Poor talent in recent Draft Years

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by RchW

Bottom line no matter what the TCR setting, a given setting for aging and player development should provide similar populations of players by age.

I could be wrong.

Pretty sure you're right Of course I could be wrong

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by JMDurron

Ok, my sample size is only one fresh class in OOTP 14, but I don't use scouting when I'm checking out the draft class. The draft class generated by OOTP 14 featured significantly worse, as defined by in-editor potential ratings, talent compared to any class I've seen in OOTP 13. The difference IS in the players, and I had thought that lukasberger had admitted as much earlier in the thread. The difference was much more significant with the positional players than with the pitchers, for what that's worth.

This is correct. I think scouting makes things look even more extreme than they are, but the underlying player ratings are really what's changed.

That being said, as I've been saying throughout the thread, they only dropped to what should be viewed as a more normal and realistic level. There are still plenty of guys who can become MLB players in the lower rounds.

But the ratings are lower, no question.

[JMDurron]

Originally Posted by lukasberger

This is correct. I think scouting makes things look even more extreme than they are, but the underlying player ratings are really what's changed.

That being said, as I've been saying throughout the thread, they only dropped to what should be viewed as a more normal and realistic level. There are still plenty of guys who can become MLB players in the lower rounds.

But the ratings are lower, no question.

I just had my first international amateur FA signing period start, and I'm seeing the same kind of pattern in this pool, where the position players top out at "potential solid contributor", with a ton of dreck, while the pitching talent looks fairly impressive. Is there a reason that I'm seeing the ratings impacts primarily with the position players?

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by JMDurron

I just had my first international amateur FA signing period start, and I'm seeing the same kind of pattern in this pool, where the position players top out at "potential solid contributor", with a ton of dreck, while the pitching talent looks fairly impressive. Is there a reason that I'm seeing the ratings impacts primarily with the position players?

I would think so. But if so I haven't seen anything about it.

My personal opinion irrespective of these changes is that the hitters were previously more overrated than the pitchers (SP's at least. RP's were always quite overrated) so it makes sense that they got downgraded more. But I've never seen anything that would confirm that this is actually the case.

I'm curious though, what kind of ratings do the players that you refer to as "dreck" have and what rounds are they going in?

[JMDurron]

Originally Posted by lukasberger

I would think so. But if so I haven't seen anything about it.

My personal opinion irrespective of these changes is that the hitters were previously more overrated than the pitchers (SP's at least. RP's were always quite overrated) so it makes sense that they got downgraded more. But I've never seen anything that would confirm that this is actually the case.

I'm curious though, what kind of ratings do the players that you refer to as "dreck" have and what rounds are they going in?

So, my division amongst prospects is pretty binary, especially for position players. Players with potential contact ratings over 100 are the main dividing line. A guy with a 98 overall potential contact rating with a really high Avoid K and/or Power rating can be an exception, but in general, a below-average contact rating is a worthless player to me.

In my international pool, 3 out of 18 position players broke this threshold. I've drafted and wiped out my spreadsheet since then, but I recall roughly 25 position players in the entire draft that met this threshold, only 4 of whom were 2B-SS-3B capable.

By the middle of the 2nd round, there were no more 100+ contact rating players available, but some high power/high avoid K guys were still being taken. So, while I would not be terribly interested in them, I wouldn't quite call them "dreck".

By defining "dreck" more starkly as a player with no more than a 100 editor rating in any offensive category, they end up appearing by the end of the 3rd round. Lots of one-tool players (among the 6 offensive ratings) starting in the mid-2nd round through the 4th round. The dreck starts to dominate from the 5th round onward.

[Klew1986]

This whole draft issue is starting to really kill ootp for me. I am doing a fictional game and the draft classes are horrid. I have all PCMs at 1.000 and no scouts being used. I get maybe 1 or 2 highly rated prospects and the rest are crap.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by JMDurron

So, my division amongst prospects is pretty binary, especially for position players. Players with potential contact ratings over 100 are the main dividing line. A guy with a 98 overall potential contact rating with a really high Avoid K and/or Power rating can be an exception, but in general, a below-average contact rating is a worthless player to me.

In my international pool, 3 out of 18 position players broke this threshold. I've drafted and wiped out my spreadsheet since then, but I recall roughly 25 position players in the entire draft that met this threshold, only 4 of whom were 2B-SS-3B capable.

By the middle of the 2nd round, there were no more 100+ contact rating players available, but some high power/high avoid K guys were still being taken. So, while I would not be terribly interested in them, I wouldn't quite call them "dreck".

By defining "dreck" more starkly as a player with no more than a 100 editor rating in any offensive category, they end up appearing by the end of the 3rd round. Lots of one-tool players (among the 6 offensive ratings) starting in the mid-2nd round through the 4th round. The dreck starts to dominate from the 5th round onward.

Hm. Yeah. I've run a couple more test drafts and I'm seeing the same thing. A little less extreme since I generate quite a few more prospects per draft than there are rounds.

But that's not really a good cutoff point in some ways. 100 contact should be your measuring point for a potential MLB player and MLB players can certainly have lower contact numbers if they have other skills to make up for it.

