Looking for a good video tutorial or thread for...

[SayHey1]

...offseason stuff. I am COMPLETELY clueless on how to go about using scouting and evaluating talent....even how to find the right place to look at players, how to aquire them, how to develop players in my minor league system. Also, a good tutorial on handling finances and contract negotiations would also be very welcome. Thanks in advance for any help here!

[22tbrads22]

Honestly what helped me the most when I first started was to just keep playing. You begin to understand what certain players will sign for. as for development I have noticed it is a basically a crapshoot with younger players. sometimes a 4 star prospect won't pan out and a 1 star will jump in one years time to a 4.5 star top prospect. that's what makes this game so fun, the randomness.

[igor7111]

Originally Posted by SayHey1

...offseason stuff. I am COMPLETELY clueless on how to go about using scouting and evaluating talent....even how to find the right place to look at players, how to aquire them, how to develop players in my minor league system. Also, a good tutorial on handling finances and contract negotiations would also be very welcome. Thanks in advance for any help here!

I could use some help with this as well.

[SayHey1]

Originally Posted by 22tbrads22

Honestly what helped me the most when I first started was to just keep playing. You begin to understand what certain players will sign for. as for development I have noticed it is a basically a crapshoot with younger players. sometimes a 4 star prospect won't pan out and a 1 star will jump in one years time to a 4.5 star top prospect. that's what makes this game so fun, the randomness.

Thank you for the reply, but it doesn't really answer the basic questions I posed. I VERY MUCH want to make the calls (including mistakes) on incoming talent....I just have no clue where in the game to look to evaluate talent, how to use my scouting department, how to balance my finances to get the biggest bang for my buck, etc. I get just jumping in...I have tried (successfully) to negotiate an extention for Justin Verlander....I have no idea whether it was a good extention or not...time will tell. I would like to "jump in" on scouting and evaluating talent and making offers, sending them to minors, developing them. Hopefully, that makes sense... I just have no idea how to start!

[Orcin]

You should read some threads on the Dynasty Forum. Many of the players there walk through their offseason in great detail and explain their moves/decisions as they go.

[NoOne]

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player eval:

play with 100% accuracy to learn what ratings are important.. settings can make a huge difference here... i don't play with 100% default settings, so my perceptions will be different for a real reason.

also, use the largest scales offered - 1-100 for ratings and 20-80 for overall/potential overall. eliminates 'more' rounding errors than the smaller scales (real ratings under-the hood are 1-200 + 50 over max which is above the 1-100 scale or whichever scale you use/see) you can always change back after learning as much as you can.. just realize rounding will affect what you see more so with a smaller scale - more fog of war, less precise etc.

batters are easy... contact is a bit more complicated than the other ratings.. just know it is made up of BABIP(unseen) ratings, avoid K's rating and power. i.e. not all visibly equal "contact" ratings are equal... the proportion of each factor is very important to results.

you'll find nearly all amazing hitters are at least ~80/100 of scale for contact. can some perform consistently at an elite level slightly below that? sure... probably more liekly a power hitter and not an elite OBP guy, though.

deadball vs steroid era will make a difference too... ie power may be marginalized in a league that doesn't hit many HR/XBH etc. not sure if contact adjusts to taht or not... if not you need to reduce the weight of power in your head in lower hr leagues. (if true, basically guys with high power would have inflated contacts that don't match results)

pitchers are way more complicated than batters. like contact, stuff and movement are a conglomerate of multiple factors. control translates directly from under-the-hood ratings, but types of pitches thrown will also influence walk rate etc etc...

just a mess of a multitude of factors that influence success at what looks to be the same ratings for stuff/movement and control. (excludes normal volatility)

focus on individual stuff ratings of pitches in profile... combinations.. how it affects splits vs lefty or righty.. 3+ pitches needed for a SP - only one can be "1/2" scale if you expect them to be dominant... and the other 2 better be amazing in that case. with RP, you only need 2 dominant pitches to be dominant with acceptable move/control of course.

bb/9 will tell you if their control is good enough.. in general 3bb/9 (or bit higher) or less is "good" or acceptable. can you do well with a much higher value, sure, but less likely. this wil ldepend on league stats and ai settings, too. this assumes roughly a modern default environment.

once you have a strong grasp of what combination of ratings have the best results in your league, go ahead and turn scouting inaccuracy back on, because it's more fun that way

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developement:

i prefer to promote ASAP.. some prefer to let talent simmer... what i guarantee is there is not specific and absolutely necessary minimum # of AB or IP needed before a promotion or even playing in the MLB... simply isn't true...

