What's more important when drafting a young pitcher?

[Gromit]

We're in our amateur draft, and I'm looking at drafting a starting pitcher. Of the top 5 pitchers listed, which would you choose?

I'm leaning towards McCaw or Cavillo, based on their Avoiding Walks and Strikeouts talent potential. McCaw's drawback would be his duration, but he's only got room to improve there.

Opinions? The quicker the better, too...I'm due up soon.

BTW, all the good fielders are gone. No one has taken a pitcher yet, though.

Thanks for voting!

[GoldenGlove]

For OOTP5, I would select Hernandez. He's durable and good at avoiding hits, homers, and walks. With K's affecting more in OOTP6, I would probably weigh the hits lesser than K's, but for now Hernandez looks like the best starter.

[MisawaTD91]

Hernandez also gets my nod for his GB%, bunting ability, and being relatively developed at a young age. He should spend just a few years in the minors, and with the Good talents in hits/homers/walks, during that time if he experiences talent boosts in any of those categories, you have a real future ace on your hands.

[Ben Music]

McCaw's E duration is a big turn off for me. I'd go with Hernandez as well. He a C for duration and he has very good intangibles, as well as good overall talent.

[andjbock]

I went with Ben Dam. His age may be a problem though. His ratings and talent levels looked the most imprssive to me.

[UD411Flyer]

I'm not impressed with either. Depends on your needs, I definately wouldn't go with McCaw's durability. Also Dam is injury prone. In this case you'd have to go with Hernandez, his GB% an duration will mix quite well.

Greg Ivers is who i'd take.

[Gromit]

Greg Ivers is who i'd take.

I would've too, but as I stated in the original post, all the good fielders are long gone. The best choices for me right now are pitchers.

[theREDdoor28]

Ben Dam just for the name.

[sixfour210]

I find that when drafting players in general, drafting players no younger than 20 is usually the way to go. In my sims, the older players are the ones that receive the talent bumps because of their advanced ratings than the younger folks. Usually, the younger guys would receive too many hits after a while because of the difference between their ratings and talent. I think in OOTP, the best way to go is draft a player whose ratings are closest to his talent. At least in my sims, these are the ones who receive the most frequent talent bumps.

Given this info, I'd go with Ben Dam.

[scotto313]

Originally posted by sixfour210
[B]I I think in OOTP, the best way to go is draft a player whose ratings are closest to his talent. At least in my sims, these are the ones who receive the most frequent talent bumps.

Outstanding point.

[rangerfan]

I personally would go with Badilla. The main thing I look for when drafting pitchers is good duration (B or better), and good ratings for avoiding HR and Walks. The only other thing I look for is a decent groundball %. In playing OOTP I have found that pitchers with a higher duration and the ability to not give up the long ball and avoid walking a lot of batters have the best success. I would take a guy with those abilities over a guy with a good avoid hits and K's ratings.

So in order I would rank them:
1) Badilla
2) Calvillo
3)Hernandez

[KILLERBS24]

In this case I would go with Jesse Badilla. His HR and BB ratings are already good so his runs against rating will go up rather quickly. Being 18 goes both ways, he has alot of time to either increase or decrease in talent. however I think he's the surest thing to develop out of the group. when pitchers have 0's anywhere I'm scared off, especially when they are 0 in hits, they usually have a hard time getting off that 0 and sometimes never do.

[Mel_Ott]

I'd go with Hernandez - his Avg strikeouts are more than balanced out by his Good ratings elsewhere, and he's 2 years younger than the identically-talented Dam.

Unless you need help right away; if Dam pans out, he should be ready in a season or two, while Hernandez might not be ready for three or four.

[kq76]

-no on Dam b/c of prone
-eh on Hernandez b/c lefty
-no on McCaw b/c of HR talent and rating
-only major diff b/w Badilla and Cavillo is age and I'd rather take a young guy who is just as good ratings wise as an older guy, even tho Calvillo has better #s against righties

.. so Badilla for me.

Though I've heard it from a number of people, I don't necessarily agree with going with a player whose ratings are closest to their talents. If the player with lower ratings has higher talents, I'll probably take that guy. Unless the other player's ratings are already at the point where he could help me for sure, but that generally only happens in historical league drafts.

