konnor Griffin was a 50 FV guy in March 2025 and is now a 70 FV. Maybe you can make it work with a combination of scouting and money, but I don't really think that is necessarily realistic either (does anyone think Pittsburgh has the best scouting and puts the most money of any team into development)?

For myself I want to be able to dream on my #9 pick (Griffin's slot) and I am guessing Pittsburgh was as well. But if he's just one of two dozen 45 potential guys in the draft, hard to dream on him, but instead dream on a couple of talent changes.

It's a difficult spot for developers, because I think there is a fun factor that needs to be thought about. I enjoyed the draft in 2026 (made spreadsheets and everything to find guys I "valued") and I think having a wider spread and "higher" values is an important part of that experience.

[mcercone]

I generally for the most part agree with this statement, but in previous versions I have seen these potential ratings drop quickly after some of these players were drafted in previous versions (OOTP26). This does seem rather high to see the number of players with this high of potential, so maybe something in OOTP 27 needs to be tweaked.

Guess the reason for my post is to highlight how just because the players have this high of potential, that is not necessarily where they end up. Scouting accuracy matters, development plays a part.

If each scouting class varied, and this class was an anomoly, maybe that would be an explanation as well.

[CBLCardinals]

Originally Posted by atlbrave1

Using Fangraphs Future Value rankings, the 2026 draft will have one player at 55 Overall, 4 players at 50, 21 players at 45 (or 45+). As I recall, when the developers tried to reflect these types of grades, there was a pretty big uproar. I don't disagree that currently it isn't realistic, but if you have the 10th pick in the draft, you would be looking at a 45 guy, maybe one or two 40s and a bunch of 35 and below, and if I recall that made the last 15 rounds of the draft pretty much useless because there were a bunch of players who were so similar that there wasn't much point in trying to find a diamond in the rough because they were all just rough.

Does OOTP generally overrate all players as compared to MLB? Yep. But I think that is a design decision because in reality almost all MLB players are 45-55 overall guys with variations that make them a 60 or 40. Having farm systems stocked with guys with 40-55 potential may be realistic, but it is kind of boring.

The last thing is that I think that TCR would need to be tweaked if the ratings were changed. Right now it seems as though most talent adjustments are to the negative, where in reality at the prospect level, there are some increases but mostly player stay flat (i.e. just don't develop). Looking at top 100 prospect board from FanGraphs there are 110 players with 50 FV (only 30 at 55+), indicating that players "improve" (really it is just getting more information) from the draft.

As to my prior point how would players be differentiated at the draft to know who could make that leap? Or is it simply random? Konnor Griffin was a 50 FV guy in March 2025 and is now a 70 FV. Maybe you can make it work with a combination of scouting and money, but I don't really think that is necessarily realistic either (does anyone think Pittsburgh has the best scouting and puts the most money of any team into development)?

For myself I want to be able to dream on my #9 pick (Griffin's slot) and I am guessing Pittsburgh was as well. But if he's just one of two dozen 45 potential guys in the draft, hard to dream on him, but instead dream on a couple of talent changes.

It's a difficult spot for developers, because I think there is a fun factor that needs to be thought about. I enjoyed the draft in 2026 (made spreadsheets and everything to find guys I "valued") and I think having a wider spread and "higher" values is an important part of that experience.

These are good callouts. For context, FanGraphs tends to be the most conservative on FV. That’s not a good or bad thing, just a fact. Baseball America and MLB Pipeline tend to be more optimistic on players potentials.

Like others have said, most MLB players are somewhere between 45-55, some 60, some 70, and very few 80.

Draft classes SHOULD reflect more reality IMO. Somehow we have to switch a mindset of “oh he’s only a 50 FV” to “oh, 50 FV is a really good outcome…means the player will be league average / around 2 WAR. While not “sexy”, you need depth and cheap 50 grade players around, unless your the Dodgers budget.

