Scounting: Favor Tools vs. Favor Ability vs. Neutral vs OSA - Here are the numbers

[ThePride87]

Originally Posted by NoOne

all that does is put a facade over scouting error -- which is based upon your budget and scout. as long as you aren't below baseline, you can safely assume your budget and scout are a high % correct than the osa.

the fact that OSA can be right about some is irrelevant. If your setup has a higher % chance of sucecssfully rating a player, it will always be a higher percentage, and without pulling back the curtain you will never know when it isn't at that particular moment of decision.

so, the osa being right, but at a lower % doesn't mean anything useful other than to avoid looking at the OSA, which will only add confusion.

so, if a good budget and scout is a higher likelihood of being accurate, you should never, never use the OSA... that's like going to vegas and betting against the odds. you will lose more often doing that than betting on the higher percentage chance.

as far as the favor this or favor that... all that does is put a fake facade above and beyond the scouting inaccuracy based on the prospects age or whatever else they use to differentiate between tool and ability.

----

the way eye works in ootp... not the same as real life. or not quite. everythign is part of the same whoel and has to add back upto 1.

the better the player is, the lower you want his eye rating --- up to a point.

... let's say a lower eye reduced bb by 10 (keeping it simple, this is actually a rate, not a #). those are now PAs that have to be divied up into outs, singles, doubles, triples, home runs, and anythign else i am missing in proper ratios as dictated by the ratings and competition faced. (errors are calculated/applied after a ball goes into play and needs to be considered, but only 1.5% chance on average, so it doesn't reduce those new opportunities much)

as long as the resulting ball in play outcomes outweigh those lost 10 walks, it is beneficial to your team in ootp -- no argument possible if you know these facts about your player and league context.

a walk is supposedly worth .33 runs (***your league may be different than RL this is also based on average of the league... if you have a better than average team, you should expect this value to be higher, since more opportuniteis and better percentages of following through with those opportunities compared to average with a 'better' team. that's a rising tide. a better team also increases the value of a HR, since people are on base above league average on your 'better' team)

but, keeping it simpler, you only need the equivalent of 3 runs from 10 walks to get to the break-even point where less walks is better for that player. ~average team context

why is this not quite like RL? well, in ootp you can get quite extreme about this with fewer negative repercussions. in RL there have been few players that can swing a bat like a wild, feral animal and have more than 1 or 2 good seasons before pitchers destroy their career with significnatly more sophisticated approach. vlad guerrero is one. and like the guess above, he's an elite talent that can get away with it, but likely would have been better with a bit more discipline, unlike in ootp results.

same reason why jim furyk would have been a better pro golfer had he learned a more repeatable swing. impossible to say it isn't true. his swing is more prone to error all other things remaining the same. being wild at the plate makes you prone to more errors and mistakes - greater opportunities to screw up for no reason other than an unsophisticated approach.

ootp is a giant pie. if you take 10 away over here they get shifted to the other possibilities in proper proportions. use this concept you can quantify what is happening and know for certain, with a bit of research/observation, as to what is best.

it always has to add back up to "1" after an incremental change and all other factors remaining the same. you can predict with confidence.

this helps use the LTM better to, if you fiddle with those. changing one is easy to predict what happens... but start moving more than one and yo h ave to understand where those 'lost' 100 hr go and how that extra '5000' walks league-wide reduces AB, which will reduce ball in play numbers... so that 100 is more likely 150+ lost hr if you make these 2 changes etc etc...

Thanks, you're one of the guys I look for when I have a question and search the forums of OOTP's past. Appreciate the insight.

[Argonaut]

I don't believe I agree with the notion that less EYE is sometimes better. Even if you max a guy's CON and POW he's not going to get a homer or a hit every plate appearance.

If a guy walked every plate appearance he'd have an OBP of 1.000, and would easily be the most valuable batter ever.

These are just extremes I'm talking about though. For all "normal" players (or any players), more EYE is better. Really, more of any rating is better. Except for a Fastball as a Knuckleballer, I can't think of any rating that doesn't benefit a player by being added or boosted.

[KBLover]

Originally Posted by Argonaut

But it's kind of funny that some people still overlook Eye just like teams did throughout most of baseball history.

I don't ignore Eye but I don't treat it as "the OBP rating". If you can get on base a lot as a 70 contact, 40 Eye, 80 Av K player that's just as fine by me as much as a 55 contact, 65 Eye, 60 Av K player.

If I end up with more of the first because everyone else is grabbing the second, that's fine with me. If they have speed, I can try reliving the 80's Cardinals teams.

