Who to trust? Amateur Draft Scouting : OSA vs Own Scout

[clist123abc]

I am seeing wildly different evaluations between what the OSA and my own scout recommend. I am aware OSA is supposed to be the poor man’s scouting service and highly inaccurate etc while my own scout is supposed to be superior. I took the D-backs for a spin and kept their scout who is rated Good in all categories focusing on current ability.

I drafted once only based on my scouts rec which led to my having 1 guy make the top 100 prospect list (it was on dynamic update) and my farm system remained stuck midpack – mainly based on prospects that were there prior to the draft (which my scout did not rate above 1 star) –

When I redid the draft I focused on the OSA recs and 7 of my drafted guys made their way onto the top 100 list and my system jumped all the way to 2nd in the league!!!! In this draft I basically ignored my scouts’ recs except for some of the later rounds when I drafted for position need (from round 25 on). I am confused at the very different evaluations!

This affects me in two ways– I know that if I were to prefer to acquire vets over developing prospects, I can just focus on the OSA’s rec and stockpile what is perceived to be ‘top talent’ only to overwhelm the AI and get a quality vet even if my own scout thinks my player is terrible. Is this why when I would offer a couple top prospects the AI would refuse? Is it because the AI only considers top prospects based upon OSA lists and not my own scout?

Also, is the problem the fact that my scout focuses on ‘current ability’ instead of favoring tools? It just seems like such a wild disparity that something doesn’t add up – for instance in the draft my scout rated all top pitchers only having 2 possible starts whereas the OSA recommended many in the 5 and 4 star range! Should I completely trust the OSA now?

[cpatte210]

Good questions, and I don't have much insight into this either. I always play as if OSA is a baseball 'magazine' that has a general idea of talent but nothing in depth. The magazine looks at the stats, hears the hype, sees a video or two maybe and then posts a rating, and therefore are not as good at truly analyzing a player. Whereas my scout is the guy who goes to the game, watches the player, studies every aspect about the player and finds the flaws that the 'magazine' just doesn't have the skills or time to find.

However, this way of playing might be completely wrong and I would love a more experienced player to weigh in.

[etothep]

Isn't the top prospects list based off of OSA's ratings though?

If so, it would make sense for OSA to recommend guys who would make their list

[Cinnamon J. Scudworth]

Originally Posted by clist123abc

Also, is the problem the fact that my scout focuses on ‘current ability’ instead of favoring tools?

I think that's probably a significant part of it. Pitching prospects tend to be underrated by the "favor ability" scouts, in my experience.

I don't use OSA ratings, but I do try to get "neutral" or "favor tools" scouts.

[clist123abc]

Originally Posted by cpatte210

Good questions, and I don't have much insight into this either. I always play as if OSA is a baseball 'magazine' that has a general idea of talent but nothing in depth. The magazine looks at the stats, hears the hype, sees a video or two maybe and then posts a rating, and therefore are not as good at truly analyzing a player. Whereas my scout is the guy who goes to the game, watches the player, studies every aspect about the player and finds the flaws that the 'magazine' just doesn't have the skills or time to find.

However, this way of playing might be completely wrong and I would love a more experienced player to weigh in.

The issue this brings up is that if you play with the AI setting up your minor leagues and handling promotion/lineups - it will give playing time, and promote those prospects that the OSA considers "good" and not so much the ones your scout does. Before the draft i watched this happen - the AI would aggressively focus on the OSA rated guys and not so much on what the scout thought were 'good' - so this affects much more than the draft. I think there's a big choice a player makes - either you trust the AI to demote/promote/set lineups in which case you also have to trust them with the draft reports OR You go with your own Scout which requires you have a ton of time to sort through all your hundred odd players in the minors and micromanage every lineup/DL stint. I'm not sure there's a middling approach.

Oddly enough i think the best draft strategy is to pick the OSA rated prospects through the first 20/25 rounds and then go with your scout rated prospects because A LARGE majority of them will still be there!! This way you can split the difference and make sure you have both prosects you rate highly as well as prospects that are perceived as highly rated by teams which you might want to trade with. Before the draft i looked at all the players and i can count on one hand the players that the OSA and my Scout agreed on.

The key question is whether or not the AI makes its decisions to promote/demote/set lineups and make trade evaluations based upon its own scout's abilities OR based upon OSA evaluation. If it's their own scout then you can make a trade with that team so long as their team's scout is the same profile as yours (i.e. favoring tools, or favoring current ability)

[clist123abc]

Originally Posted by etothep

Isn't the top prospects list based off of OSA's ratings though?

