Any Actual Benefit To Scouting?

[sreem]

Looking for guidance. I'm wondering if there is actually and benefit to scouting individual players?


I've been playing since OOTP14, actually, only OOTP 14 until this years version, and it seemed to me that all scouting an individual player did was Bold his name and add him to my shortlist. Never seemed to change what his scouting report or ratings were before/after I scouted him.


Am I missing something here?

[SodoMojo]

Good question, my experience has been the same as yours. If anyone has some insight please share.

[IanIachimoe]

Originally Posted by SodoMojo

Good question, my experience has been the same as yours. If anyone has some insight please share.

x 3

was scouting players from the amateur draft pool last night & was wondering if I was wasting my time. it didn't appear to be changing anything.

[catcherjul]

X4, samething for me. Never saw a rating/potential change after an individual scouting report

[Honorable_Pawn]

X5

[endgame]

Good question, but I'd think the answer is yes. However, not an instantaneous yes. Depending on the interval you've set, you get your monthly or bi-monthly updates on your own players. But if you're scouting one or sets of other team's players, free agents, amateurs, etc... one visit is unlikely to be a tell-all. It's a combination of scout experience, skill, and exposure to the player.

Granted, this sounds like a lot of effort and individual investment, but it's what it takes in the scouting world. Yes, there are- or should be -those rare occasions when a discovery is made on-site first time, but if you read about RL scouting, it doesn't work that way. It's a gut-feel, this kid's got something, and then a personal investment to watch and monitor him, akin to following him on twitter, but watching his performance.

If you're truly, truly, interested in a prospect for your team, then I'd suggest a routine, wherein his schedule is examined, and maybe you schedule the scout to follow him in his tasklist during his eastern play, then again a month later in the south; maybe- know this sounds too intricate for some -scout a day against LHP and then another against RHP, at home and away, etc.... according to your own personal investment schedule and priorities.

There's scout experience, and there's scout direct experience with a player. So he may see changes after a year of watching a player and doing nothing. He may, if he's very skilled, particularly at the level of the player, e.g. amateur, gain even more with monthly scouting reports and you may see a measure of change or clarity six months down the road. But overall, it's a time, money, and personnel investment at a minimum that goes beyond the simple look-at-him, see-anything? mouse-click. It's tough, it's hard to yield solid results, tough to find that somebody special. That's scouting. Am I rationalizing just to feel better about the system? I could be, but even if that is the case, it's a system that allows me the personal immersion to believe hard-found gems take hard work. FWIW

[JPL86]

I'll chime in as well...
Every year, when the Draft Pool is revealed, I select about 50 - 100 players from the Pool and shortlist them. Am I wasting my time? Is one month (from the reveal of the pool to the actual Draft) enough time for my scout to evaluate these players?

[IanIachimoe]

Originally Posted by endgame

Good question, but I'd think the answer is yes. However, not an instantaneous yes. Depending on the interval you've set, you get your monthly or bi-monthly updates on your own players. But if you're scouting one or sets of other team's players, free agents, amateurs, etc... one visit is unlikely to be a tell-all. It's a combination of scout experience, skill, and exposure to the player.

Granted, this sounds like a lot of effort and individual investment, but it's what it takes in the scouting world. Yes, there are- or should be -those rare occasions when a discovery is made on-site first time, but if you read about RL scouting, it doesn't work that way. It's a gut-feel, this kid's got something, and then a personal investment to watch and monitor him, akin to following him on twitter, but watching his performance.

If you're truly, truly, interested in a prospect for your team, then I'd suggest a routine, wherein his schedule is examined, and maybe you schedule the scout to follow him in his tasklist during his eastern play, then again a month later in the south; maybe- know this sounds too intricate for some -scout a day against LHP and then another against RHP, at home and away, etc.... according to your own personal investment schedule and priorities.