Edit: I agree that more Eye (or anything) is better. But "normal" players probably won't (or can't be expected to) just "get more" whatever. Even prospects don't have to grow. the 70/40/80 guy above would be better as 70/60/80...but unless I can give him 20 points out of the blue... (without cheating )

[KBLover]

Originally Posted by ThePride87

Just thinking out loud, but with the info that was discovered here, it appears OSA is still pretty solid on its own. There's still an edge to be gained when you have a top-tier tools scout, but with major league scouting, I wonder if I'm better off allocating $0 towards ML scouting and just rely on OSA....since ML-caliber players are already sort of "figured-out", I'd expect there to be a lot less deviation between OSA and the true ratings.

I don't go to 0% but ML scouting is my lowest allocation.

I currently have 7/40/33/20 allocation of a $15 M budget (baseline is $5 M and change so I'm at max)

Scout is Ex/Leg/Leg/Leg, Heavy Favors Tools

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by Argonaut

I don't believe I agree with the notion that less EYE is sometimes better. Even if you max a guy's CON and POW he's not going to get a homer or a hit every plate appearance.

If a guy walked every plate appearance he'd have an OBP of 1.000, and would easily be the most valuable batter ever.

These are just extremes I'm talking about though. For all "normal" players (or any players), more EYE is better. Really, more of any rating is better. Except for a Fastball as a Knuckleballer, I can't think of any rating that doesn't benefit a player by being added or boosted.

it doesn't have to be a hr per bb... a walk is only .33 runs.

so if you convert 10 lost walks, they have to be 'something' else. they won't all be outs. so, they will be in proportion, relative to that 10 bb loss, to their other stats.

1 hr is worth 2 runs on average. just one HR in those 10PA would account for 2/3rds of the loss from those -10bb. assuming they aren't a .200 hitter, you can safely say that in OotP that a very highly rated player with power will almost certainly benefit from fewer BB/PA. (all about rates, even though i rarely explain it fully, i write enough as is).

a 1.000OBP with all walks guy may be great, but it wouldn't take anyhwere near a 1.000BA or a 1.000Slugging to create more runs and be more valueable, which is the point of why a higher rated player can absolutely overcome the much smaller value of what a walk is worth.

a hit, 2b, 3b, hr all create far more runs on average in a significant way. any ootp player that averages enough of those over 10PA to create at least ~3 runs is better off not walking.

i also pointed out that in extreme cases, there may be repercussions that becomes more heavily weighted in the engine that could make this not true. but, in nearly all actual cases, it will likely be true for a highly rated player. e.g. 50/80 down to 40/80 is almost certainly going to create more runs, but dropping into orange or red values may cause additional loss of what replaces those lost BB.

so, there is likely a limit and was never meant to be applied in that extrame way like a 1000obp all walk player, who is .. just guessing 3-4x above anything like barry bond's best years, including IBB. i guarantee bond's team would have been better off had he been swinging in those lost PA to BB and IBB, but i wouldn't venture to say that about any others off the top of my head. ootp is not hte same as RL, though. within reason, you can assume any BB lost to a eye drop will result in a proper proptions of hits, doubles, triples and HR per that player's ratings.

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by ThePride87

Thanks, you're one of the guys I look for when I have a question and search the forums of OOTP's past. Appreciate the insight.

there's a bit of guessing goign on, so never rely on it fully.

i'm 100% about the eye thing, though - within common sense applications that you'd actually see occur. rarely would someone decent have such a horrible eye that other considerations about how the engine works comes into play before knowing for certain on any break-even analysis.

i'm only assuming that the curve gets more impactful the lower the eye goes, or similar results in a more complicated manner. i'd think there's some factor that comes into play with extremely low eyes.

few players can do what vlad guarrero did, even if they all tried.

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by KBLover

I don't go to 0% but ML scouting is my lowest allocation.

I currently have 7/40/33/20 allocation of a $15 M budget (baseline is $5 M and change so I'm at max)

Scout is Ex/Leg/Leg/Leg, Heavy Favors Tools

You definitely need less to be accurate with MLB.

Remember, if you don't have international leagues active in your game world -- like NBL -- you don't need international scouting, unless something changed. IAFA that are generated are under amatuer scouting.

possibly you lose scoutinng discovery chances, but those are 1 per 10 years you get somethign that isn't even a true 20/80, becaue they suck so bad.

i'd also assume everythign is relative to baseline. so 3x baseline is the same quality regardless of actual value used? could be wrong. with a max budget you can really bump up the amatuer and mil scouting and still maintain excellent MLB ratings accuracy.

if you draft more than you trade for prospects, then you should obviously favor that budget... or vice versa if you trade for more assets than you draft on you mlb teams, on average. plus any contexts where it makes sense to switch it up temporarily.

mil scouting is tiered too... mostly age, but service time, possibly level matters too. it takes time for a recently drafted player to be evaluated in your minor league system. he'll mostly be what you saw when you drafted, possibly a couple have big changes you can't predict or avoid. A recently drafted college kid goes through that evolution faster than an 18year old high schooler.

within ~3-4 years you'll know which high school draftees are a bust most of the time -- not saying you give up at that point, but you don't treat them like an a-list prospect anymore. A college kid doesn't take as long for his ratings to hash out. and, that's all relative to your scout and budget, of course.

there are a ton of false positives the younger the players are and the more recently drafted they are. the more money you spend and the better scout you have reduces that.

it's the best way i found to determine diminishing returns for amatuer scouting without simming thousands of years and crunching the numbers. you can see it occur in rookie league or at the top of draft lists. as you spend more, drafts don't look as good, LoL. That's a good thing for you.

