Anyone else getting extra thin draft pools?

[Book_Archer]

Originally Posted by qcbandits

That would be way too many superstar players. You have to figure in the developmental cycle as well. This game is not meant to be easy. You don't draft superstars... You draft potential superstars that your team develops into superstars. This is not the NFL draft where you draft to fill holes immediately. Your most fast tracked drafted is probably 2 to 3 years from helping your team.

As a member of the Brandon Finnegan, Ryan Zimmerman, and Joba Chamberlain fan clubs, I’m going to have argue with you that OCCASIONALLY you have guys that are super developed and can make an impact on teams’ rosters immediately. Finnegan, for example, pitched in the WORLD SERIES half a year after he pitched in the COLLEGE WORLD SERIES, so yeah, it does happen RARELY.

Edit: Oh, I also forgot that David Price also pitched a year after he was selected in the WS the year he was drafted and was pretty good in it, unlike Finnegan that struggled, outside of the ALWC

[ThePride87]

Originally Posted by Book_Archer

As a member of the Brandon Finnegan, Ryan Zimmerman, and Joba Chamberlain fan clubs, I’m going to have argue with you that OCCASIONALLY you have guys that are super developed and can make an impact on teams’ rosters immediately. Finnegan, for example, pitched in the WORLD SERIES half a year after he pitched in the COLLEGE WORLD SERIES, so yeah, it does happen RARELY.

Not sure I'd use a career 0.6 fWAR player as an example of a super developed prospect.

[itsmb8]

Originally Posted by Imperialism32

Thanks for this. I run a fictional league but keep it closely modeled to real life (besides, I don't think that would affect the player rating system). I will take a closer look at my file when I get home.

I suspect my issue is ultimately with Lukas' post about "potential" really being more like a 50th percentile, which is counter-intuitive to me. And wondering if there's a way to make "potential" truly mean "potential" and accepting that out of 30 first-round picks only five or six will actually reach that ceiling, and only two or three will stay there for more than a handful of years.

If you think potential is highest ceiling then every single player in the draft would be at least a 60. Every single player in the draft has at least SOME chance of being a superstar. 50th percentile is what they are most likely going to become. Look at injury history, mental attributes, and now even scouting accuracy to decide if you think that player might exceed it or fall below it.

Originally Posted by SirMichaelJordan

I don’t think so.

Note that raising It also increases the chance of 1st round busts

What do you personally set TCR at? I thought I read a couple years ago that you just automatically crank it to 200, is that still the case?

[SirMichaelJordan]

Originally Posted by itsmb8

If you think potential is highest ceiling then every single player in the draft would be at least a 60. Every single player in the draft has at least SOME chance of being a superstar. 50th percentile is what they are most likely going to become. Look at injury history, mental attributes, and now even scouting accuracy to decide if you think that player might exceed it or fall below it.


What do you personally set TCR at? I thought I read a couple years ago that you just automatically crank it to 200, is that still the case?

Yes sir


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[greenOak]

Work ethic does not distinguish boom/bust prospects from "safe" prospects. If work ethic actually has a significant effect on player development / TCR (and its uncertain it does) than it just makes a 50 with high work ethic strictly better than a 50 with low work ethic.

Injury proneness does not do this either. At best all it does is make it less likely a player will reach their full potential, and I'm not even sure about that. Either way the effect is not significant. As far as I can tell all it does is make players play fewer games.

The ability to distinguish boom/bust prospects from safe prospects just does not exist in this game. And while I typically draft into about the 10th round I can see why people would feel like they're blindly throwing darts at 40 POT guys who all feel the same.

Another issue is that the way TCR works in this game is kind of weird. A lot of players (even with high TCR) are completely unaffected by it, and those who are experience sudden and drastic drops/increases to their ratings. It would be more realistic if players drops/increases were more gradual. My idea would be that ratings be treated as random walks. Boom/bust type prospects could be programmed by simply increasing the size of the steps in the walk.

Having said all that, prospect creation and progression has finally been looked at this version and the results are promising. It is night and day between OOTP 20 and 21, but that still doesn't mean there aren't significant improvements that can still be made.

[Book_Archer]

Originally Posted by ThePride87

Not sure I'd use a career 0.6 fWAR player as an example of a super developed prospect.