There's scout experience, and there's scout direct experience with a player. So he may see changes after a year of watching a player and doing nothing. He may, if he's very skilled, particularly at the level of the player, e.g. amateur, gain even more with monthly scouting reports and you may see a measure of change or clarity six months down the road. But overall, it's a time, money, and personnel investment at a minimum that goes beyond the simple look-at-him, see-anything? mouse-click. It's tough, it's hard to yield solid results, tough to find that somebody special. That's scouting. Am I rationalizing just to feel better about the system? I could be, but even if that is the case, it's a system that allows me the personal immersion to believe hard-found gems take hard work. FWIW

thanks for the response!

If I am understanding this correctly, & in regard to the amateur draft, If I scout a potential draft pick twice (or more) will the scouting report change and/or be more accurate because my scout took a closer look?

[Honorable_Pawn]

That's sounded like an ideal to me. I'm not sure it works that way as it pertains to individual scouting. I know it does work that way overall but I don't think individually scouting a provides more information than would be attained at default.

I hope I'm wrong.

[endgame]

Originally Posted by IanIachimoe

thanks for the response!

If I am understanding this correctly, & in regard to the amateur draft, If I scout a potential draft pick twice (or more) will the scouting report change and/or be more accurate because my scout took a closer look?

Maybe. What I do is look at high school and college feeder leagues well in advance of the draft and shortlist players like others do once the pool is established. I shortlist and 'try' to scout regularly those who will likely be draft-eligible- and even if they're not, I cull info -and by the time the draft rolls around I may, sometimes not, have more info and it helps even more that they're capitalized in the pool so I can quickly identify them. In rare cases, I may actually remove a candidate who hasn't changed over the course of my several scouting trips prior to the draft and I suddenly realize he doesn't look so good to me now as he did when I first took notice of him his first couple weeks in HS play that year. Again, FWIW.

Edit: And depending on my priorities, even if I haven't already shortlisted a player, I do if he makes the leaderboard in certain categories at this level of play at the end of his season, e.g. OBP tends to catch my eye.

[OldFatGuy]

Originally Posted by IanIachimoe

If I am understanding this correctly, & in regard to the amateur draft, If I scout a potential draft pick twice (or more) will the scouting report change and/or be more accurate because my scout took a closer look?

It's been my experience..... no. I've picked out three guys before and just continuously, for the 30 day period between when they're initially released and the actual draft, used the "scout player" function on them until I ran out of time. Not once did I ever get so much as a single number different. Although that hasn't been done with 16 yet, I would be surprised if it's changed.


As far as if there is any point to scouting individual players, one thing I've learned is if an injury occurs to one of my players, if I scout him individually immediately, I will often "see" the effects of the injury on his ratings before waiting for the next scheduled update on all of the players.

[sreem]

Originally Posted by endgame

Maybe. What I do is look at high school and college feeder leagues well in advance of the draft and shortlist players like others do once the pool is established. I shortlist and 'try' to scout regularly those who will likely be draft-eligible- and even if they're not, I cull info -and by the time the draft rolls around I may, sometimes not, have more info and it helps even more that they're capitalized in the pool so I can quickly identify them. In rare cases, I may actually remove a candidate who hasn't changed over the course of my several scouting trips prior to the draft and I suddenly realize he doesn't look so good to me now as he did when I first took notice of him his first couple weeks in HS play that year. Again, FWIW.

Edit: And depending on my priorities, even if I haven't already shortlisted a player, I do if he makes the leaderboard in certain categories at this level of play at the end of his season, e.g. OBP tends to catch my eye.

How do I access the College and High School feeder leagues in a MLB standard quickstart game?

[endgame]

Originally Posted by sreem

How do I access the College and High School feeder leagues in a MLB standard quickstart game?

I don't think they have them in the quickstart. My experience is almost exclusively fictional setups. I'm sorry.

[hfield007]

I was told once no but i'm unsure. it does help to scout another team's international amateur finds before the bi-monthly rescout but other than that i've never once seen a change in anything when i individually scout someone.