So, keep adding to ametuer budget until it isn't reducing the false positives at top of draft lists. You know you've reached a point where adding more money doesn't help you in a functional way. i'd suggest observing the same budget and scout quality and related draft lits for multiple years before drawing any conclusions or developing any baseline to compare the next budget value. the normal ebb and flow of draft talent will cloud what you see.

you'd want to do something similar for each budget, but you'd have to cheat to know for certain. while it isn't 100% transparent with draft lists, there's nothign you can do in a similar way that you can notice an incremental change 1 year to the next year based on a few million more or less spend on your MLB budget.

you could apply a similar method to MiL scouting, though. just base it upon 18 year olds recently drafted. then retroactively determine how many false postives you are getting, then change the budget and compare new results... you'll find a diminishing returns point for MiL scouting too.

the leftover will be more than enough for MLB scouting.

mlb scouting - anywhere slightly above baseline with a high quality scout will do well with little improvement with more money invested.

mil/amatuer i'd max out as much as i can. i'd favor what i do more - trade or draft for useable prospects at the MLB level. not based upon what i want, but what results based on how i do things. then, the leftover of an maxed scouting budget should be plenty for MLB.

[Argonaut]

Originally Posted by NoOne

it doesn't have to be a hr per bb... a walk is only .33 runs.

so if you convert 10 lost walks, they have to be 'something' else. they won't all be outs. so, they will be in proportion, relative to that 10 bb loss, to their other stats.

So I crunched some numbers on this with the help of the OOTP editor. You mentioned Vladdy Daddy, so I looked at the 2002 version of Vladimir Guerrero on the Expos. As we can see he has healthy CON and POW, and an average EYE.

I bumped his EYE ratings up and down 25 points in the editor, and it spat out some numbers that I've also attached. His normal OPS was projected to be a nice round 1.000. Naturally with a higher EYE his OPS is expected to increase and with a lower EYE vice versa. OPS loves walks of course.

But that's not the whole story as you say, as it's not on a per plate appearance basis. So I punched in the figures and calculated the ensuing run values via linear weights I found on Fangraphs.

The numbers say, at least with Vladdy Daddy, that the higher EYE still provided more value per plate appearance. Even with relatively fewer hits and homers. For reference, the higher EYE showed in the 20-80 scale as 60, and the lower EYE showed as 45. The normal one was 50 as per below.

However, the difference was much smaller than I imagined. Between the increased EYE rating and the decreased one, the +EYE Vlad is only expected to create about 1 more run for the season. So it's kind of a wash. In the end it probably shakes down to guys in front of and behind you in the batting order.

So I think in conclusion, if you've got a guy with great CON and POW, his EYE is relatively less important. But if your guy is weak in either CON or POW, then EYE is going to be relatively more valuable.

[Dyzalot]

In my purely anecdotal observations over a thousand plus simmed or played modern era seasons with OOTP the last decade, I remember seeing far more success from guys with high contact, high power and extremely low eye ratings than anything close to extremely low contact, high power and high eye ratings. In fact I can't remember a single guy that was even at least an average MLB starter with a contact rating below five on a 1-20 scale. Whereas I remember several players just on teams that were "mine" where I was getting All Star or even Hall of Fame levels of production for many years with eye ratings below five on that same scale.. But it does make sense that generally in the abstract, all else being equal, more "eye" is better than less.

[Argonaut]

Walks certainly aren't flashy. All you have to do look at the aforementioned Vlad Guerrero and compare him to Larry Walker.

They're very similar hitters in terms of value, with Vlad at a 140 OPS+, and Larry at a 141 OPS+. Note that their respective raw OPS was .931 and .965, but OPS+ adjusts for Coors of course.

Although their OPS's are similar, they got there a bit differently... Guerrero had more hits and homers, and Walker had more walks. Hence his name, heh.

Of course Vlad got in the Hall of Fame in a landslide in his 2nd year of eligibility, whereas Larry only squeaked in during his final year.