He still pitched seven solid innings in September for them, then pitched a couple hot innings for the Royals in the ALWC, and was used as part of the package to acquire the fearless Johnny Cueto, the ace of the 2015 Royals World Series Champions. And, referring back to the previously mentioned 2014 MLB Draft, when compared to STUDS such as the first two overall picks in the draft Brady Aiken and Tyler Kolek, along with other first-round pitchers selected before him, including Kodi Medeiros and Jeff Hoffman (although Hoffman has had to pitch ~50% of his starts at Coors), he suddenly ain't so bad. I also mentioned Ryan Zimmerman, and yeah, he has become pretty good, even if not Mike Trout levels.

Never forget that the New Yankees Yankees drafted Brien Taylor with the first overall pick one year before they drafted Derek Jeterm and also that the Houston Asterisks drafted Mark Appel and Brady Aiken in consecutive drafts.

[SirMichaelJordan]

Originally Posted by greenOak

Work ethic does not distinguish boom/bust prospects from "safe" prospects. If work ethic actually has a significant effect on player development / TCR (and its uncertain it does) than it just makes a 50 with high work ethic strictly better than a 50 with low work ethic.

Injury proneness does not do this either. At best all it does is make it less likely a player will reach their full potential, and I'm not even sure about that. Either way the effect is not significant. As far as I can tell all it does is make players play fewer games.

The ability to distinguish boom/bust prospects from safe prospects just does not exist in this game. And while I typically draft into about the 10th round I can see why people would feel like they're blindly throwing darts at 40 POT guys who all feel the same.

Another issue is that the way TCR works in this game is kind of weird. A lot of players (even with high TCR) are completely unaffected by it, and those who are experience sudden and drastic drops/increases to their ratings. It would be more realistic if players drops/increases were more gradual. My idea would be that ratings be treated as random walks. Boom/bust type prospects could be programmed by simply increasing the size of the steps in the walk.

Having said all that, prospect creation and progression has finally been looked at this version and the results are promising. It is night and day between OOTP 20 and 21, but that still doesn't mean there aren't significant improvements that can still be made.

They are gradual.

Not sure I’m quite understanding your points about worth ethic and injury proneness.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by greenOak

Work ethic does not distinguish boom/bust prospects from "safe" prospects. If work ethic actually has a significant effect on player development / TCR (and its uncertain it does) than it just makes a 50 with high work ethic strictly better than a 50 with low work ethic.

Injury proneness does not do this either. At best all it does is make it less likely a player will reach their full potential, and I'm not even sure about that. Either way the effect is not significant. As far as I can tell all it does is make players play fewer games.

The ability to distinguish boom/bust prospects from safe prospects just does not exist in this game. And while I typically draft into about the 10th round I can see why people would feel like they're blindly throwing darts at 40 POT guys who all feel the same.

Another issue is that the way TCR works in this game is kind of weird. A lot of players (even with high TCR) are completely unaffected by it, and those who are experience sudden and drastic drops/increases to their ratings. It would be more realistic if players drops/increases were more gradual. My idea would be that ratings be treated as random walks. Boom/bust type prospects could be programmed by simply increasing the size of the steps in the walk.

Having said all that, prospect creation and progression has finally been looked at this version and the results are promising. It is night and day between OOTP 20 and 21, but that still doesn't mean there aren't significant improvements that can still be made.

FWIW the v21 manual says WE can influence player development, as well as intelligence.

I'm not saying you are wrong, maybe you've done testing that shows your are correct but... how do you know high work ethic 50 only means he's better that a low WE 50? How do you know under the hood this doesn't end up giving an OOTP player a higher chance of surpassing his original overall potential?

If not then wouldn't the next supposition have to be that all players have the same chance of surpassing their initial overall potential? That, too me, doesn't make sense if you've taken the trouble to code in WE and INT. I'm not saying a low WE guy has no ability to outperform his initial overall but just a lesser chance, at least that is what I think and what makes sense to me.

As for me I don't want WE or INT to be a 100% guide to who will boom or bust. I do think, and from what the manual says, it should be something to consider.




Regarding distinguishing boom\bust from safe prospects... do you think this ability exists in real life?

In real life what do you have? Talk to their coaches, watch them play, how they react to adversity\success, as a supplement to measurable physical tools? Speed, bat speed, ball velocity off the bat, etc.

Are they a leader, first to arrive-last to leave? I'm just throwing out some things, there are many other things a team will look at obviously.