If so, it would make sense for OSA to recommend guys who would make their list

Right it does seem circular but the problem arises when you try to trade with other teams and they will not take your top rated players (based on your scout) but will accept top rated players based on OSA evals. Maybe i'm doing it wrong but you can try it if you have top rated OSA prospects which your scout dismisses and your own scout's top prospect that is dismissed by the OSA. Rarely do you see an overlap where they both agree. This is turn affects the offers the AI finds acceptable so the OSA's influence is greater than a mere top 100 list imo.

[clist123abc]

Originally Posted by Cinnamon J. Scudworth

I think that's probably a significant part of it. Pitching prospects tend to be underrated by the "favor ability" scouts, in my experience.

I don't use OSA ratings, but I do try to get "neutral" or "favor tools" scouts.

I think you're right - this essentially means that if you hire a "favor ability" scout you're handicapping yourself or other teams handicap themselves being unable to see potential and preferring to take 2 star potential guys because they're a little ahead at present of the 4 star potential guys as seen by the favor tools scouts

Edit: when i played with the Giants i had a highly favor tools scout - this was before i conducted this draft experiment with the Dbacks - I saw a lefty pitcher (Bryan Hudson) that was highly rated and drafted him - later he showed up on the top 100 along with a few others and my minors ranking improved; -

this brings up the question - is the OSA actually a "favor tools/highly favor tools" scouting service?

[Cinnamon J. Scudworth]

Originally Posted by clist123abc

I think you're right - this essentially means that if you hire a "favor ability" scout you're handicapping yourself or other teams handicap themselves being unable to see potential and preferring to take 2 star potential guys because they're a little ahead at present of the 4 star potential guys as seen by the favor tools scouts

No, it's not that simple. "Favor ability" doesn't mean that they favor the player's current ability. It means they project based on current ability, rather than a hypothetical maximum development of their tools. So a "favor ability" scout will be more reliable in identifying serviceable major league players. If you like to draft a lot of college players, for example, who are more developed, then a "favor ability" scout may work out better for you.

Basically, "favor ability" = will project fewer superstars BUT also result in fewer outright busts; "favor tools" = will project more superstars BUT also many of them will become outright busts.

[Mr. Marlin]

I play a little differently than most. I play stats only with ratings turned off. Doing that forces you to rely on your scouts very little and rate players based on their performance. For example, I use feeder leagues to build my draft pool. What I look for is players who have preformed well statistically (I usually sort by ABs) and whose number are trending up (meaning they are developing) and then have a scout that Highly Favor Tools look at them. The only thing I'm interested in is his opinion of their future progress. I know what they are doing now.

That is one of the things I like best about stats-only is it makes scouting, well, not irrelevant but much less important. Please I do not want to turn this thread into a stats-only vs ratings battle, I just thought I'd mention it.

(Right now a message just popped up on Orcin's computer, "Stats only has been brought up")

[Friendly_Beaver]

Originally Posted by Cinnamon J. Scudworth

I think that's probably a significant part of it. Pitching prospects tend to be underrated by the "favor ability" scouts, in my experience.

I don't use OSA ratings, but I do try to get "neutral" or "favor tools" scouts.

I spent a lot of time testing this yesterday, hiring different scouts and reloading my save and I can safely say that none of them rate pitching prospects correctly. Every one of them had highly touted prospects like Tyler Jay, Brady Aiken and Phil Bickford as 2 star potential pitchers.

I can't even use the scouts anymore because it's just annoying me. I sent my scout to watch Roberto Osuna who's 20 in AAA and 10-1 with a 1.95 ERA and he comes back to me and tells me he's terrible.... I did this with multiple scouts and the results ranged from he's terrible to he may be a depth reliever....

Anyone have something they could suggest to get realistic evaluations of pitching talent? I don't want 100% accuracy but at least to the point where I don't just disregard anything the scout says about a pitcher.

[Cinnamon J. Scudworth]

Originally Posted by Friendly_Beaver

I spent a lot of time testing this yesterday, hiring different scouts and reloading my save and I can safely say that none of them rate pitching prospects correctly. Every one of them had highly touted prospects like Tyler Jay, Brady Aiken and Phil Bickford as 2 star potential pitchers.

I can't even use the scouts anymore because it's just annoying me. I sent my scout to watch Roberto Osuna who's 20 in AAA and 10-1 with a 1.95 ERA and he comes back to me and tells me he's terrible.... I did this with multiple scouts and the results ranged from he's terrible to he may be a depth reliever....

Anyone have something they could suggest to get realistic evaluations of pitching talent? I don't want 100% accuracy but at least to the point where I don't just disregard anything the scout says about a pitcher.

