how useful is the top 100 prospects list

[chriskelly]

How useful do you guys find the top 100 prospects list when evaluating young players for trade, or even for an inaugural draft? I feel like I over value it. I'm also a little confused on how the potential rating works regarding age of player. In other words, will an 18 yr old and a 23 yr old with the same current and potential ratings have the same overall potential rating? By my example I mean the 18 year old has already developed his current skills to where the 23 year old is; he seems to have a much better chance to reach his potential.

[Déjà Bru]

Originally Posted by chriskelly

How useful do you guys find the top 100 prospects list when evaluating young players for trade, or even for an inaugural draft? I feel like I over value it. I'm also a little confused on how the potential rating works regarding age of player. In other words, will an 18 yr old and a 23 yr old with the same current and potential ratings have the same overall potential rating? By my example I mean the 18 year old has already developed his current skills to where the 23 year old is; he seems to have a much better chance to reach his potential.

I find the list to be helpful, but not authoritative. That is a very healthy attitude to have in this game for things like scouting reports and ratings.

Regarding potential, a bit of the same attitude: If a scout reports an 18-year-old with high potential, I perk up and listen. For the same report on a 23-year-old, I am a bit skeptical because by that age, the player should have been realizing much of that potential as evidenced in current ratings and stats.

It's as intended. Unless you have scouting off or set to very high accuracy, things are supposed to be somewhat fuzzy in this regard, as IRL.