I don't think,in real life, there is an ability to identify booms and busts with any certainty but I do believe all info gathered is given weight in the decision to draft\sign or not. In the end they gather as much info as they can and make a judgement. If they do draft, like OOTP, they have to wait and see if whatever criteria they use pans out.

I don't think anyone would argue the game needs no more improvement. It's why, I think, the majority of us come back year after year.

[BradG223]

I hope this is related, because I have some concerns with the drafts in V21 so far.

I simulated 120 seasons of a fictional league, and have found that nearly all of the best relievers in the league's history were created in the inaugural draft. 8 of the top 11 leaders in K/9 were drafted in the league's first draft.

Maybe I got a funky draft class, or maybe I'm mistaken, but I think that in the year 2142 the distribution of these top performers should be a bit more uniform.

[Imperialism32]

Originally Posted by itsmb8

If you think potential is highest ceiling then every single player in the draft would be at least a 60. Every single player in the draft has at least SOME chance of being a superstar. 50th percentile is what they are most likely going to become. Look at injury history, mental attributes, and now even scouting accuracy to decide if you think that player might exceed it or fall below it.

This is not necessarily true. Sure, Mike Trout obviously HAD 80 potential because he got there. But he was not thought of as an 80 potential player when he drafted (except maybe by the Angels) because twenty teams did not select him.

I don't think player potential ratings need to account for the 1% chance that everyone has to break through. As a prospect Ben Zobrist was nothing special... he could've fairly been rated a 35-40 potential guy. Then he had a breakthrough season and could've fairly been rated as a 55-60 potential guy.

Maybe one scout in the league might see that potential, but his OSA (and other scouts) would have him in the 35-40 range.

[greenOak]

Originally Posted by Sweed

FWIW the v21 manual says WE can influence player development, as well as intelligence.

I'm not saying you are wrong, maybe you've done testing that shows your are correct but... how do you know high work ethic 50 only means he's better that a low WE 50? How do you know under the hood this doesn't end up giving an OOTP player a higher chance of surpassing his original overall potential?

If not then wouldn't the next supposition have to be that all players have the same chance of surpassing their initial overall potential? That, too me, doesn't make sense if you've taken the trouble to code in WE and INT. I'm not saying a low WE guy has no ability to outperform his initial overall but just a lesser chance, at least that is what I think and what makes sense to me.

As for me I don't want WE or INT to be a 100% guide to who will boom or bust. I do think, and from what the manual says, it should be something to consider.




Regarding distinguishing boom\bust from safe prospects... do you think this ability exists in real life?

In real life what do you have? Talk to their coaches, watch them play, how they react to adversity\success, as a supplement to measurable physical tools? Speed, bat speed, ball velocity off the bat, etc.

Are they a leader, first to arrive-last to leave? I'm just throwing out some things, there are many other things a team will look at obviously.

I don't think,in real life, there is an ability to identify booms and busts with any certainty but I do believe all info gathered is given weight in the decision to draft\sign or not. In the end they gather as much info as they can and make a judgement. If they do draft, like OOTP, they have to wait and see if whatever criteria they use pans out.

I don't think anyone would argue the game needs no more improvement. It's why, I think, the majority of us come back year after year.

The thing is people have been saying intelligence and work ethic have a positive impact on player development for years but I've never actually seen proof of that. The effect may also be too small to be noticeable.

Nevertheless, what I'm saying is a 50 with high work ethic may be better than a 50 with low work ethic, but it doesn't actually distinguish between boom/bust or safe prospects as some have claimed. It just means a 50 with high work ethic will be more or less the same as a 55 with low work ethic or something like that.

And yes I do think the ability to distinguish between boom/bust types and safe types exists. An example of boom/bust prospect might be someone elite bat speed but swing and miss and/or plate discipline issues. And if you don't want to take my word, fangraphs obviously thinks they can do it:

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2020-top-100-prospects/

Scroll down to the 55FV prospects, and find Brendan Rodgers (#31) and Oneil Cruz (#32). About 50% of Brendan Rodgers outcomes lie in either the bust (<40), or 70+ category. This is fairly typical of players they have ranked around here. This number is closer to 60% for Oneil Cruz (a boom/bust prospect). Then you can see Andrew Vaughn (#37) who only has about 40% of his outcomes in these two categories. This would represent a safer prospect. If you look farther, you'll find an even more extreme example of a safe prospect with Nick Madrigal (#41).