I think you just need to discount the scouting report text, which has always been problematic. I'm not familiar with Osuna's ratings, but if a prospect has one component rating that doesn't project to be very good, it will often tank the scout's overall rating regardless of whether the "sum of the parts" would logically result in an MLB-caliber player. The star ratings are similarly limited in value. So for example, if a pitcher has a low movement rating the scout will tell you he'll get lit up with home runs at the MLB level even though his stuff may project out to have a high enough K/9 to compensate.

The scouting model is still worthwhile because scouts will differ on how they rate players' individual attributes. So I'd just focus on the ratings for those attributes, and make your decisions accordingly.

[BIG17EASY]

Most of what has been said in this thread is all stuff I fully subscribe to. As a general rule of thumb, how accurate your own scout is with players in the draft depends on how much you spend on amateur scouting in your scouting budget.

For me, if I see a vast discrepancy between what my scout thinks (I spend a lot on amateur scouting) and what the OSA thinks, I'll avoid drafting that guy early in the draft. If there's only one rating that's vastly different, I won't worry too much about it.

Scudworth's point about ignoring the scouting report text is a good one. The written part of the scouting reports are still somewhat rudimentary and lacks depth. The ratings are more important. And he's also spot on about overall star ratings. Many times a guy will be 2.5 or 3 stars in potential, but can't hit his way out of a paper back. He gets those 2.5 or 3 stars because he's fast and plays good defense, but his hitting is so poor that he'd never be a serviceable big leaguer.

And one other thing I do is I have ask my scout for scouting reports on the top players in the draft. I don't know if it makes a different, but since my scout is basically idle, I figure it can't hurt to do it just in case it does actually update a few skill ratings or his personality ratings compared to what the scout says when the draft pool is published.

[Friendly_Beaver]

Funny thing happened last night in my Amateur Draft. My scout wanted me to take Ke'Bryan Hayes with our first pick, I thought he'd be around in round 2 so I passed and took Tyler Jay.

Round 2 comes around and this time I wanted Hayes but didn't want to search so I asked my scout for a recommendation and he picked a different 3B, can't remember the name. So I was disappointed thinking Hayes was gone, so I looked at the recap to see who took him, no one had. He was still there! If he was good enough for round 1, why would he suddenly not be good enough for round 2 in my scouts eyes? He was asking for slot too so that can't be it.

I think I may just have to completely disregard scouts in this game going forward and trust OSA .

[George_Bell]

Originally Posted by BIG17EASY

For me, if I see a vast discrepancy between what my scout thinks (I spend a lot on amateur scouting) and what the OSA thinks, I'll avoid drafting that guy early in the draft. If there's only one rating that's vastly different, I won't worry too much about it.

Originally Posted by Friendly_Beaver

I spent a lot of time testing this yesterday, hiring different scouts and reloading my save and I can safely say that none of them rate pitching prospects correctly. Every one of them had highly touted prospects like Tyler Jay, Brady Aiken and Phil Bickford as 2 star potential pitchers.

I can't even use the scouts anymore because it's just annoying me. I sent my scout to watch Roberto Osuna who's 20 in AAA and 10-1 with a 1.95 ERA and he comes back to me and tells me he's terrible.... I did this with multiple scouts and the results ranged from he's terrible to he may be a depth reliever....

Anyone have something they could suggest to get realistic evaluations of pitching talent? I don't want 100% accuracy but at least to the point where I don't just disregard anything the scout says about a pitcher.

This is why i think scouting is broken or just not designed correctly in this game.

These are major league scouts. They should be able to see talent, yet, the opinions on OSA and team scouting are so different, it's completely unrealistic.

If a scout is watching a prospect, and one thinks the guy is amazing, while the other thinks the guy is terrible, one should not be a scout. It's that simple.

The difference between good and bad scouts should be much more subtle then what we currently sees

Example time.

Lets say a player is actually a 80/100 potential player.

In the game right now,
Scout 1- 90/100 He really likes the player
Scout 2- 40/100 Scout isn't a fan
OSA- 20/100 Do they even understand baseball?

Now in the draft, this player can go anywhere from first, to 15th round!

btw, who is right, i don't know, because it seems random, or best guess.

In reality, i believe a realistic view might be the following:
Scout 1- 84/100 He really likes the player
Scout 2- 68/100 He sees the player is good, but isn't that big a fan
OSA- anywhere from 65-95

Now, in the draft, i could see a player like this going anywhere from top 10, to mid 2nd round, based on your info.