some 18year olds can succeed at AAA and even in the MLB (an extreme outlier, might take 10-50years or more to see one capable), but most will not even with ratings that warrant a placement at AAA or ML. simply promote yougner and highly rated prospects until you see them flop. at that point, you know the previous level is the "right" level for that moment in time.

otherwise, allow their development to dictate what level they should be playing at. only if they totally flop should you demote to previous level (not just bad, but historically bad, lol - no doubt about it terrible results).

if not sure what ratings a particular level should have, check out some other teams (100% accuracy helps here, like above). what's the AI doing? what range of contacts do you see for batters at any given level.. somewhere in that range is probably "good". what's optimal? no one has that info wihtout intenst amount of research that no one has done that i've seen.

once again, pitchers are more complicated... SP and RP have slightly different thresholds... combinations of stuff/move/control may allow for 1 of those three to be a bit weak relative to most of the competition at that leve, but still perform well. somewhat true with batters, but a 20/100contact with a 100/100eye isn't going to play much higher than short a, if that. no quite the same for pitchers.. if stuff is extremely high, an RP can play above what their control says they should be at in the MiL levels.

you can see my guesses in the "guide for beginners" in the "new to ootpxx' forum -- has not been adjusted for '19, but probably similar, nonetheless. basically the point where they'll be roughly ~100ops+ for batters, which means about average for that league. 90ops+? doesn't bother me.. 70-80 i get a bit worried. (suitable sample required or it's just a knee jerk reaction)

for pitchers, anythign that is ~league average in resutls... more complicated, too many moving parts to explain.. need to experience it and leaern it through use.

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contracts:

you need to know your financial environment... pay attention to Finances Report at some point during season -- it lists top-25 salaries that year... know what a "max" contract is so you can identify a crazy demand that will likely drop over time.

understand that the amount of money availabe affects contrats.. so the settings for each type in Finance settings isn't necessarily with a "superstar" will get paid.. it's relative to your leaugue's revenues, too.

out of the box modern defautls-- i bet ~40-42M is a max amount you'll see? not many will get this, though. i'd risk anyone asking for that much to sign them in FA over an extension. then scale to player quality and what oyu see for that quality of player, if not the highest-end quality... all relative - same exact process.

you need to know how much payroll you can expect to have over time... it's relative to success... know how it ramps up and down as you win or lose.. etc etc.. when you have a winning team you should know how much you can spend on payroll... know how many large contracts you can maintain at one time or one window of time etc... when you know these things, you can avoid bad financial situations.. know when to trade to avoid them... know when you can sign that big-contract FA and whether it will scr#w you in the future etc etc.

start with arbitration years:

know how arb years scale up.. batters and SP are similar, while RP are reduced values. by the final arbitraion year, a great player can be as high as 18-20M/year or even a bit higher (maybe 22-25m a soft cap depending on a multitude settings?).

there are good extension and bad extensions... if they ask for too much relative to what you see on the top 25 salaries each year (or their caliber of quality) and what you have learned the AI will pay over time, you can probably save money by bidding on this guy in FA rather than signing to an extension... might save 5-10M/year in some cases.

if they ask for too much, i always let it ride out through arbitraiton contracts (or trade before i lose them if the return is better than a compensation pick), then go to FA to re-sign...

if they offer a deal, accounting for over-paying in the bought out arb years, i almost always sign them. (assumes i am not exceeding the max # of big contracts i know i can afford relative to my revenues) guys that play for cheaper contracts allow you to sign more quality players.. the more of these types of contracts you have, of the big ones, the better off you are.

FA-

demands drop over time.. do not offer a contract until it's ~near what you intend to offer... if you low-ball a guy early on in the process and they refuse to talk to you, it's over... even if their demand drops below what you initially offered.

all about timing... don't upset them. based on your knoweldge of what players of that caliber normally get paid, you can reasonably expect that demand to drop from orbit to a more normal range.. you can typically got a bit below what the demand is without upsetting them.. maybe 5-10%? give or take a bit.

reasons the demand might not drop much: large market teams are in the bidding war... or multiple teams with a huge amount of budget space to spend... information you can glean from the Finances Reports as stated above. this are the situations players get 40M/year or more than what their quality typically gets for the non-superstars.

supply and demand forces are at play...

draw a line in the sand relative to that quality of player and what you are willing to spend on them.. if it doesn't drop that low, you already decided it was a good thing not to sign them and no loss for you.