[TwinsTHunter]

As Lukas has said already, the ability to essentially change any setting you want lets people solve this issue (if they feel its an issue) on their own.

As you get past the real drafts (which I love), I like to see higher potential guys occasionally at the top of the draft, and I like the drafts to remain somewhat deep, simply because I think it's more fun. The default settings seem to have the "real drafts" that are programmed a LOT deeper (more average-type prospects into later rounds) than the fictional drafts that follow.

Some suggestions to get deeper/more high end draft classes, realism be damned:

- Under league settings > players, change the traditional player creation modifiers like Lukas suggested. I generally will move contact, power, eye and pitching stuff from 1.000 to 1.010. These are the skills that tend to draw people's attention, so I like them being higher. I move pitching stamina to 1.007, and pitching movement to 1.006. I move fielding ratings from 1.000 to 1.012 to avoid a lot of good hitters being created with terrible outfield/1B ratings, and running speed from 1.000 to 1.004. I leave sabermetric player creation modifiers all at 1.000, because I don't know what it changes exactly. But that might be worth playing around with also.

- Use a feeder league system. (League Settings > League Actions (right corner) > add minor/feeder league... > add complete feeder system. I also generally add one extra college league and two extra high school leagues from the default. Be sure all the feeder leagues have players in them, if not just use the fill with fictional players. If this doesn't sound worthwhile to you, it's not a necessity, but it does add real-time development and tracking that make it more fun to follow future draft classes. You also can change the high school and college player creation settings in the new version, once you get a hang of the feeder system. This would give you even more customization.

- Under the rules tab, look at "generate players for X rounds." By default it's usually one round more than the number of draft rounds, which I think isn't great. I think the defaults are 35 rounds, and 36 generated for. Once you add a feeder league system, the numbers tend to get closer to 70 by default. Whether you use a feeder league system or not, I generally will move the number of draft rounds to around 30, while the generate players for X rounds is at 55 or 60. You will have a lot of undrafted players, but the drafts are deeper but still not ridiculously so.

- With so many undrafted players, I always make sure the US independent leagues are in my league's world. A lot of the undrafted players end up here, and you'll get a few guys that will develop into big league players sometimes. Doesn't change the draft at all but it's a fun little addition.

You can play around with the player creation modifiers to see what works best for you, but it's pretty sensitive to major changes, so just do it slowly to get what you want. And remember you'll need to test the modifiers with multiple draft classes because of the randomness of the created pool.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by greenOak

The thing is people have been saying intelligence and work ethic have a positive impact on player development for years but I've never actually seen proof of that. The effect may also be too small to be noticeable.

Nevertheless, what I'm saying is a 50 with high work ethic may be better than a 50 with low work ethic, but it doesn't actually distinguish between boom/bust or safe prospects as some have claimed. It just means a 50 with high work ethic will be more or less the same as a 55 with low work ethic or something like that.

And yes I do think the ability to distinguish between boom/bust types and safe types exists. An example of boom/bust prospect might be someone elite bat speed but swing and miss and/or plate discipline issues. And if you don't want to take my word, fangraphs obviously thinks they can do it:

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2020-top-100-prospects/

Scroll down to the 55FV prospects, and find Brendan Rodgers (#31) and Oneil Cruz (#32). About 50% of Brendan Rodgers outcomes lie in either the bust (<40), or 70+ category. This is fairly typical of players they have ranked around here. This number is closer to 60% for Oneil Cruz (a boom/bust prospect). Then you can see Andrew Vaughn (#37) who only has about 40% of his outcomes in these two categories. This would represent a safer prospect. If you look farther, you'll find an even more extreme example of a safe prospect with Nick Madrigal (#41).[/B

Thanks, any idea how accurate these type of projections end up being? I mean it's pretty easy to post a method of trying to predict, another to have it prove out. Also that is a top 100 prospects list. Wouldn't that mean those projections are being made based on those guys actually playing professionally and not trying to project them from HS or college?

Does the draft pool get the same type of evaluation? Historically if it does how accurate have they been?

Just being a bit of a skeptic and would say lot's of people think they can do it but.. if it were as easy as that well, why don't teams draft with a higher rate of success than they do?

While I say I am skeptical I am still willing to be shown that this method works

One more while I'm here With the bold, can't you do that in OOTP with batters ratings? Power and gap power = bat speed, contact and eye cover the other part of your example. That is how I draft later rounds. Find the tool I want, say power, and look to how far back contact and eye are, weigh in with WE and INT and make a decision.

