Where does OOTP get its scouting ratings?

[Ashbury]

OOTP's scouting ratings for prospects seem to be based in some kind of reality, because they often match up with what I've seen, though sometimes not exactly. What's OOTP's scouting source?


I'm asking because I've recently gotten in the habit of checking OOTP when I run across a player I am curious about IRL. E.g. I want to know, how's this A-ball outfielder's arm? How sound are those ratings, and should I really treat it as a source?

[Lukas Berger]

We get them from everywhere. There's no one source, we use anything that's available publicly. Fangraphs, MLB Pipeline, minorleagueball, Baseball America, Perfect Game etc. etc. etc.

You name it, we probably get something from them.

I definitely wouldn't treat OOTP as a main source of prospect info, though you can probably use OOTP to find out about some guys you might not know so much about.

Overall, the ratings are pretty accurate given how hard it is not get info on a lot of players, but we're already taking information from second and third-hand sources on the internet, lots of whom disagree with each other and trying to get that all synthesized into ratings that make sense in-game.

So hopefully we aren't too far off in most cases, but our information is definitely not coming directly from scouts or anything like that, so it can only be as good as the sources we use.

[Ashbury]

Thanks for the insight. I'll factor it into how I use OOTP for thinking about prospects - a helpful guide but not based on something I can reference when talking to others, and only a starting point.

You're aggregators. Kind of like Nate Silver. That's a useful niche.

[wallewalls]

I love it when a prospect comes up to the MLB in real life or when i'm following the draft and it's a player that I know because of OOTP success. I always root for the guys that do well for me in the virtual world