And oh yeah, although they created similar value as hitters... Walker still had more WAR in fewer plate appearances (72.7) than Guerrero (59.4). How is that the case? Oh yeah, baserunning and fielding:

Walker Baserunning: +50 runs
Guerrero Baserunning: -20 runs
Walker Fielding: +94 runs
Guerrero Fielding: +7 runs

But of course most of the Hall of Fame voters don't care about baserunning or fielding. Unless you're a shortstop who can't hit, then they suddenly care about fielding (Vizquel). What???

Anyway I've gone off on a big tangent here. I actually really like both Guerrero and Walker and am glad they're both in the Hall.

[ThePride87]

Originally Posted by NoOne

You definitely need less to be accurate with MLB.

Remember, if you don't have international leagues active in your game world -- like NBL -- you don't need international scouting, unless something changed. IAFA that are generated are under amatuer scouting.

possibly you lose scoutinng discovery chances, but those are 1 per 10 years you get somethign that isn't even a true 20/80, becaue they suck so bad.

i'd also assume everythign is relative to baseline. so 3x baseline is the same quality regardless of actual value used? could be wrong. with a max budget you can really bump up the amatuer and mil scouting and still maintain excellent MLB ratings accuracy.

if you draft more than you trade for prospects, then you should obviously favor that budget... or vice versa if you trade for more assets than you draft on you mlb teams, on average. plus any contexts where it makes sense to switch it up temporarily.

mil scouting is tiered too... mostly age, but service time, possibly level matters too. it takes time for a recently drafted player to be evaluated in your minor league system. he'll mostly be what you saw when you drafted, possibly a couple have big changes you can't predict or avoid. A recently drafted college kid goes through that evolution faster than an 18year old high schooler.

within ~3-4 years you'll know which high school draftees are a bust most of the time -- not saying you give up at that point, but you don't treat them like an a-list prospect anymore. A college kid doesn't take as long for his ratings to hash out. and, that's all relative to your scout and budget, of course.

there are a ton of false positives the younger the players are and the more recently drafted they are. the more money you spend and the better scout you have reduces that.

it's the best way i found to determine diminishing returns for amatuer scouting without simming thousands of years and crunching the numbers. you can see it occur in rookie league or at the top of draft lists. as you spend more, drafts don't look as good, LoL. That's a good thing for you.

So, keep adding to ametuer budget until it isn't reducing the false positives at top of draft lists. You know you've reached a point where adding more money doesn't help you in a functional way. i'd suggest observing the same budget and scout quality and related draft lits for multiple years before drawing any conclusions or developing any baseline to compare the next budget value. the normal ebb and flow of draft talent will cloud what you see.

you'd want to do something similar for each budget, but you'd have to cheat to know for certain. while it isn't 100% transparent with draft lists, there's nothign you can do in a similar way that you can notice an incremental change 1 year to the next year based on a few million more or less spend on your MLB budget.

you could apply a similar method to MiL scouting, though. just base it upon 18 year olds recently drafted. then retroactively determine how many false postives you are getting, then change the budget and compare new results... you'll find a diminishing returns point for MiL scouting too.

the leftover will be more than enough for MLB scouting.

mlb scouting - anywhere slightly above baseline with a high quality scout will do well with little improvement with more money invested.

mil/amatuer i'd max out as much as i can. i'd favor what i do more - trade or draft for useable prospects at the MLB level. not based upon what i want, but what results based on how i do things. then, the leftover of an maxed scouting budget should be plenty for MLB.

Not saying international scouting is 100% useless, but from all the info I've read around OOTP, it seems like spending $ on international scouting is a highly inefficient endeavor....yes you may find that diamond in the rough, but it's extremely rare and unpredictable. Meanwhile, getting better/more accurate info on hundreds of young players for a draft that you KNOW happens every year....it just seems as if spending that scouting budget more on that (as well as minors, depending on preference, like you said) makes a lot more sense, if the goal is to become as efficient of a gm as possible.

Not to derail the initial post here, I would be more interested in the whole highly favors tools test.....but I have to trust what NoOne is saying for now and stick with Neutral, until we get more evidence that tools is the better preference. Above all else, I want accurate information....I'm very hands-on with my transactions, so I don't want my scout swaying me in an artificial direction....just want the facts.

But if anyone else finds more about the tools vs ability thing, I'll be paying attention. Guys like NoOne and Sweed (among many others before me)....those are guys I'm gonna have to side with when they have advice, until there's more evidence....these are guys that have been here for years, I respect that. But always open to people's research and interest in this game.

[KBLover]

Originally Posted by ThePride87

Not saying international scouting is 100% useless, but from all the info I've read around OOTP, it seems like spending $ on international scouting is a highly inefficient endeavor....yes you may find that diamond in the rough, but it's extremely rare and unpredictable. Meanwhile, getting better/more accurate info on hundreds of young players for a draft that you KNOW happens every year....it just seems as if spending that scouting budget more on that (as well as minors, depending on preference, like you said) makes a lot more sense, if the goal is to become as efficient of a gm as possible.