As to the WE INT, as I noted the manual states it can have an effect. To what degree, well honestly I don't want to know the exact formula the underlying engine uses. To me it takes away the point of the game IE trying to give the illusion of real players in a real baseball world. Most things Markus comments on he states these things don't have huge effects but they do have an effect. If these numbers were large you'd have a world with too many great players. Just to pull numbers out of thin air maybe a high WE has a 5% chance of seeing development jumps and a low WE a 1% chance. If high has 5x better chance, though it's an overall low chance, it's still much better than the other choice.

I don't care what the exact formula is, if Markus tells me there is a chance, and he does in the manual, that's all I want to know. I avoid online leagues because too many test the game to death (OOTP or FOF) to understand the underlying engine and take advantage. They say that's cool because they are playing "the game" and not real sports. More power to them. I want the illusion of playing real baseball, football or whatever sport. Knowing exactly how it works takes away from that.

[greenOak]

No idea how accurate they are. Having said that, these projections use past prospects to compare to so if the model spits out these kind of results it likely means players with certain scouting/statistical profiles experience more variability.

Also its really difficult to beat the draft because all 30 MLB teams are doing this kind of analysis - and given the resources they have it is in far more in depth than fangraphs. Not to mention the model spits out a significant bust probability for almost every player so its not like you're gonna use it to find bust-proof prospects (they don't exist). I will mention recent years have been trending toward athletic high school bats because historically they've had the most upside.

[SirMichaelJordan]

Isnt this covered by scouting director’s favor ability vs favor tool preference?

[greenOak]

Maybe, but I wasn't really talking about the game per se. Just pointing out that teams do pay attention to things like boom/bust vs safe.

[LegalEagle80]

Originally Posted by Imperialism32

Thanks for this. I run a fictional league but keep it closely modeled to real life (besides, I don't think that would affect the player rating system). I will take a closer look at my file when I get home.

I suspect my issue is ultimately with Lukas' post about "potential" really being more like a 50th percentile, which is counter-intuitive to me. And wondering if there's a way to make "potential" truly mean "potential" and accepting that out of 30 first-round picks only five or six will actually reach that ceiling, and only two or three will stay there for more than a handful of years.

Yes, this was the breakthrough for me too. At first I had the same thoughts as those who think the draft classes are weak, but it's not apples to apples with the NFL or NBA drafts. "Potential" is a probably not the best word to use because yeah, a lot of players have the possibility of being superstars. But the reality is the scout is looking at the range of outcomes, and what's most likely to happen. In baseball there's just a wider range than in other sports.

[itsmb8]

Originally Posted by Imperialism32

This is not necessarily true. Sure, Mike Trout obviously HAD 80 potential because he got there. But he was not thought of as an 80 potential player when he drafted (except maybe by the Angels) because twenty teams did not select him.

I don't think player potential ratings need to account for the 1% chance that everyone has to break through. As a prospect Ben Zobrist was nothing special... he could've fairly been rated a 35-40 potential guy. Then he had a breakthrough season and could've fairly been rated as a 55-60 potential guy.

Maybe one scout in the league might see that potential, but his OSA (and other scouts) would have him in the 35-40 range.

You misunderstood my post. I think at the time, everyone would agree Trout was a 45-55 potential, and the Angels liked his mental attributes, injury history, etc. or whatever and decided he could surpass that, which he obviously did. But that was his 50th percentile potential, he was most likely going to be around a 50 overall player, maybe he'd come up short, maybe he'd surpass it. Thats what OOTP is trying to simulate.

I do wish there may be a bit more variance between scouts, where one might value power and suggest he's a 70 because his power is already developed, while another might value plate discipline and suggest he's a 50 because he isnt very disciplined.

[sabrtoothtiger]

Once you understand how individual ratings and potentials feed into the games POT/OVR ratings you can start to look at each individual player to see how a slight change in their development would greatly change their advertised potential rating.

There is a ton of talent in the drafts and it is exactly how it should be. I have constantly developed homegrown talent in my franchises by incorporating a draft model that developments my talent intake.

The draft is a more homogeneous pool than you are considering. Which is why installing a draft model works so well.

[Vegas Vic]

The draft talent level is where it should be, very volatile and speculative. As in real life, assigning accurate potential ratings on teenagers is a crap shoot. This isn't the NFL or NBA where many players are ready to compete from day one.