The draft and OSA scouting

Spracks · 04-22-2013, 10:34 AM

In my first season with OOTP14 and am in the middle of my first draft with the new game. I have some serious issues with how the game is handling the scouting of prospects. I am playing as the Mariners and have the 11th overall pick. I sort the prospects by potential ranking and get a feel for the top talent available. I change from my scout to OSA scouting to get a second opinion, but the list of top prospects according to OSA is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. There is only one common name between the two lists of top talent available. This is not how it works in real life. In the real MLB draft, the first round picks are pretty much known before the draft takes place. Different scouts will have a slightly different order, but for the most part, a list of 1st round prospects from scout to scout will contain many of the same names, especially for the top 15 picks. How is it possible that the two forms of scouting in OOTP completely disagree on the top prospects?

This produces a few problems that I hate. From experience, I know that the players that are highly ranked by the OSA are more likely to develop into Major League players. So am I supposed to completely abandon my own scout and only take into account the OSA? Or should I listen to my head scout and know that the player I pick, while rated extremely high by my own scout, is likely to fail because he is a 1-star POT according to the OSA?

Also, my "scouting director recommendation" tells me to take some 2-star potential guy who isn't even listed in the top 50 by my own scout, or the OSA. What?

To answer all the questions that are coming: My scouting settings are all default and my scout is rated Excellent or above on everything.

Does anyone else have this problem, or advice on how to select my draft picks?

conception · 04-22-2013, 02:49 PM

OSA is NOT the best chance to get accurate assessments. It is there for a second opinion, and usually when I draft a player I pick the one who gets favorable reviews from both scouting systems as well as has good numbers.

In the end, its just like in real life that there are going to be guys that your scout is overly optimistic about. You have to be the one who decides how much you want to believe. In the end, I follow a general rule that any player I draft, I must be prepared for him to drop 10-20 points on a 100 scale. So if a guy is rated a 100 power, he may end up with 80, which is still pretty solid.

JMDurron · 04-22-2013, 03:37 PM

I'm going to mix sports here, but hopefully this helps.

OSA should be considered to be the equivalent of a Mel Kiper, Jr. about the NFL Draft, as opposed to a team's scouting department - widely known, and pretty much always wrong.

Aumakua · 04-22-2013, 06:32 PM

I am also interested on why the scouting director recommends guys that he has rated below many others. I get position need, but it seems to go beyond that. There should be some point where they take potential over position need... Like if there is a 4 star talent on the board and he recommends a guy he scouted as 2 star, that should never happen.

olivertheorem · 04-22-2013, 08:38 PM

That confuses me as well. I think it has to do with some combination of scouted current and overall ratings, in addition to signability and bonus demands, but that's just a guess.

Ts-Rock · 04-23-2013, 02:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JMDurron

OSA should be considered to be the equivalent of a Mel Kiper, Jr. about the NFL Draft, as opposed to a team's scouting department - widely known, and pretty much always wrong.

this is an awesome response!

Bobble · 04-23-2013, 09:24 AM

Yeah, this needs some work for OOTP15. The Mel Kiper comment is right on.

I also feel like the ratings are too "swingy". Too many 80/80 and too many 20/20. It should use the middle of the range more. I think that would also help with rating the draft.

Spracks · 04-23-2013, 09:50 AM

I'm not trying to be difficult, but I don't think the Mel Kiper comparison works all that well in this case. Let's take, for example, Kiper's projected top QBs for this year's draft, Geno Smith and Matt Barkley. Those two are pretty unanimously the top two QBs available, and there won't be a whole lot of disagreement between Kiper and other scouts about those two players. It's much harder to predict exactly when they will be drafted, but you can bet good money those two guys will be the first two QBs taken.

Now, contrast that with how the OOTP draft is working. My scout says that players X, Y, and Z are the top pitchers available, while the OSA thinks that players A, B, and C are the top pitchers. You just don't see that kind of disagreement in prospect evaluation in real life. Of course, things get a lot murkier in the later rounds, but the top talent is usually fairly well known and agreed upon. There should be a high level of correlation between the highest potential ratings generated by my scout and the ratings generated by the OSA, not two completely different lists of players.