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finances:

all about musical chairs...a good mix of young to "prime" years is always best. avoid "old" players like the plague - they can fall apart at any moment and you can't salvage anything from them at that point. you need some cheaper 500k-few million arbitraiton guys mixed in with teh heavy contracts to maximize success.

if smart and regimented, you should be making most your decisions for 2-3 or even 5 years in advance. nearly everythign i trade for is about the future... trying to always meet current nees is 10x more expensive.

i very rarely keep guys through age 32-33, unless they are RP.. then i will stretch them to 34-35 before i get really antsy about aging problems. with batters they are almost assuredly traded or let go by 31/32 or before.

if their contracts go longer than that age, i make sure to trade them long before any reduction in ratings occur for prospects that fit future needs - 2-3-5 years down the line. do i miss out on 1-2 or 3 years of prime production? maybe, but avoid a lot more of the bad and it's a net positive over time. the snake eats its own tail.. if oyu don't trade them while they are still good, you cannot get anythign in return. if you did this from the beginning, you already have options for a replacement in your system and it's not a problem.

i may lose some wins in current year, but i am adding 10 in the next ~5 etc... even with a low budget team you can make the playoffs nearly every single year with good financial management.

when i sort my salary sheet by age there are a coupe distinct trends.. one, contract lenghts are longer for the younger ages, obviously. two, i don't have a ton of players in teh same 1-2 year range very often... stagger it as best you can.. if there's a glut of similar ages you must stagger getting rid of them.. likely a bit earlier than normal for 1 or 2 of them.

real life example.. i currently have 5 important batters aged 26-27... it is not a problem "now" but i know it will be within ~5-6 years. you can't replace 5 players in one year and expect the replacements to all be good let alone afford allthose needed trades/FA. i need to trade one or two a bit early and stagger it for the sake of my future success. what i have coming up in my system and ready first will dictate this, mostly.

normally i avoid this problem. if it comes up i have to make a hard decisions about trading a good player or two ealrier than i would normally (these decisions are made many years in advance - even before their extension etc - those would be the prospect targets i traded for many years ago)... maybe age29-30 instead of ~31 etc. sometimes it is unavoidable, but as long as you recognize the problem and plan an escape early, you are fine. (ie stagger the replacemnts, not all at ~32)

trading on day one of offseason is way easier than any other time of the year. more teams are flush with budget space, so you have more options to check out. you don't have to take on any heavy contracts to offset their payroll issues too.

buying players at the trade deadline is paying a premium... always avoid buying "high"... you want to sell "high" lol...proper plannig can avoid buying high 99.99999% of the time.

avoid FA at all costs if you can... unless it's someone who demanded too much in an extension, or it's a necessary piece for your team's success and a decent price etc.. fits your future budgets too. basically if a couple prospects i traded for fell though on development, i resort to FA.

relating back to how many big contracts your team can handle...

i have a "core" of the 25-man team i care about.. that i know if they are all good i am playoff or WS bound in all but years with catastrophic injuries. i play with a big budget, so you may need to reduce this for your context:

4SP-- (preferably 4) awsome sp.. upto 20-30M/year type guys. i.e. your playoff rotation

3RP(4?) -- again amazing.. any of them could be a closer on any team (8-15M/year, sometimes more)

~6-7+ high-end batters.. 1-2 obp guy then as much power as i can afford to fill in 3-7 in lineup. #2 hitter should be able to hit at least 20hr consistently, but they don't come up to bat with as many RBI-opportunities as slots later in the lineup. they score nearly as much as they drive in, so they should have some basic running skills, if possible.
#1 i won't waste money on a hr-hitter.. i want a high obp with good runnign skills.

so 12-15 players i want to count on for the majority of production... this will offer the best chances in the playoffs..

poorer team?

6pitchers, 4-5 batters.. that'd be ~100M-120M in payroll even if they are all bigger contracts and enough to fill out the rest of the team with decent talent. hopefully at least a few of them are in arbitration years, which should allow for some years when you have more than the minimum core players.

every market can get to 150M, i bet...

durability is very important if oyu go this route... never rely on non-durable players for the "core" players. if they are icing on top, no problem.
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Revenues:

start fiddlign and learning how to squeeze as much as you can out of your gate revenue...

hint, in winning years with high fan interst, you want to charge a premium for season tickets... way higher than what you start out at opening day (charge a premium on openign day too, like playoff ticket price or higher).

it will not reduce your attendance.. as long as the math make ssense keep charging more if it results in increased revenue per game.

you can charge more on fri-sat-sun than on the weekdays and get the same attendance levels.. so do so. also, as you win... you can up the price throughout the season.. if you are charging the same on the last day as the first, you left money on the table.

you get an average ticket price... if your methods result in a higher average revenue per game than the previous year, keep ticing upward in season ticket price and be more aggressive upping price throughout year... until it ticks down.. then you know you found the ~near optimal point for ticket prices and revert back to what you did in the previous year.

no hand holding above... just concepts to work with.. extrapolate on your own too complicated to give step-by step instructions of any value