Well, so much for a decent scout...

I should have listened to the website scout as he was more accurate it seems.  Get this, my top three drafted players: Carl Lewis, Eric Bond and  Yu-xing Change all had HUGE talent drops.  When I say huge I mean from 5 stars to 1 star, -3 or -4 for all pitching talent stats.  I don't see how this could be so bad since my scout is "balanced".  He gives equal weight to old school and new school scouting methods.  I should have atleast had a 50-50 shot on these guys, as it happens they won;t even make it out of single A, never mind a cup of joe.

For a team that is trying to rebuild through the draft, this is a pretty big blow.  Not that anything can be done about it now...

Is there any plan to fix these scouts to make them less of a crap shoot? What the point of drafting if its all so random?

Well, no one knows how those guys will turn out.

Especially since they aren't in your pitching staff in A.

They haven't pitched much. Might want to get going on that.

Em does have a good point.  I've noticed that if I don't set my minor league rosters so that at least my good prospects get regular work, they tend to tail off in talent pretty quickly.  I blew that with a SS prospect, and he had a substantial talent drop across the board.  The only good news is that I started playing him regularly and he steadily improved again.  He's in AAA now, and might be a major league player soon.  So there's still hope for these guys.  I definitely understand your frustration though - it really made me nervous staring at that draft board and seeing such a drastic difference in opinions of players by the various scouts.  I liked in OOTP6.5 and previous where we used scouts, and there were some differences, but they were not as drastically different as what we've seen from OOTP9 so far.  Maybe positive player development is better in general, so that many of these players, if they get the appropriate minor league experience, could grow into useful major league players.  That's the best hope.

If it works that way, having a scout that manages to pick the superstars from the average players will be an advantage...

Good luck with those guys - maybe they'll still work out OK.  I believe my hyper-conservative scout had at least one of those guys as a pretty good prospect at draft time...

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Caelon
GM New York Empire

I too had noticed that I had some prospects that weren't playing. I just went quickly through the minors, used suggested lineups and stuff, and then made sure the guys I had noticed were in those lineups.

Is there a way to just have the computer handle that, with a setting to favor younger prospects? That might make a good default setting.

Let me get this straight... you are saying "It's your own fault since they aren't in the minor league rotation"

That shouldn't matter.  And honestly, you are dodging the issue.

According to the talent drops it happened well before opening day, before they were even able to throw a pitch.

How can their potential be so different in two months?  Are you suggesting that if I put them in the rotation then they will magically return to 5 star prospects?

Doza:

Let me get this straight... you are saying "It's your own fault since they aren't in the minor league rotation"

That shouldn't matter.  And honestly, you are dodging the issue.

According to the talent drops it happened well before opening day, before they were even able to throw a pitch.

How can their potential be so different in two months?  Are you suggesting that if I put them in the rotation then they will magically return to 5 star prospects?

Shouldn't matter based on what?

I'm saying that their ratings appear to be not what you were hoping for, but by the same account, none of your minor league system is really set up. Your players aren't getting reps. Given that this is OOTP9 and it's as realistic a sim as there is, what would lead you to believe that not letting your top draft picks play won't hurt them?

I think you're paying far too much attention to the potential ratings, and not enough to what they can actually do if they play. What your scout says is not the end-all-be-all. It isn't in real life, and it isn't in the game.

I would have more sympathy for your plight if you were taking care of your minor league system, even just asking the AI to set it all up. Something. You don't even have the guys in your rotation, and your scout is going by potential and what he sees them doing, but you don't have them doing anything, and you're surprised that your scout thinks they stink.

Also, what report are you looking at that says they happened before opening day? The draft took place on 3/1, and I don't see any reports between 3/1 and 4/1.


I will say that prior to next draft, we will adjust the scouts to have less variance. There are two settings we can work with: Scouting accuracy, which is currently set to normal, and the scouting ratings, which are currently set to 7's across the board.

I think 7/10 is probably about where we want it, but I think I'll plan to up the accuracy to the next tick to see if that lowers the variance.

Having said that, it'll will be years before we have an idea of how accurate our scouts were. With playing time and a few seasons under their belt, those guys your scout dropped talent for could end up being really solid.