Riverdome · 04-23-2013, 11:58 AM

Position need is a tough detail to consider. If you have a 25 year old Derek Jeter on your roster should you ever be suggested to take a SS? He's young and he's at the top of his game so why draft a 18 year old SS who, IF he develops, has no place to play?

I guess in my opinion the scouting director should not take organizational position depth into account. Too many variables such as my intentions to resign a player or potential trades I may have in mind. Tell me who the best is and I'll pick him if it makes sense. Maybe a "Pass but who's 2nd on your list" button would be nice. A way to help the user make picks quickly but also avoid taking that stud SS with no place to play.

Cras · 04-23-2013, 12:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riverdome

Position need is a tough detail to consider. If you have a 25 year old Derek Jeter on your roster should you ever be suggested to take a SS? He's young and he's at the top of his game so why draft a 18 year old SS who, IF he develops, has no place to play?

I guess in my opinion the scouting director should not take organizational position depth into account. Too many variables such as my intentions to resign a player or potential trades I may have in mind. Tell me who the best is and I'll pick him if it makes sense. Maybe a "Pass but who's 2nd on your list" button would be nice. A way to help the user make picks quickly but also avoid taking that stud SS with no place to play.

I often do not care about position need when I draft. I almost never give it a thought. I am looking for guys who I think will make the major leagues, if not for me, then for someone else. I may have a superstar SS, but if I see a SS prospect who seems to be destined to make the major leagues, I will not pass him up because he has no place to play for me. I will draft him, and I will most likely then trade him in a couple years. Or more likely, I will have him develop, and if he is as good as I hope he is, I will trade away the veteran superstar SS and let my young SS prospect take over.

Drafting based on position need, hasn't worked for me too well in the past.

Buchs · 04-23-2013, 12:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bobble

Yeah, this needs some work for OOTP15. The Mel Kiper comment is right on.

I also feel like the ratings are too "swingy". Too many 80/80 and too many 20/20. It should use the middle of the range more. I think that would also help with rating the draft.

I agree. Maybe thier overall and potential should be shown in relation to the draft class rather than to the parent league talent, or at least have that as an optional view.

There are a lot of cool ways the draft could be improved. We could get pre-draft reports form the scouting director (based on position, draft class overview, potential sleepers for late rounds). There could be a draft board screen, that you can start building before the draft.

JMDurron · 04-23-2013, 01:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spracks

I'm not trying to be difficult, but I don't think the Mel Kiper comparison works all that well in this case. Let's take, for example, Kiper's projected top QBs for this year's draft, Geno Smith and Matt Barkley. Those two are pretty unanimously the top two QBs available, and there won't be a whole lot of disagreement between Kiper and other scouts about those two players. It's much harder to predict exactly when they will be drafted, but you can bet good money those two guys will be the first two QBs taken.

Now, contrast that with how the OOTP draft is working. My scout says that players X, Y, and Z are the top pitchers available, while the OSA thinks that players A, B, and C are the top pitchers. You just don't see that kind of disagreement in prospect evaluation in real life. Of course, things get a lot murkier in the later rounds, but the top talent is usually fairly well known and agreed upon. There should be a high level of correlation between the highest potential ratings generated by my scout and the ratings generated by the OSA, not two completely different lists of players.

The difference between the NFL Draft and OOTP is that we see both the OSA ratings and our Scout's ratings, whereas we only see/hear Mel Kiper's predictions and have no insight into the NFL Teams' evaluations, beyond whatever self-serving quotes are made after the fact for public consumption.

OSA and Scouts having different opinions is not a bug, it's a feature. Mel Kiper is almost always wrong with what a particular team does on draft day, because he doesn't evaluate players the same way that they do, and he doesn't have the same insight into a team's perceived needs and schemes that the teams do. If he were that good, he'd be working for a team, not ESPN (and whatever hair product company pays for that thing on his head).

I've always looked at OSA as the equivalent of "This is what MLB Network thinks about a player." It represents what the non-professional, outside of team offices guys think. They should be fairly close to right most of the time about established MLB vets, but the difference between actual ability, OSA ratings, and Scout ratings should absolutely be at its highest during the draft.