OSA should be a general idea, maybe within 20/30 points. Scouts should be a bit more accurate to a great deal more accurate based on abilities. There shouldn't be such HUGE differences of opinion.

Scouts know potential when they see it. Until OOTP gets this right, scouting is broken to me at the very least.

[OzzieFan]

Every season I come back and try scouting again... just to turn it off bitterly disappointed. This is the one area that could make OOTP the best game ever made... but for some reason scouting remains cringe worthy. Thank you to the posters above for providing very good reviews/analysis.

the focus above has been on scouting for the draft.

However my biggest pet peeve with current scouting is that if you have a player in your own system and they have been playing in it for years... why can I not have a great scouting report on my own player? Also why do the scouting reports on my own players go up and down so drastically in short amounts of time with no injuries?

Don't be me started on consistency. It feels that if your name isn't Zach Greinke that the game is coded to turn most good hitters into .220 hitters.

[Friendly_Beaver]

Originally Posted by George_Bell

This is why i think scouting is broken or just not designed correctly in this game.

These are major league scouts. They should be able to see talent, yet, the opinions on OSA and team scouting are so different, it's completely unrealistic.

If a scout is watching a prospect, and one thinks the guy is amazing, while the other thinks the guy is terrible, one should not be a scout. It's that simple.

The difference between good and bad scouts should be much more subtle then what we currently sees

Example time.

Lets say a player is actually a 80/100 potential player.

In the game right now,
Scout 1- 90/100 He really likes the player
Scout 2- 40/100 Scout isn't a fan
OSA- 20/100 Do they even understand baseball?

Now in the draft, this player can go anywhere from first, to 15th round!

btw, who is right, i don't know, because it seems random, or best guess.

In reality, i believe a realistic view might be the following:
Scout 1- 84/100 He really likes the player
Scout 2- 68/100 He sees the player is good, but isn't that big a fan
OSA- anywhere from 65-95

Now, in the draft, i could see a player like this going anywhere from top 10, to mid 2nd round, based on your info.

OSA should be a general idea, maybe within 20/30 points. Scouts should be a bit more accurate to a great deal more accurate based on abilities. There shouldn't be such HUGE differences of opinion.

Scouts know potential when they see it. Until OOTP gets this right, scouting is broken to me at the very least.

Thanks, and I agree it's broken. After the draft fiasco I posted above with Ke'Bryan Hayes I've just turned it off and am going with OSA for now.

By the way, love the Name/Avatar.

[Tyler87898]

I use both OSA and my scout. If they don't generally agree, the player is likely not as good as they seem to one of the scouts.

[OBSL Commish]

Originally Posted by Tyler87898

I use both OSA and my scout. If they don't generally agree, the player is likely not as good as they seem to one of the scouts.

This. When I use scouting, I always pick players that my scout and the OSA generally agree upon. The best way I have found to do this, especially in later rounds, is to make sure the scouting view on the draft list is from OSA. If it's not, then I click on the highest-ranked player and, in their profile, click on the OSA ratings. Then I scroll through the players individually until I find a high rated player and then click on my scout's ratings to see how well they match up. I make a list of these players and then go back to the draft screen and start making my picks.

[Friendly_Beaver]

Originally Posted by OBSL Commish

This. When I use scouting, I always pick players that my scout and the OSA generally agree upon. The best way I have found to do this, especially in later rounds, is to make sure the scouting view on the draft list is from OSA. If it's not, then I click on the highest-ranked player and, in their profile, click on the OSA ratings. Then I scroll through the players individually until I find a high rated player and then click on my scout's ratings to see how well they match up. I make a list of these players and then go back to the draft screen and start making my picks.

If you go that route you'd be passing on Tyler Jay, Brady Aiken and more because all human scouts I've had have said they have 2 or 3 star potential max. But I took Tyler Jay despite my scouts saying he would be nothing I then made a back up and simulated 10 years in advance and 4 times he became my ace, 3 times my number 3 the other years he was either in the bullpen or didn't pan out. But 40% of the time an ace and 70% of the time a top end starter and I would have missed out if I listened to my scouts.

It's a small sample but from what I've seen of how they rate even my own prospects I think you can ignore them for SP at the very least.

I'll use OSA for pitchers and maybe my scout for late late rounds in the draft for position players, but I think I'll just end up turning off scouting.

The fact of the matter is sure, players don't turn out but having your scout say blue chip prospects will be terrible before they ever play is really unrealistic even if they turn out to be right.

[Cinnamon J. Scudworth]

You can always increase scouting accuracy in your league settings. I don't think scouting is "broken," I just it just comes down to how reliable you want your scout to be. I like the fact that there is "fog."