So as discussed before, should you really be getting a guy in the 5th round that you expect to be a solid MLB player at draft time?

That being said, I don't know that the new ratings fit in with the MLB roster set ratings very well. I know I'd never rate 5-10th round type draft prospects, or milb players that were drafted in that range, for the MLB roster set as low as those type of guys are getting rated here. Of course we may just have been overrating those kind of guys.

One thing I've always done, and still do, is to create something like 50 rounds of prospects for a 30 round draft. Which to me simulates the fact that there's a lot more players that teams consider as being potentially draftable than actually get drafted, for one reason or another.

And doing that keeps the ratings a bit higher for those 5th-15th round type guys.

[JMDurron]

Originally Posted by lukasberger

Hm. Yeah. I've run a couple more test drafts and I'm seeing the same thing. A little less extreme since I generate quite a few more prospects per draft than there are rounds.

But that's not really a good cutoff point in some ways. 100 contact should be your measuring point for a potential solid MLB player and solid MLB players can certainly have lower contact numbers if they have other skills to make up for it.

So as discussed before, should you really be getting a guy in the 5th round that you expect to be a solid MLB player at draft time?

That being said, I don't know that the new ratings fit in with the MLB roster set ratings very well. I know I'd never rate 5-10th round type draft prospects for the MLB roster set as low as those type of guys are getting rated here. Of course we may just have been overrating those kind of guys.

One thing I've always done, and still do, is to create something like 50 rounds of prospects for a 30 round draft. Which to me simulates the fact that there's a lot more players that teams consider as being potentially draftable than actually get drafted, for one reason or another.

The other factor here that I can't fully account for is how often players should be expected to get talent bumps in the minors. If enough of these 5th+ round dreck players surprisingly develop into useful depth, then it may not actually be a long-term problem. I'm not tracking every prospect to the point of figuring that one out, though, I'm focused on playing my leagues instead of researching.

[endgame]

Originally Posted by JMDurron

The other factor here that I can't fully account for is how often players should be expected to get talent bumps in the minors. If enough of these 5th+ round dreck players surprisingly develop into useful depth, then it may not actually be a long-term problem. I'm not tracking every prospect to the point of figuring that one out, though, I'm focused on playing my leagues instead of researching.

Not to sound argumentative, but researching is, in part, at least one element of an immersive league for some, including myself. I'm early in my league in v14, but 2-3 more years into it- should I make it that far before v15 -I'll be inclined to look at histories of top 100 players/prospects and taking note of their initial draft rounds, leading me toward specific strategies beyond 'what are they rated'? I get your point, I do, but guess we all view playing leagues a bit differently as well. Scouts or even the lack of them, demands a certain amount of investigation/evaluation in order to make decisions, I think. And I've read your posts. You do more than a fair share of gathering good information through analysis that benefits us all.

[JMDurron]

Originally Posted by endgame

Not to sound argumentative, but researching is, in part, at least one element of an immersive league for some, including myself. I'm early in my league in v14, but 2-3 more years into it- should I make it that far before v15 -I'll be inclined to look at histories of top 100 players/prospects and taking note of their initial draft rounds, leading me toward specific strategies beyond 'what are they rated'? I get your point, I do, but guess we all view playing leagues a bit differently as well. Scouts or even the lack of them, demands a certain amount of investigation/evaluation in order to make decisions, I think. And I've read your posts. You do more than a fair share of gathering good information through analysis that benefits us all.

Appreciate the kind words, and obviously I didn't mean to imply that researching is just a chore. But, since I'm playing out every individual MLB game for my team, tracking every prospect with MLB potential, scouting every draft pick (then only keeping those I draft afterwards), scouting every international amateur FA (again, only keeping those I draft), and doing deep-dives on the waiver wire for trade candidates every 2-3 game days, it just takes me too long to get through a season to provide good, multi-season data. I'm happy enough to take a quick look at what I already have completed, which consists of 1/2 of one season in my OOTP 14 conversion of my MLB Quickstart league, I'm just not putting the league itself aside to simulate enough seasons/track enough prospects I otherwise don't care about to the point where I can provide better data. That is what I was trying to convey.

The talent bump for otherwise useless prospects is where this concept particularly applies, as I'd basically have to keep tabs on EVERY scrub prospect that I otherwise would not have bothered putting into my uber-OOTP spreadsheet just to see if/how many of them get bumped into usefulness. That would suck up hours upon hours of gameplay that I'm just not quite willing to sacrifice towards that specific aspect of this particular area of concern.

[endgame]

Originally Posted by JMDurron

The talent bump for otherwise useless prospects is where this concept particularly applies, as I'd basically have to keep tabs on EVERY scrub prospect that I otherwise would not have bothered putting into my uber-OOTP spreadsheet just to see if/how many of them get bumped into usefulness. That would suck up hours upon hours of gameplay that I'm just not quite willing to sacrifice towards that specific aspect of this particular area of concern.

