Quote:
Originally Posted by injury log
In OOTP terms, the Tools scout just focuses on a prospect's Potential ratings. The ability scout pays some attention to the guy's current ratings. The younger the player, the bigger the (possible) difference between the two scouts. If an 18 year old is already polished, and would succeed in the low minors right away, the Ability scout will like him. The Tools scout will also like him if he has good Potentials. On the other hand, if you have an 18 year old who is dead raw and would suck in Rookie ball, the Ability scout will hate him. The Tools scout might still like him if his Potential ratings are high.
This all makes sense, because in OOTP, guys who are really raw (very bad current ratings) are far riskier than polished guys with the same Potentials. So your Tools scout will like a lot of guys who are high-risk, high-reward -- a lot of them will flame out, but some will be stars. The Ability scout will like lower risk players, but will miss out on identifying some of the high-risk sky-high upside types.
It's probably best to choose your scout based on your attitude to risk. If you want to take a high-risk approach to prospects, pick a Tools scout. But a lot of the prospects he finds exciting will turn into junk later on. If you want a safer approach (but less exciting-looking draft pools), take the Ability scout.
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I feel like this theory falls apart when you unpack it. You are saying that the tools scout will find the players with high potentials, but low current values. That makes sense, but what does the tools scout find that the ability scout does not? I think it's more likely that the tools scout sees potential in a lot of players, but many of them don't really have it. The ability scout sees potential in very few players. If 50 players have good potential out of 100, maybe the tools scout says 70 players have great potential, but 20 of them won't really. The ability scout might see only 30 players with potential, and all 30 are successful, but he misses 20 more that high high potential.
Now, the question is what happens with current ratings with each scout?