Spracks · 04-23-2013, 03:44 PM

I understand 100% what you are trying to say, and I agree with you in some ways. But, to say that sports analysts and actual team scouts have radically different views on top end prosepct potential is simply not true. Consider last year's MLB Draft. EVERYONE had Correa, Buxton, Zunino, Gausman, and Appel in the top 10, and many had them as the top 5. You could ask anyone for their top 10, and it would include those 5 names. Sure enough, draft day comes, and while Correa is a surprise number 1 in many people's eyes, and Appel slips a few spots, they are all drafted in the top 10.

There was not a single person in the world who had first round picks such as Tyler Naquin, Ty Hensley, DJ Davis, or Lucas Sims in their top 5 prospects list. Those guys are elite prospects, 1st round picks, and yet no respectable analyst had them in the top 5, and likely even the top 10. I didn't hear the MLB Network trying to tell me that Ty Hensley was going to be taken first overall. While you might not know exactly when they will be picked, you generally know which players will be selected in the top 5-10.

So, again, comparing that to OOTP. I start the draft and look at my scouts ratings. I switch to OSA ratings, and it spits out a completely different list that has only TWO of the same players that my scout has. Whether you want to admit it or not, that is not realistic and not the way it should work.

I'm sure that my tone is coming across as overly critical, but in reality this is not a huge deal. I've been playing OOTP since 2008, so there is obviously a reason I keep coming back. However, I really think the developers should take a look at the role of the OSA in the game and refine the logic that drives that model.

conception · 04-23-2013, 09:30 PM

The problem with the line of thinking in this thread is that even if there is a consensus between the real scouts and the internet ones, a lot of times they are both wrong about the guy's chance of becoming a successful major leaguer. If OOTP set it up so there was a big consensus between your scout and ODA in the draft, chances are that you would probably find it much too easy to find the best players.

The draft is a crapshoot in real life and unless you are drafting really high (where I've never had a problem making a good pick), it is still a crapshoot.

Bobble · 04-24-2013, 11:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by conception

If OOTP set it up so there was a big consensus between your scout and ODA in the draft, chances are that you would probably find it much too easy to find the best players.

Why? Certainly OOTP could be set up just like real life where my scout and OSA ARE both wrong about as often as real life.

Wrigleyviller · 04-25-2013, 01:54 PM

I'd like to second the OP on this topic. In fact, I was going to start a very similar thread before I found this one. I just had my first draft and all of these problems stood out.

1) My scout's assessments are incredibly, impossibly far apart from OSA.

2) In real life, there's more-or-less a consensus about top talent (with a few exceptions here and there).

3) In my draft, OSA had a reasonable number of starters ranked as 5, 4, 3, and 2 star prospects. My scout had one starter ranked as a 4 star prospect, and every single other starter was ranked as 1 star. My scout literally could not find a single starting prospect worth selecting in the first half of the draft except one.

4) As with the OP's draft, my scouting director's first round recommendation - for the number 2 overall pick - was a 1.5 star prospect whose scouting report suggested would likely never make it to the majors. What? Even my scout who could only find one good pitcher had plenty of hitters ranked highly.

I also think the negotiations with draft picks don't work quite as well as intended - for example extremely hard signability guys just stop talking to you almost immediately, rather than allow for counter offers. It's incredibly jarring and unexpected. I'd much rather they negotiated like free agents, with negotiating moods. (And difficult to sign guys would perhaps start with a mediocre mood).

That said - don't get me wrong. This is far and away the best version of OOTP I've played yet. I'm loving it. But I'm managing a terrible team that needs to rebuild through the draft and I have no clue whatsoever how my draft just went because of the above problems. I also had my #2 overall draft pick break off negotiations almost instantly and without warning, which is partially because he was an Extremely Hard sign but also because the negotiation system isn't very robust for draft picks.

Matt Arnold · 04-25-2013, 02:38 PM

I don't mind the draft negotiations - they tell you upfront if they will stop talking to you. I basically give in to everyone, maybe negotiate down with a few guys.

I find the scout recommendation is usually good for my first round pick. When there's an obvious 3-4 guys at the top of my scout list, he'll pick one of them and that's usually reasonable. But after that, I definitely get annoyed when he recommends a 1.5 star SP when there's a 4 star hitter in his list.