Agree here, as well with the idea that work involved is too tedious to be certain of any cause and effect without it. For instance, I've always set the Talent Randomness to 175 in my leagues, so even if I were to have a 6th round draft pick become a major league all-star, looking at his development record, provided there was a bump in ratings, whether it occurred as a result of the Talent setting or one that may have occurred in natural progression could be debated without identical league comparison data.

[VanillaGorilla]

This is all very interesting. Again, a big thanks to Fyrestorm3 for his data gathering and posting.

One thing I am having a bit of trouble wrapping my head around is the fact that Marcus indicated (in the Road to Releases and in forum posts) that the scouting was 'completely revamped'. However, I recall no mention of player development being similarly restructured. Yet, the discussion here (legitimately) has led away from new scouting being the cause of any change in the game. Instead, we are discussing player development as being the underlying difference.

Am I missing something, here?

[Righty Groove]

I also don't recall any mention of this happening at all, before I directly contacted him and got that quote above.

Maybe someone who participates on the Beta team can share some more info.

[SirMichaelJordan]

Here's a link with some data on TCR FWIW

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...ml#post3331547

[JMDurron]

Originally Posted by VanillaGorilla

This is all very interesting. Again, a big thanks to Fyrestorm3 for his data gathering and posting.

One thing I am having a bit of trouble wrapping my head around is the fact that Marcus indicated (in the Road to Releases and in forum posts) that the scouting was 'completely revamped'. However, I recall no mention of player development being similarly restructured. Yet, the discussion here (legitimately) has led away from new scouting being the cause of any change in the game. Instead, we are discussing player development as being the underlying difference.

Am I missing something, here?

Yeah, my takeaway from playing so far is that more or less nothing has changed whatsoever with the mechanics of scouting, aside from the International Scouting being divided into the International Amateur FA section (which is awesome, IMO) and a defined number of International Scouting Finds per team, which is basically the old system with a user-defined number of finds. Nothing else with scouting appears to be changed.

Player development, particularly at the creation of the Draft/International Amateur FA pools, has clearly been significantly changed.

[MizzouRah]

Well I'm glad I'm not the only one who just had my first ootp 14 draft and was wondering why there was so little talent - or at least talent with respect to ratings.

So this is intended, correct?

I was actually happy to see the AI take all the blue rated and green rated players, which left me trying to figure out which yellow rated player we should take at #27.

I only draft the first few rounds and then let the CPU finish, but it's definitely much different in ootp 14 than any other version.

[SunDevil]

I would like to hear either Markus or people who access the beta forums chime in with an update or explanation. Thank you.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by SunDevil

I would like to hear... people who access the beta forums chime in with an update or explanation. Thank you.

I'm not sure what else myself or another of the beta members could add.

What kind of update/additional explanation are you looking for?

[endgame]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

I only draft the first few rounds and then let the CPU finish, but it's definitely much different in ootp 14 than any other version.

FWIW, focusing on some of the thoughts I and others mentioned previously in the thread, I actually went pretty deep into the draft before I delegated the picks out. I think I made it to about the 15th round or so, looking pretty carefully at the recommendations first and then using it to key on specific qualities in the balance of the candidates. Truth be told, in past versions, it was unlikely I'd go that deep picking on my own.

[beorn]

I set up a test league to check this out.

I created a fictional league using default settings but scouting off, and ran a draft with the AI controlling all teams. Here's what I get:
(All numbers are numbers from the player editor, so they are out of 240.)

Pick 1 round 1: SP with 158-168-138 potential
Pick 4 round 1 (top hitter taken): 107-177-105
Pick 5 round 1: SP with 113-168-143
Pick 6 round 1: C with 98-152-105
midway pick (8) round 1: CF with 93-104-109, but 161 range
midway pick (9) round 1: SP 116-126-118
Pick 1 round 2: LF 99-143-70 potential
Pick 1 round 3: SP 108-109-99 potential
Pick 1 round 4: SP 118-3-153 potential
Pick 1 round 5: CF 79-35-63 potential, but 155 range, 160 speed

The most remarkable thing, to my eyes, is the lack of batting potential other than power. The top hitting prospect barely tops the "100 minimum" barrier in overall contact and batting eye, and the other two hitters taken in the top half of round 1 actually have contact potential less than 100.

However, pitching talent does not look so terribly out of whack with what we have seen in the past.

So the next obvious question is whether this low level of hitting talent produces the kinds of stats seen the past season or two in major league baseball -- which is clearly Markus's goal.

So I ran the test league. Turned off evolution of league. Turned off foreign ammies and foreign FAs. Simmed 25 years so that all the players in the bigs are generated by draft.

Results:
League batting average is around .255, league ERA 3.90. Six starting pitchers have season ERA under 3. Two hitters over .340. Four hitters over 40 HR.

Of the top 10 hitters (according to the game engine), 8 were high number one draft picks, with a round nine and a round three as well. Top 10 pitchers almost exactly the same distribution.

It's a small sample, but it fits with what I have been seeing. These draft classes work as designed, although that design is to produce the more pitching dominated game of the past couple years. And it works without any great intervention of obscure draft picks skyrocketing to the top, and without the intervention of foreign ammies.