I want talent coming in from every possible avenue. And increasing amateur budget is something I'd want to do anyway and the game says it impacts quality of discoveries, and I have that system enabled...so might as well let them in, too. Why not?

And I notice that since raising MiLB and Ammy scouting up, the discoveries have been looking better. Could be just coincidence, especially the MiLB one (the game doesn't mention that as improving discoveries). But...I want both high anyway...so why not?

I'm assuming my scout with his "Legendary" amateur scouting ability isn't going to be too far off, especially with $4 mil to work with, no?

It only takes one or two solid players to make it worth it, imo. After all, they were free, guaranteed to be yours, like extra low round draft picks.

Especially with a higher TCR (I use 145) - who knows.

Sure it's luck but so is all development, technically. It's all probabilities and randomness and most of it is out of our hands.

Given that, I feel like, I might as well roll as many dice, so to speak, as possible. What's the worst that could happen?

[KBLover]

Originally Posted by NoOne

i'd also assume everythign is relative to baseline. so 3x baseline is the same quality regardless of actual value used? could be wrong. with a max budget you can really bump up the amatuer and mil scouting and still maintain excellent MLB ratings accuracy.

if you draft more than you trade for prospects, then you should obviously favor that budget... or vice versa if you trade for more assets than you draft on you mlb teams, on average. plus any contexts where it makes sense to switch it up temporarily.

I do have the indy leagues in the save. Frontier, Can-Am, etc., and I do some of both trading for prospects and like building through the draft.

My reasoning for the budgets is good info on the kids in the draft + once they get in the system + better info on the prospects in the league, all working with a scout that presumably does them both well (Leg/Leg in both those), and since we're talking young players - grading them on their future (tools) and handing playing time to those deemed with the brightest futures (set minors lineups based on potential) seems sensible to me for most of their minor league lives.

I'm assuming more budget means more to spend which means a better modifier or whatever under the hood for scout performance/accuracy chances (if spending $5 mil on a category is better than $2 mil, I can more easily spend that $5 mil with a higher budget). Otherwise, why can we spend more than the baseline? (and why is it capped for that matter)

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by Dyzalot

In my purely anecdotal observations over a thousand plus simmed or played modern era seasons with OOTP the last decade, I remember seeing far more success from guys with high contact, high power and extremely low eye ratings than anything close to extremely low contact, high power and high eye ratings. In fact I can't remember a single guy that was even at least an average MLB starter with a contact rating below five on a 1-20 scale. Whereas I remember several players just on teams that were "mine" where I was getting All Star or even Hall of Fame levels of production for many years with eye ratings below five on that same scale.. But it does make sense that generally in the abstract, all else being equal, more "eye" is better than less.

not only that their counting stats look FAR better for their careers...

it's tough to hit a ton of homeruns when you walk 150 times per year, including ibb. i like my power hitters to be sub-100 walk/162g season.

where you are at in teh lineup adds a whole 'nother can of beans to the argument, lol....

i think what someone else said is extremely important too. they mentioned who is in front of you/ behind you being supremely importnat. not only that most data or break-even analaysis is typicaly based upon leauge average, which is not so accurate for any good team.

think if they say you need to steal ~75% of the time and that's based upon league average... if oy have a great offensive team, you better steal at a higher clip or bet at the bottom of the lineup, because you are costing your team runs at 75% almost assuredly.

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by KBLover

I do have the indy leagues in the save. Frontier, Can-Am, etc., and I do some of both trading for prospects and like building through the draft.

My reasoning for the budgets is good info on the kids in the draft + once they get in the system + better info on the prospects in the league, all working with a scout that presumably does them both well (Leg/Leg in both those), and since we're talking young players - grading them on their future (tools) and handing playing time to those deemed with the brightest futures (set minors lineups based on potential) seems sensible to me for most of their minor league lives.

I'm assuming more budget means more to spend which means a better modifier or whatever under the hood for scout performance/accuracy chances (if spending $5 mil on a category is better than $2 mil, I can more easily spend that $5 mil with a higher budget). Otherwise, why can we spend more than the baseline? (and why is it capped for that matter)

it's defintiely a nice little benefit when those aren't active. you can go way over the baseline in the amatuer/mil and spend just enough in the MLB for awesome accuracy too. with the 4th in play, you have to make sacrifices.

Be logical about it, but if you recognize you get players more from one source than another, try to maximize that when it makes sense. be willing to try each way and in between to find what works best over time. e.g. it's not as easy as it once was to trade for prospects.

cap -- probably to avoid abuse. if you can overpsend to get near 100% accuracy and the other 29 teams do what AI teams do with their budgets as you see... well, that's not quite fair.