What I would like to see would be an easy way to see my scout ratings and the OSA ratings side by side. What was really nice back in the old EHM days was that all the players had their draft rankings. So in general players went approximately in order, but often players would jump around. So that was a great way of seeing if my scout ranks a guy 4*, but OSA has him as like a 5th round pick, maybe I hold off until next round. As it is now, it's really hard to go back and forth, remember player rankings in each, and so on.

PSUColonel · 04-25-2013, 02:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bobble

Yeah, this needs some work for OOTP15. The Mel Kiper comment is right on.

I also feel like the ratings are too "swingy". Too many 80/80 and too many 20/20. It should use the middle of the range more. I think that would also help with rating the draft.

It was supposed to get much work in this version.

cblacker · 04-25-2013, 10:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spracks

I'm not trying to be difficult, but I don't think the Mel Kiper comparison works all that well in this case. Let's take, for example, Kiper's projected top QBs for this year's draft, Geno Smith and Matt Barkley. Those two are pretty unanimously the top two QBs available, and there won't be a whole lot of disagreement between Kiper and other scouts about those two players. It's much harder to predict exactly when they will be drafted, but you can bet good money those two guys will be the first two QBs taken.

I'll take that bet!

Gern44 · 04-30-2013, 10:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spracks

I'm not trying to be difficult, but I don't think the Mel Kiper comparison works all that well in this case. Let's take, for example, Kiper's projected top QBs for this year's draft, Geno Smith and Matt Barkley. Those two are pretty unanimously the top two QBs available, and there won't be a whole lot of disagreement between Kiper and other scouts about those two players. It's much harder to predict exactly when they will be drafted, but you can bet good money those two guys will be the first two QBs taken.

Now, contrast that with how the OOTP draft is working. My scout says that players X, Y, and Z are the top pitchers available, while the OSA thinks that players A, B, and C are the top pitchers. You just don't see that kind of disagreement in prospect evaluation in real life. Of course, things get a lot murkier in the later rounds, but the top talent is usually fairly well known and agreed upon. There should be a high level of correlation between the highest potential ratings generated by my scout and the ratings generated by the OSA, not two completely different lists of players.

Given where Geno and Barkley were actually Drafted, I'd say that this year's NFL Draft worked to prove that the OSA is Exactly Mel Kiper.

Clearly there was a huge disparity between the evaluations of Kiper and 'real' NFL scouts. I'm not saying who was right or wrong... just pointing out the disparity.

Kiper had Geno as what... top 10 pick? And Barkley goes in the 4th round? If one assumes that the actual draft position represents the players actual value, then Kiper was pretty far off base. Kiper had a grand total of 0 picks correct in the first round.

In the end, you have to make your own decisions. I initially really liked the Kiper/OSA comparision... but I began to question it as people had some good points against it. Then the NFL draft happened... and now the OSA will always be Mel Kiper in my mind. Hair and all.

04-22-2013, 10:34 AM	#1
Spracks Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: May 2009 Posts: 33	The draft and OSA scouting In my first season with OOTP14 and am in the middle of my first draft with the new game. I have some serious issues with how the game is handling the scouting of prospects. I am playing as the Mariners and have the 11th overall pick. I sort the prospects by potential ranking and get a feel for the top talent available. I change from my scout to OSA scouting to get a second opinion, but the list of top prospects according to OSA is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. There is only one common name between the two lists of top talent available. This is not how it works in real life. In the real MLB draft, the first round picks are pretty much known before the draft takes place. Different scouts will have a slightly different order, but for the most part, a list of 1st round prospects from scout to scout will contain many of the same names, especially for the top 15 picks. How is it possible that the two forms of scouting in OOTP completely disagree on the top prospects? This produces a few problems that I hate. From experience, I know that the players that are highly ranked by the OSA are more likely to develop into Major League players. So am I supposed to completely abandon my own scout and only take into account the OSA? Or should I listen to my head scout and know that the player I pick, while rated extremely high by my own scout, is likely to fail because he is a 1-star POT according to the OSA? Also, my "scouting director recommendation" tells me to take some 2-star potential guy who isn't even listed in the top 50 by my own scout, or the OSA. What? To answer all the questions that are coming: My scouting settings are all default and my scout is rated Excellent or above on everything. Does anyone else have this problem, or advice on how to select my draft picks?