Right now there are some team scouts who still think those guys are studs, FYI.

To Gnorst's point, there is the Manager options tab on your home page that gives you the option to have the AI manage various parts of your team.

Personally, I comprimise by tinkering with some things myself, and for others I just go to Actions and ask the Manager/Bench Coach to set my lineups/rotations.

I asked the AI to fill those in on opening day.  Dunno why they would be empty now...

Still it shouldn't matter, based on what I mentioned before (did you read my post?)

Their ratings were already reduced BEFORE opening day.  So your claim that they were reduced because they weren't playing is incorrect.  And when i say opening day I say 4/1. I'll check when I get home but I am positive that their ratings were reduced before the first minor league game in that league.   I guess not playing in game #1 is horrifying in a young players eyes, enough to turn them from a Pujols to a Womack.

I can't really say it any clearer than that. 

There are serious issues with scouting.  We should either increase the scouting accuracy dramatically, or just disable them. 

I didn't claim that they were reduced because of playing time. I said that it very well could be part of the equation in player development.

It's also part of the equation in how your scout views a player. If they get no playing time, their stats are skewed, and the part of your scout that judges things based on performance is out of whack.

I asked you to tell me what you're basing the statement that playing time plays no part in development.

Just because of your situation right here, right now, doesn't mean scouting is broken.

Immediately after the draft, the players I drafted weren't quite what my scout thought they were before the draft. I assume that is the effect Doza is talking about here. I chalked it up to using more of the coaches in the opinion of the player, based on actually seeing the player every day, against professional competition, rather than seeing that player a few times playing against amateurs as a scout. It was kind of annoying when a 5-star prospect suddenly became a 4-star (or worse), but I guess it's probably fairly realistic.

In any case, I guess I would suggest looking for players in the draft that both your scout and the OSA scout like. I know I didn't quite believe that there were as many awesome prospects as my scout thought there were.

Here are a few enlightening posts on the OOTP boards concerning scouts:

I wondered why my previously requested reports didn't show up in the Player Development report:
Past scouting reports thread

From the manual:

In addition to the two most recent reports, you are also provided with a list of past reports, so that you can compare how the scouting reports for this player have changed over time. Your scouting director will save one report from each prior calendar year, typically the very first report on the player, plus the report from the start of Spring Training each year. In our example above, you'll notice that Jones' staff tells him that between 1/1/08 and 3/7/09, Walt Sim's contact ability has dropped from 17 to a 15.

Ability versus Tools


In my research tonight, one thing that I picked up was that unless your scout highly favors tools (i.e. potential, regardless of current ratings or stats), your player's stats, as well as current ratings, will play into the scout's view of him as well.

Doza:

Let me get this straight... you are saying "It's your own fault since they aren't in the minor league rotation"

That shouldn't matter.  And honestly, you are dodging the issue.

According to the talent drops it happened well before opening day, before they were even able to throw a pitch.

How can their potential be so different in two months?  Are you suggesting that if I put them in the rotation then they will magically return to 5 star prospects?

You are definitely right about how ratings can change before opening day. I drafted a MR who my scout listed as a 5-star prospect in the draft. As soon as he was placed on my roster, he was just another .5-star player.

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Capital City Bombers (1993-2004)

As far as I know, the ratings a player has while in the draft pool, and after you have drafted him have changed slightly or significantly in every single version of OOTP version we have played that has had scouting turned on.

And Doza, honestly you cannot say conclusively that the scouting system is broken if you're top three players busted, and given that we pretty much know that there is a lot of variation in how you can: 1. set up your scouts (focus on minors, focus on the BBL, draft superstars vs everyday players, etc.), and 2. set up the quality of scouting.  There is just too much uncertainty.  It sucks though.  At least they did not get career ending injuries. 

Finally, Em and Caelon are right that your players might rebound if your minor league lineups are set up to make them play.  I have notice that there is more of a proclivity for potential (and actual ratings) increases if they play, and vice versa.

I do think that the scouting "accuracy" setting should be adjusted a little bit higher, because quite frankly there is enough variation created through the other settings.  Or maybe we just need to get used to it.

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Berd
Manager, Latrobe Lightning