[Killebrew]

My 2 cents better late than never (hey these evaluations are fun):
I like McCaw best as well, especially if the league has rule modifiers for loyal players! Dam is prone so he is out, Hernandez looks great but is a lefty with a real bad split right now. In some leagues lefties do much better than in others, so that is a consideration as well. Badilla is too young although his endurance is nice, but his low talents are not good enough to risk choosing him. Calvillo is the guy if you club needs SP help in a hurry - he might be MLB ready in a year. He has bad splits too but RHP seem to be able to get away with these.

Edit after reading the other replies: Low SP endurance does not bother me since I tend to have a solid pen that gets many decisions. That said, high endurance is still an important factor to me and probably more so to others, but the poll fave Badilla is still a risky pick due to his youth. IMO OOTP mirrors real life here in that HS draftees are more of a crapshoot. 18 year olds will rarely advance out of A ball for another 2-3 years so if you have big ammy drafts you have to consider the A level logjam effect. Also an 18 year old with good ratings seems like more of a dev risk since he has more talent to lose for several more seasons of dev changes. I try to focus on 18-19 year olds in round 3 plus as having more dev time is a bonus for lower talent players.

[kq76]

Originally posted by Killebrew
... but the poll fave Badilla is still a risky pick due to his youth. IMO OOTP mirrors real life here in that HS draftees are more of a crapshoot. 18 year olds will rarely advance out of A ball for another 2-3 years so if you have big ammy drafts you have to consider the A level logjam effect. Also an 18 year old with good ratings seems like more of a dev risk since he has more talent to lose for several more seasons of dev changes. I try to focus on 18-19 year olds in round 3 plus as having more dev time is a bonus for lower talent players.

But don't young players have the same chance of talent bumps as talent hits? Or are hits/bumps that go to the average more frequent (and so above average talents are more likely to fall than rise and vice versa)? If so, I should change my strategy. I guess it all depends on how the game is programmed, but without knowing how it is programmed I go with what I think would likely happen irl. And if an 18 y-o has the same potential and current ability, then I would think I would likely get more years out of the younger player.

[Killebrew]

Originally posted by kq76
But don't young players have the same chance of talent bumps as talent hits? Or are hits/bumps that go to the average more frequent (and so above average talents are more likely to fall than rise and vice versa)? If so, I should change my strategy. I guess it all depends on how the game is programmed, but without knowing how it is programmed I go with what I think would likely happen irl. And if an 18 y-o has the same potential and current ability, then I would think I would likely get more years out of the younger player.

Yes - I think young players have the same chance of talent bumps as talent hits, but due to his youth he will have far more chances for bumps and hits than a 22 year old. That means if you have an 18 year old you have to consider him more volatile (borrowing a great concept from FOF), and if he has great talents already I'd much rather have him go through the big dev years (<25 yrs old) as quickly as possible in order to retain his high talents. That is why I believe the very young picks are the most risky, and kudo's to OOTP for portraying this aspect of player development realisticly.

Note, I probably did not stress it enough, but unlike the 1st & 2nd round picks I want my 3rd and 4th (etc) rounders to be volatile - they have nothing much to lose since they are usualy avg/fair in talents so I consider very young players a big plus in those rounds.

[kq76]

Ah, I guess you're just more averse to risk than myself then. I try to also look at it that my guy could get better instead of focusing on avoiding the negative.

Shouldn't a 18 and a 25 year old who are pretty much equal in every way have generally different development patterns though? I mean, you mention big dev years, which I won't dispute, because I'm really not sure, but wouldn't the younger equal player obviously be blooming faster? I would think that the younger player's future development would likely progress faster. By the sounds of it though, OOTP doesn't do this. Should it? Of course this shouldn't happen every time, but I think it would more than not.

The thing that turns me off a bit from young players is just that they could take so long to develop that it might be 4 or 5 seasons before I see him in the bigs, which could be a year or more in real time.

I definitely think your focusing on young players in later rounds is a great tactic.

[Gromit]

Well, I went with the poll favorite and took Sergio Hernandez in the first round.

I appreciate all the fantastic imput you guys have provided, and I'll keep you periodically updated on Sergio's progress.

I've learned a significant amount in this thread. Thanks!!!

[ctorg]

Since I don't know exactly how things will work with OOTP6, I'd pick Hernandez. I see that's your choice. I think it's a wise one.