International Scouting

[jaguar8311]

Hello, I run an MLB league based on the real life one with College and high school feeder leagues with all the minor leagues and thats it for my universe.

My question is International Scouting Pointless in this? all the international players still enter the draft and play for the feeder league teams.

Thanks

[1998 Yankees]

That's a good question. Most of the people found overseas are scrubs (partly depending upon the quality of your scout and the international scouting budget, of course). If you have foreigners who are also scrubs entering your draft every season, the excitement of finding a prospect from a foreign land is diminished. This is why my league is 100% American so that when I do see (or find) a foreign ballplayer that can play well, I know it came from international scouting.

[jaguar8311]

I am confused, you put the league foriegner percentage to "0", and your universe still creates foriegn players?

Is there anyway that I can set it up like IRL, so mostly americans are in the highschool and college ranks and therefore, enter the draft, would I just reduce the forienger percantage of those 2 feeder leagues? would that mean all the good foriegn players would have scouted internationally and not enter the draft.

If I reduced the foriegner % in my feeder leagues, would that mean that my international scouting would produce good players much akin to IRL or would I just overall be decreasing the amount of foriengers in my universe? I have all the minor leagues and MLB set to 30% foreigner %

Thanks

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by jaguar8311

I am confused, you put the league foriegner percentage to "0", and your universe still creates foriegn players?

Is there anyway that I can set it up like IRL, so mostly americans are in the highschool and college ranks and therefore, enter the draft, would I just reduce the forienger percantage of those 2 feeder leagues? would that mean all the good foriegn players would have scouted internationally and not enter the draft.

If I reduced the foriegner % in my feeder leagues, would that mean that my international scouting would produce good players much akin to IRL or would I just overall be decreasing the amount of foriengers in my universe? I have all the minor leagues and MLB set to 30% foreigner %

Thanks

I'll tell you what I did, but first a little bit about why. I wanted a MLB league that was more like the 1950's and 1960's with mostly American players but a sprinkling of foreigners good enough to make the grade in our national pastime (apologies all around - no offense intended). With foreigner percentage set to 30%, you get many international players in your amateur draft and from some strange, non-baseball (to me) countries.

First of all I set the foreigner percentage in all of my leagues to 0%. Every draft is 100% American (I did, however, make sure to have a rich racial mix - I'm not a xenophobe!).

I then edited my nations.txt file to have only those nations that have any creditable baseball quality in the game. I started my league with this file in place but you can reimport it in Global Setup.

Finally, I set a foreign players limit of 5 based on team nationality (U.S.). I can raise or lower that number as I see fit; for now it seems OK.

So, when I list all the players in my MLB league and sort by nationality, I now have 30 foreigners in my game from logical places like Austrailia (2), Bahamas (1), Canada (4), Costa Rica (1), Cuba (5), Dominican Republic (3), Japan (5), Nicaragua (2), Panama (1), Puerto Rico (3), Korea (1), and Virgin Islands (1). All places logical enough to have produced baseball prospects over the three seasons my league has been operating, and all discovered by international scouting.

Not all of these players are good, of course. Only about half of them are on major league rosters, the rest are scrubby free agents. I do see many more foreigners in the minor leagues and again most are one-star players. But, I am satisfied to note the red-hot slugger that Kansas City just put at second base is a Puerto Rican and the guy I just brought up to shore up my bullpen is from the Virgin Islands (yep, the one guy above from VI).

The only thing that some people may have trouble with is that this does not replicate the Dice-K kind of foreign free agency frenzy. Most of these guys in my game are young prospects when found by international scouting. However, a few are older; the Dominican MR pitcher signed by the Baltimore Orioles was 26 when he was discovered and I can imagine him as having played for the Tigres del Licey for a few years prior.

This is the way I handle foreigner element in my game without the hassle of having Japanese, Korean, Mexican, Venezuelan, and other foreign leagues in my game. Those take up too much time to set up and monitor, too many players are in the game slowing it down and bloating file sizes, and I can never get the free agency flow (only a few of the top foreign 5-star players coming over to MLB) to operate properly. Besides, the Dice-K phenomenon would not have happened in the 50's, 60's, and 70's.

[jaguar8311]

Thank you for your reply! however, it seems like none of these players that are discovered in my game amount to anything(except for 1 Canadian guy). So is there a way to make the international talent better? This is if I make the draft purely an American one.

Also, if I start a game in 2008, are there any guides or gamesaves that replicate the real world as much as possible? like with all the leagues and proper financial settings and all of that?

Thank you very much for you reply and I hope to hear from you(or someone) again.

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by jaguar8311

Thank you for your reply! however, it seems like none of these players that are discovered in my game amount to anything(except for 1 Canadian guy). So is there a way to make the international talent better? This is if I make the draft purely an American one.

Also, if I start a game in 2008, are there any guides or gamesaves that replicate the real world as much as possible? like with all the leagues and proper financial settings and all of that?

Thank you very much for you reply and I hope to hear from you(or someone) again.

Hmmm. If you are talking about the prospects that you have discovered, try getting a better scout and increasing your international scouting budget. Other than that, you should see some good prospects that other teams have found, at least.

Regarding 2008 replication, I believe your best bets are to create a new game with either the standard Major American League (using the league creation wizard) or the MLB Quickstart game (using the New Major League Game option on the menu). Both of these have been designed to replicate modern day baseball in terms of finances, statistical balance, and game strategy. Create a test league and take a look at the settings.