I often play with a salary cap in my leagues, so extra spending cash is somethign i can very often put to better use than the AI, like maxing dev and scouting budgets. i bet this sort of mechanic is aimed at people like me and much worse, lol.

regardless, i'd assume there's a diminishing returns as you spend more, but could be wrong. maybe, it's just to stop us from shooting ourselvs in the foot by burning money.

i am all about maxing those budgets, don't get me wrong.

[Dyzalot]

Originally Posted by NoOne

not only that their counting stats look FAR better for their careers...

it's tough to hit a ton of homeruns when you walk 150 times per year, including ibb. i like my power hitters to be sub-100 walk/162g season.

where you are at in teh lineup adds a whole 'nother can of beans to the argument, lol....

i think what someone else said is extremely important too. they mentioned who is in front of you/ behind you being supremely importnat. not only that most data or break-even analaysis is typicaly based upon leauge average, which is not so accurate for any good team.

think if they say you need to steal ~75% of the time and that's based upon league average... if oy have a great offensive team, you better steal at a higher clip or bet at the bottom of the lineup, because you are costing your team runs at 75% almost assuredly.

Not sure I agree with what I think you are stating. There are quite a few examples of guys like Barry Bonds at the extreme but even guys like Reggie Jackson. Jackson had several seasons, including his best offensive season, where the spread between his batting average and on base percentage were greater than 100 points. His best HR, RBI, OPS & oWAR season also happens to be the only season he drew over 100 walks with 114.

So if I have a choice between a 15 contact, 15 power, 10 eye on the 1-20 scale or a 15 contact, 15 power, 20 eye hitter, I will always choose the latter.

[ThePride87]

Originally Posted by KBLover

I want talent coming in from every possible avenue. And increasing amateur budget is something I'd want to do anyway and the game says it impacts quality of discoveries, and I have that system enabled...so might as well let them in, too. Why not?

And I notice that since raising MiLB and Ammy scouting up, the discoveries have been looking better. Could be just coincidence, especially the MiLB one (the game doesn't mention that as improving discoveries). But...I want both high anyway...so why not?

I'm assuming my scout with his "Legendary" amateur scouting ability isn't going to be too far off, especially with $4 mil to work with, no?

It only takes one or two solid players to make it worth it, imo. After all, they were free, guaranteed to be yours, like extra low round draft picks.

Especially with a higher TCR (I use 145) - who knows.

Sure it's luck but so is all development, technically. It's all probabilities and randomness and most of it is out of our hands.

Given that, I feel like, I might as well roll as many dice, so to speak, as possible. What's the worst that could happen?

The thing that has me rethinking what I said was prior info about how the more $ you throw into a particular scouting section, the less effect it will have (i.e. the difference between $0M to $4M is greater than $4M to $8M...you don't get double the accuracy because you went from $4M to $8M, there's some sort of exponential relationship here...at least past posts suggest this is common knowledge nowadays)....so if my goal is to optimize my organization as the gm, maybe I'm wrong in assuming completely throwing away international scouting and throwing more $ into minors/amateurs is a good idea. Maybe spreading the $ out is the optimal strategy (doesn't have to be $6M across the board). I don't think my intentions are wrong....I do believe the draft and my minors are more important than hoping my scout can find me hidden talent on a whim....but say I have a max $24M scouting budget. Throwing that $6M from international scouting out and dividing it up with the other 3 may not have much of an effect on the grand scheme of things...that extra $2M in minors will matter a little, of course. But will going from $6M to $8M with a top-tier scout really show enough difference to warrant destroying all of my international discoveries? Maybe not, maybe you are right.

I acknowledge I am likely WAAAAAAAY overthinking it. A $24M scouting budget when the median of the other 29 teams is ~$7M means a massive advantage, so worrying about the difference between $6M and $8M for amateurs and minors feels like overkill. (I also can see why many prefer a cap or "house rules" on something like this.....yes the AI has the availability to spend $60M on scouting and development combined, but I know it never will, it's not programmed to do so. I'll eventually hold the upper hand because of this).

[jimmysthebestcop]

Originally Posted by KBLover

I don't go to 0% but ML scouting is my lowest allocation.

I currently have 7/40/33/20 allocation of a $15 M budget (baseline is $5 M and change so I'm at max)

Scout is Ex/Leg/Leg/Leg, Heavy Favors Tools

But the manual states if a player has 1 day of service time and a free agent then he is scouted by ML budget if in your home nation.

Major League Scouting Money spent on scouting major league players. This includes players from any parent league in your game that are in the same nation as this Scouting Director, as well as all free agents that have at least one day of professional service time.

So depending on game settings you might be missing out on youngsters that cut in the minors and are on the free agent list. Even though you are placing them in the minors.

I know I play with real service time so minor leaguers get cut all the time. With injuries you need to replenish the minors and sign free agents but they have service time so you need your ML scouts to do it.