04-23-2013, 09:24 AM	#7
Bobble Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: High and outside Posts: 3,814	Yeah, this needs some work for OOTP15. The Mel Kiper comment is right on. I also feel like the ratings are too "swingy". Too many 80/80 and too many 20/20. It should use the middle of the range more. I think that would also help with rating the draft. __________________

04-23-2013, 11:58 AM	#9
Riverdome All Star Reserve Join Date: May 2002 Location: Ohio Posts: 963	Position need is a tough detail to consider. If you have a 25 year old Derek Jeter on your roster should you ever be suggested to take a SS? He's young and he's at the top of his game so why draft a 18 year old SS who, IF he develops, has no place to play? I guess in my opinion the scouting director should not take organizational position depth into account. Too many variables such as my intentions to resign a player or potential trades I may have in mind. Tell me who the best is and I'll pick him if it makes sense. Maybe a "Pass but who's 2nd on your list" button would be nice. A way to help the user make picks quickly but also avoid taking that stud SS with no place to play. __________________ I was at the first OOTP Conference, where were you?..........

04-23-2013, 03:44 PM	#13
Spracks Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: May 2009 Posts: 33	I understand 100% what you are trying to say, and I agree with you in some ways. But, to say that sports analysts and actual team scouts have radically different views on top end prosepct potential is simply not true. Consider last year's MLB Draft. EVERYONE had Correa, Buxton, Zunino, Gausman, and Appel in the top 10, and many had them as the top 5. You could ask anyone for their top 10, and it would include those 5 names. Sure enough, draft day comes, and while Correa is a surprise number 1 in many people's eyes, and Appel slips a few spots, they are all drafted in the top 10. There was not a single person in the world who had first round picks such as Tyler Naquin, Ty Hensley, DJ Davis, or Lucas Sims in their top 5 prospects list. Those guys are elite prospects, 1st round picks, and yet no respectable analyst had them in the top 5, and likely even the top 10. I didn't hear the MLB Network trying to tell me that Ty Hensley was going to be taken first overall. While you might not know exactly when they will be picked, you generally know which players will be selected in the top 5-10. So, again, comparing that to OOTP. I start the draft and look at my scouts ratings. I switch to OSA ratings, and it spits out a completely different list that has only TWO of the same players that my scout has. Whether you want to admit it or not, that is not realistic and not the way it should work. I'm sure that my tone is coming across as overly critical, but in reality this is not a huge deal. I've been playing OOTP since 2008, so there is obviously a reason I keep coming back. However, I really think the developers should take a look at the role of the OSA in the game and refine the logic that drives that model. Last edited by Spracks; 04-23-2013 at 03:56 PM.

04-22-2013, 02:49 PM	#2
conception All Star Starter Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 1,149	OSA is NOT the best chance to get accurate assessments. It is there for a second opinion, and usually when I draft a player I pick the one who gets favorable reviews from both scouting systems as well as has good numbers. In the end, its just like in real life that there are going to be guys that your scout is overly optimistic about. You have to be the one who decides how much you want to believe. In the end, I follow a general rule that any player I draft, I must be prepared for him to drop 10-20 points on a 100 scale. So if a guy is rated a 100 power, he may end up with 80, which is still pretty solid.

04-22-2013, 03:37 PM	#3
JMDurron All Star Starter Join Date: Mar 2011 Posts: 1,262	I'm going to mix sports here, but hopefully this helps. OSA should be considered to be the equivalent of a Mel Kiper, Jr. about the NFL Draft, as opposed to a team's scouting department - widely known, and pretty much always wrong.

04-22-2013, 06:32 PM	#4
Aumakua Major Leagues Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Flat lands Posts: 421	I am also interested on why the scouting director recommends guys that he has rated below many others. I get position need, but it seems to go beyond that. There should be some point where they take potential over position need... Like if there is a 4 star talent on the board and he recommends a guy he scouted as 2 star, that should never happen.