Even discussing potential has its own caveat…are we talking 50% outcome (more realistic) or 10% outcome? That 50 may be a 70 like Griffin if the hit tool develops.

[uti-pontus-hage]

Agree 100 %

[jaa36]

Originally Posted by CBLCardinals

Even discussing potential has its own caveat…are we talking 50% outcome (more realistic) or 10% outcome? That 50 may be a 70 like Griffin if the hit tool develops.

For me, this gets to the heart of the question.

If potential is being used as a proxy for Fangraphs-style Future Value, then I'd agree that draft classes have players rated too highly. But... I don't really think that's the way potential is really being used in this game. If I see a player with 80 potential, I don't expect that they will end up being an 80 overall player in the future. I would view that as the 90th percentile (or so) outcome, and that the 50th percentile outcome would be that he ends up as maybe a 55 overall player, and that the 10th percentile outcome would be that he ends up as a 40 overall player.

But I do think that OOTP could do a much better job of defining all of these terms, because they lead to quite a bit of confusion.

[Bluenoser]

Some good points made here all around. Great discussion.

Swede - funny thing, here's 2 draft classes from 27. The first one is from a league created in 27, while the 2nd is from a 26 import. Seems to be a big difference, although still seems inflated overall.
_

[Ratbelly]

Originally Posted by jaa36

For me, this gets to the heart of the question.

If potential is being used as a proxy for Fangraphs-style Future Value, then I'd agree that draft classes have players rated too highly. But... I don't really think that's the way potential is really being used in this game. If I see a player with 80 potential, I don't expect that they will end up being an 80 overall player in the future. I would view that as the 90th percentile (or so) outcome, and that the 50th percentile outcome would be that he ends up as maybe a 55 overall player, and that the 10th percentile outcome would be that he ends up as a 40 overall player.

But I do think that OOTP could do a much better job of defining all of these terms, because they lead to quite a bit of confusion.

Good points but it feels wrong if the scout or rating systems thinks there are 30 guys that could be Judge or Ohtani. That seems like a bit much.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by atlbrave1

I generally agree with this sentiment, however my issue with "more realistic" ratings is that player development feels more like a random number generator than anything else. Will one of my 50 Contact / 50 Power / 50 Eye improve? Who knows, I have 3 of these very similar guys in my system and hopefully one improves, but no real way of telling who or how.

I guess I just look at the potential ratings as if everything goes perfectly this is who I'll end up with. So I am looking at a 70 / 40 / 60 guy, a 50 / 80 / 60 guy and a 60 / 60 / 60 guy and can kind of dream on them if everything works out, but knowing that I'll probably end up with a 60/35/50, 45/65/60 and a 50/50/50 guy.

It is two sides of the same coin, but I think if they are going to put out "realistic" draft classes there needs to be something to differentiate these guys outside of changing scale to 1 point. I enjoy some fog of war and differentiation in prospects in the draft and just changing scale to choose between 52/48/48, 48/52/52 or 52/48/52 doesn't seem to do much for me.

To be clear I am talking about the 20/80 by 1's and not 5's, for overall/potential. I am not suggesting underlying skills like contact/power/eye which is what I think you are saying with your three number slash examples should be done by 1's on the 20/80 scale? If someone wants a "by 1's" scale I assume they can already do that with the 1-100 scale? IDK for sure as I've never used 1-100.

For the 20/80 ov/pot one can still go by 5's and keep their fog of war. I mention using by 1's as a way for those that didn't like trying to differentiate between closely grouped players, ie 40/80, 45/80, 50/80, to do so. The complaint when realistic classes were in OOTP was it's too tedious to have to look at all of these players individual skills to find "who I think is best". With the expansion to the 600+ scale for ratings the "by 1's" on the 20/80 scale sorting players is easier and less tedious. I would also suggests it makes a noticeable difference even when going by 5's with rounding off being more likely to "push" players towards a more accurate "5" rating.