Now if you dont change any settings on a default game you might not have this issue.

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by ThePride87

Not saying international scouting is 100% useless, but from all the info I've read around OOTP, it seems like spending $ on international scouting is a highly inefficient endeavor....yes you may find that diamond in the rough, but it's extremely rare and unpredictable. Meanwhile, getting better/more accurate info on hundreds of young players for a draft that you KNOW happens every year....it just seems as if spending that scouting budget more on that (as well as minors, depending on preference, like you said) makes a lot more sense, if the goal is to become as efficient of a gm as possible.

Not to derail the initial post here, I would be more interested in the whole highly favors tools test.....but I have to trust what NoOne is saying for now and stick with Neutral, until we get more evidence that tools is the better preference. Above all else, I want accurate information....I'm very hands-on with my transactions, so I don't want my scout swaying me in an artificial direction....just want the facts.

But if anyone else finds more about the tools vs ability thing, I'll be paying attention. Guys like NoOne and Sweed (among many others before me)....those are guys I'm gonna have to side with when they have advice, until there's more evidence....these are guys that have been here for years, I respect that. But always open to people's research and interest in this game.

I wouldn't put a dime into international spending, even if i had active independent leagues, but i tried to ride the fence on that one when i explained it so as not to step on any toes. unless those leagues were MLB-level talent or provide enough each year that a good portion of my team is sourced from there, then i'd be all about scouting them.

i put my resources where it does the most relative to where i expect to find prospects / replacements / that constant cycle etc etc without wasting (diminishing returns and such). if you only have scouting discoveries to worry about, you should definitely zero out int'l spending.. that's probably not just an opinion.

as far as teh favors stuff, maybe this explains it better:

you can go with an 18 year old or a college kid on neutral and you'll see them both on equal footing -- your understanding of what typically happens after that point and how that differs between the college kid and the high schooler is far far better than any skew that favor XXXX makes the ratings look like.

if you have a skew AND you know the difference, all you are doing is hiding the 'other' type by lowering their ratings only due to mostly age.

see what i mean by that? that setting will quantitatively cause AI managers to act differently based on the different ratings, not their understanding of an 18year old and a college kid, of which it does not contemplate. it's a setting fo rthe AI.

you, and anyone else without trying after just a couple observations, does a far better job of assessing the risk of the HS vs college kid choice at hand, if any.

you will undoubtedly make better choices this way too, but if you (plural you) role play a certain way and don't care as much about maximizing wins as how you feel and enjoy the game it really won't hurt you much and you can ameliorate that negative by digging deeper into the older draftee crowd or vice versa - but that's a needless step only due to that scout preference (or is it asst gm?). it is a video game in the end.

hey, i'm also going with the guy with significantly higher scouting ratings for sure. anywhre near the same and i take the nuetral scout, despite my beliefs on this... for obvious reasons.

improved accuracy and reducing false positives in the draft is most important. if i happen to have one of those types of scouts due to what is available, i will dig into the opposite type as necessary.

it's been so long.. does this only impact overall potential? or each indiividual current/potential rating? if it only impacts the overall ratings, then it probably won't impact how you find prospects, as long as your search and filters are based on individual ratings and never total overal/potential ratings.

needless to say, i'm dumping that scout and eating his contract the moment i find a near equivalent or better without the preference.

**************************

I have different baselines than the op, just the default ones. i think 5M-6M is diminishing returns on MLB scouting and a top-tier scout. heck, i woudn't be surprise if research showed ~4M as very accurate better than OSA for MLB level talent with anything above an average scout.

i used to spend more, but kept reducing that budget over time to dump into the others. i don't see many mistakes at 5M for MLB players. maybe it's impactful that first few months their rookie year? hardly worth it. i think with zeroing out int'l scouting and only spending ~5M, that i get up near the point where maximizing MiL or Amatuer scouting doesn't do much as i add more dollars.

those are the curves i'd want to know.. when is it a waste of money to put more into it -- sure it's proportional to baseline, so it shoudl translate.

if you understand that for each scouting budget, you can make the correct choices relative to your play style, regardless of any differences of opinions.

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by ThePride87

The thing that has me rethinking what I said was prior info about how the more $ you throw into a particular scouting section, the less effect it will have (i.e. the difference between $0M to $4M is greater than $4M to $8M...you don't get double the accuracy because you went from $4M to $8M, there's some sort of exponential relationship here...at least past posts suggest this is common knowledge nowadays)....so if my goal is to optimize my organization as the gm, maybe I'm wrong in assuming completely throwing away international scouting and throwing more $ into minors/amateurs is a good idea. Maybe spreading the $ out is the optimal strategy (doesn't have to be $6M across the board). I don't think my intentions are wrong....I do believe the draft and my minors are more important than hoping my scout can find me hidden talent on a whim....but say I have a max $24M scouting budget. Throwing that $6M from international scouting out and dividing it up with the other 3 may not have much of an effect on the grand scheme of things...that extra $2M in minors will matter a little, of course. But will going from $6M to $8M with a top-tier scout really show enough difference to warrant destroying all of my international discoveries? Maybe not, maybe you are right.