04-22-2013, 08:38 PM	#5
olivertheorem All Star Starter Join Date: Jun 2006 Posts: 1,919	That confuses me as well. I think it has to do with some combination of scouted current and overall ratings, in addition to signability and bonus demands, but that's just a guess.

04-23-2013, 09:50 AM	#8
Spracks Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: May 2009 Posts: 33	I'm not trying to be difficult, but I don't think the Mel Kiper comparison works all that well in this case. Let's take, for example, Kiper's projected top QBs for this year's draft, Geno Smith and Matt Barkley. Those two are pretty unanimously the top two QBs available, and there won't be a whole lot of disagreement between Kiper and other scouts about those two players. It's much harder to predict exactly when they will be drafted, but you can bet good money those two guys will be the first two QBs taken. Now, contrast that with how the OOTP draft is working. My scout says that players X, Y, and Z are the top pitchers available, while the OSA thinks that players A, B, and C are the top pitchers. You just don't see that kind of disagreement in prospect evaluation in real life. Of course, things get a lot murkier in the later rounds, but the top talent is usually fairly well known and agreed upon. There should be a high level of correlation between the highest potential ratings generated by my scout and the ratings generated by the OSA, not two completely different lists of players.

04-23-2013, 09:30 PM	#14
conception All Star Starter Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 1,149	The problem with the line of thinking in this thread is that even if there is a consensus between the real scouts and the internet ones, a lot of times they are both wrong about the guy's chance of becoming a successful major leaguer. If OOTP set it up so there was a big consensus between your scout and ODA in the draft, chances are that you would probably find it much too easy to find the best players. The draft is a crapshoot in real life and unless you are drafting really high (where I've never had a problem making a good pick), it is still a crapshoot.

04-25-2013, 01:54 PM	#16
Wrigleyviller Minors (Single A) Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Guess :-) Posts: 51	I'd like to second the OP on this topic. In fact, I was going to start a very similar thread before I found this one. I just had my first draft and all of these problems stood out. 1) My scout's assessments are incredibly, impossibly far apart from OSA. 2) In real life, there's more-or-less a consensus about top talent (with a few exceptions here and there). 3) In my draft, OSA had a reasonable number of starters ranked as 5, 4, 3, and 2 star prospects. My scout had one starter ranked as a 4 star prospect, and every single other starter was ranked as 1 star. My scout literally could not find a single starting prospect worth selecting in the first half of the draft except one. 4) As with the OP's draft, my scouting director's first round recommendation - for the number 2 overall pick - was a 1.5 star prospect whose scouting report suggested would likely never make it to the majors. What? Even my scout who could only find one good pitcher had plenty of hitters ranked highly. I also think the negotiations with draft picks don't work quite as well as intended - for example extremely hard signability guys just stop talking to you almost immediately, rather than allow for counter offers. It's incredibly jarring and unexpected. I'd much rather they negotiated like free agents, with negotiating moods. (And difficult to sign guys would perhaps start with a mediocre mood). That said - don't get me wrong. This is far and away the best version of OOTP I've played yet. I'm loving it. But I'm managing a terrible team that needs to rebuild through the draft and I have no clue whatsoever how my draft just went because of the above problems. I also had my #2 overall draft pick break off negotiations almost instantly and without warning, which is partially because he was an Extremely Hard sign but also because the negotiation system isn't very robust for draft picks.

04-25-2013, 02:38 PM	#17
Matt Arnold OOTP Developer Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Here and there Posts: 14,145	I don't mind the draft negotiations - they tell you upfront if they will stop talking to you. I basically give in to everyone, maybe negotiate down with a few guys. I find the scout recommendation is usually good for my first round pick. When there's an obvious 3-4 guys at the top of my scout list, he'll pick one of them and that's usually reasonable. But after that, I definitely get annoyed when he recommends a 1.5 star SP when there's a 4 star hitter in his list. What I would like to see would be an easy way to see my scout ratings and the OSA ratings side by side. What was really nice back in the old EHM days was that all the players had their draft rankings. So in general players went approximately in order, but often players would jump around. So that was a great way of seeing if my scout ranks a guy 4*, but OSA has him as like a 5th round pick, maybe I hold off until next round. As it is now, it's really hard to go back and forth, remember player rankings in each, and so on.