I'm also not saying it should be as realistic as possible. I'm saying what we have now should be toned down. Where we are now is in the "third" draft class model, "inflated/ needs to be fun because it's a game, not a job". Before this was OOTP's attempt at a "second" model that was close to reality in rating the draft class. That is where the "not fun" complaints came in. I do understand the "too tedious" complaints and that we all have differing opinions on what that should be. Before both of these we had the "first" model that wasn't too realistic or too inflated. In the effort to improve "model one" towards realism it may have went to far and it became tedious. Then trying to fix "too real/tedious" took it too far the other way to "over inflated".

My hope is getting a healthy discussion going can spur the development team to take a look at draft classes and find a happy middle ground.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by jaa36

For me, this gets to the heart of the question.

If potential is being used as a proxy for Fangraphs-style Future Value, then I'd agree that draft classes have players rated too highly. But... I don't really think that's the way potential is really being used in this game. If I see a player with 80 potential, I don't expect that they will end up being an 80 overall player in the future. I would view that as the 90th percentile (or so) outcome, and that the 50th percentile outcome would be that he ends up as maybe a 55 overall player, and that the 10th percentile outcome would be that he ends up as a 40 overall player.

But I do think that OOTP could do a much better job of defining all of these terms, because they lead to quite a bit of confusion.

Good points. Too me in a simulation like OOTP that rates players on a MLB 20/80 scale, my expectation is OOTP's rating would be trying to mimic reality. I'd also think a new user just coming to OOTP with any type of baseball background (playing of just a fan) would look at the draft class and think the same. Maybe that's wrong? Could be as noted in what I bolded in your post, you and I appear to be looking at them differently.

If it is not the design decision to use these numbers as MLB/Fangraphs etc. use them, then a developer explanation of how they should be looked at in OOTP would be nice to hear. It wouldn't alleviate my desire for reality but I'd at least know what the numbers meant.

[snepp]

I'll add a vote for preferring the "boring way." Or maybe even a happy medium that lands somewhere in-between.

In 25 I often used the "by 1's" setting for overalls that Sweed referenced during the draft itself, then I'd flip it back to 5's when it was over.

Same thing extends to the IAFA. There's nothing exciting about signing a high potential player when everyone gets one anyway. Just close your eyes and throw that dart at something blue.

[CBLCardinals]

Hmmmmm

I wonder if OOTP can incorporate a model Baseball America has moved to that shows 2 ratings for potential. I believe it’s “if every hits” FV rating and a “more likely” type rating?

OR…
What if we as team GM could “weight” certain talents? Like the Royals highly value speed and defense…you could put more weight there and OOTP would generate more of a custom FV based on our preferences??

[ChrisG]

This can be toned down by changing the Player Creation Modifiers just FYI. Works for IAFA too.

[luckymann]

I believe, and sweed I think this is what you're saying as well, that this is more a perception problem than a reality problem.

These guys are coming in with scouted POT way too high on creation, but almost all of them seem to then get crushed back to their appropriate / "fair" ratings and a more realistic distribution range that I imagine is a very pronounced bell curve around 40-45.

Which IMO is a bad look all round, as it gives the impression of a severe lack of development across the board, whereas it should have some players surprising on the upside and some on the downside and the majority ending up where they started. or something like that; I'm no mathematician. Hopefully y'all get my drift.

In fact, players tend to hold their correct levels in the game once they have found them, and then dev and TCR kick in to move them up / down from there. Which is how it should work.

What I think needs to happen is that a more realistic distro curve be put in place from the moment the pool is imported. This can shift around to a certain degree so that draft classes are strong or weak, I guess, but not to the extent we are currently experiencing, which has no logical statistical basis that I can see.

Hopefully that is the middle ground we seek here?

G

[snepp]

Originally Posted by ChrisG

This can be toned down by changing the Player Creation Modifiers just FYI. Works for IAFA too.

Seems like this would just lead to the overall talent level of the league dropping over time, with the relative ratings ending up right back where you started.

What am I missing?