I acknowledge I am likely WAAAAAAAY overthinking it. A $24M scouting budget when the median of the other 29 teams is ~$7M means a massive advantage, so worrying about the difference between $6M and $8M for amateurs and minors feels like overkill. (I also can see why many prefer a cap or "house rules" on something like this.....yes the AI has the availability to spend $60M on scouting and development combined, but I know it never will, it's not programmed to do so. I'll eventually hold the upper hand because of this).

No matter what you do -- 24M or a house rule cap, you don't want it evenly spread, because tehy don't equate to the same results in each area.

MLB -- very easy to get right. takes much less money for great accuracy.

MiL -- not as easy as MLB and strongly correlated to svc time. so, a rookie is not anywhere near as accurate as a AAA player, who will resemble something closer to the accuracy of an MLB player most times. Age will be huge too -- maybe a 19 college kid is different than a 19 hs kid? i'd bet on that too being important that first year as any draft-related inaccuracies work themselves out with time. However, none of that is relevant to a AAA player unless they got there very quickly in their first year or so, possibly.

Amatuer... good luck.. there's a reason why most picks fail. most players in the draft suck. So, as you increase scout and budget, you get fewer false postives. use this to determine diminishing returns easily (mentioned this in long-winded post above).

diminishing returns -- when spending more gives you nothing in return. it may be wise to quit spending before the point it gives zero back. in general i play with a salary cap and have endless money to play with when it comes to development, scouting, and coaches et al. i'm simply going to spend it, because i can't spend it elsewhere, diminishing returns be d%mned.

with a max budget:

put ~5M into MLB and split the rest favoring where you get more prospects between MiL scouting and Amatuer scouting.

even 11 and 8 is likely beyond the point where it helps much. somtiems i dump 1M more into mlb to knock it upto 6M just to be safe. 10M on mil, because i trade for more high quality talent than i draft, but at 8M it's no problem for drafting either. when i know i will have a high draft choice, but that doesn't happen, i would swap those leading into a year i know my team isn't making the playoffs by far. (can't predict injuries, but you can be honest with yourself about talent-level of team -- harder for some than others.)

if you ever need a few million extra for an upcoming season, it's painless fat to trim.

ah, you say house rule? think ai maxes out at 2x or so? ~16M maybe ~18M? i would just make sure you spend as much as other teams on MiL and jsut enough to be accurate in MLB and spend like a drunk sailor on your amatuer budget.

you could still do ~4.5-5M for MLB ~4M for MiL and 7M for amatuer and rock out (500k to play iwth plus more wiggle since you can be exectly those numbers.

possibly:

4 - mlb
5 - mil
7? - draft - +2, if 18M -- or 1m each to amatuer and mil.

a couple AI teams might outspend you in the majors, but you won't have a major negative impact competitively speaking. you will be near the top for the MiL too, and by far the top with the draft. the AI should have no advantages over you with the easy to scout players (MLB / AAA etc) and you should be much better at drafting. you'll be able to find prospects in their low levels that are still poorly rated from the draft and you see them much better than the AI. you'll stil lbe able to take advantage of a information gradient on the MiL players, but not later in their service time.

1 year before you can trade for them, unless you change this setting.

as far as discoveries... i once put 24M into it when i had 100% accuracy on for a season or two, long long ago in a galaxy far far away.

it doesn't help much, if at all noticeably... LoL. it's been a while and they could have changed it a bit, but those 'discoveries' are trash >99% of the time. even with a huge budget you might get 1-2 star players per 10-15years. when they are that age, they have a risk of falling apart like a well-rated 18 year old HS draftee, but even worse.

with a normal budget you may see something similar over 20-30 years? it's not enough to depend on, either way. it's a nice bonus, and that's it. there's virtually no return at any point spending on int'l scouting, if all you have is discoveries. even if yo have int'l leagues open, if the quality is low, they are irrelevant to 95% of your team. so, don't spend much on it.

you get a few more >20/80 type players too that aren't quite stars or possibly even MLBers. these guys are ubiquitous and don't add much value, though.

the typical discovery can't even progress beyond Short-A level most times. if you have a bunch of former discoveries in A-ball, i'd wager that team is below .500 in more times than not. if they permeate your AA and AAA levels, you likely have by far the worst MiL system in your league.

So, not only are they worthless to the MLB, they are mostly worthless to your MiL system, too. good at filling R and S-A and that is about it.