International Scouting

[WIUPIKE]

I have noticed that when the scouts find a player that they are asking for several million dollars for a yr as opposed to what I saw in 12 when they would be ok with a minor league deal as a prospect. Is this basically a signing bonus for the players found, the only thing is as a prospect he would be having to have a spot 40 man roster. Has anyone seen these huge demands for these type of players.

[cody8200]

Originally Posted by WIUPIKE

I have noticed that when the scouts find a player that they are asking for several million dollars for a yr as opposed to what I saw in 12 when they would be ok with a minor league deal as a prospect. Is this basically a signing bonus for the players found, the only thing is as a prospect he would be having to have a spot 40 man roster. Has anyone seen these huge demands for these type of players.

Yes. It was done to recreate the type of real life signings currently occuring in the MLB with international signings. Guys like this...

Chicago Cubs sign Cuban left-hander Gerardo Concepcion to five-year deal - ESPN Chicago

for example have become very commonplace lately.

[olivertheorem]

I guess that makes sense, in a way, but I thought that's what the offseason international free agents were supposed to represent.

[injury log]

The offseason international free agents are analogous to the established veteran players who join MLB from Japan, Taiwan, Mexico, etc in the offseason - guys like Tsuyoshi Nishioka, Wei-Yin Chen and Hisashi Iwakuma from the past couple of years of MLB.

Players 'discovered' by scouting internationally are supposed to be analogous to the teenage prospects signed each year during the international signing period, so, looking at this past year in real life, players like Nomar Mazara, Ronald Guzman, Victor Sanchez, Elier Hernandez or Dorssys Paulino.

That said, OOTP's international scouting and international free agency modeling are only a kind of vague approximation of real life, so don't expect it to work identically.

[PSUColonel]

What are most of the contracts like? large?, small?, in between?

[olivertheorem]

Originally Posted by injury log

The offseason international free agents are analogous to the established veteran players who join MLB from Japan, Taiwan, Mexico, etc in the offseason - guys like Tsuyoshi Nishioka, Wei-Yin Chen and Hisashi Iwakuma from the past couple of years of MLB.

Players 'discovered' by scouting internationally are supposed to be analogous to the teenage prospects signed each year during the international signing period, so, looking at this past year in real life, players like Nomar Mazara, Ronald Guzman, Victor Sanchez, Elier Hernandez or Dorssys Paulino.

That said, OOTP's international scouting and international free agency modeling are only a kind of vague approximation of real life, so don't expect it to work identically.

Okay, that makes sense now. I didn't think all those young international signings were getting full major-league contracts though, just signing bonuses. I'll admit, I don't follow that all that much.

[WIUPIKE]

Most of the contracts I have seen are 1 yr deals for anywhere from 3 to 8.5 Million

[mikestack]

Originally Posted by cody8200

Yes. It was done to recreate the type of real life signings currently occuring in the MLB with international signings. Guys like this...

Chicago Cubs sign Cuban left-hander Gerardo Concepcion to five-year deal - ESPN Chicago

for example have become very commonplace lately.

I've seen a couple of 17 year old prospects demand ML contracts-- this seems a bit much since they're years away from ML contribution.

Thoughts? Maybe there needs to be a signing bonus for international free agents?

[mars001]

How do I turn on international scouting? I can't find the setting.

[injury log]

Originally Posted by olivertheorem

Okay, that makes sense now. I didn't think all those young international signings were getting full major-league contracts though, just signing bonuses. I'll admit, I don't follow that all that much.

The teenage signings in real life are always getting signing bonuses, and not big league contracts. Gerardo Concepcion with the Cubs is an exceptional case, and OOTP shouldn't be modelling anything based on Concepcion's contract. I can't name even one other teenager who has signed a big league deal like his (and by some reports, Concepcion isn't even a teenager - some stories say he's 18, and some say he's 20), though Jorge Soler will.

I haven't yet seen any of these international finds requesting big league deals in OOTP, so can't comment on what OOTP is doing, but really they should be requesting minor league deals with a signing bonus, not big league contracts that require them to be placed on the 40-man roster. The highest bonus in MLB history was to Mazara this past offseason, for $4.95m, so that should be the rough ceiling on bonus demands.

[injury log]

Originally Posted by mars001

How do I turn on international scouting? I can't find the setting.

First, scouting needs to be on. The players you will find are known in the game as 'Hidden Players' - the option to turn hidden players on or off is in the Player+Picture Options in Game Setup. When international scouting is on, you can go to your scout's page and choose the countries you want to scout.

[Markus Heinsohn]

Originally Posted by injury log

I haven't yet seen any of these international finds requesting big league deals in OOTP, so can't comment on what OOTP is doing, but really they should be requesting minor league deals with a signing bonus, not big league contracts that require them to be placed on the 40-man roster. The highest bonus in MLB history was to Mazara this past offseason, for $4.95m, so that should be the rough ceiling on bonus demands.

Right. I wanted to add this late in OOTP 13 development, but unfortunately this proved to be much more complicated that I thought because it would require changes in all sorts of places in the code. But I'll tackle this again someday...

[olivertheorem]

So, just to clarify...

For the time being, some young (under 21, say) international finds will demand major-league contracts even though they have little to no chance of making the MLB roster over the life of the contract? I haven't bought 13 (yet) and this won't stop me, but it seems to me that it might have been better to leave it the way it was, instead of going halfway.

On the other hand, I guess you could let the guy become available to all teams and hope his demands drop to a minor league deal.

[byzeil]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

Right. I wanted to add this late in OOTP 13 development, but unfortunately this proved to be much more complicated that I thought because it would require changes in all sorts of places in the code. But I'll tackle this again someday...

I think if it couldn't be done as bonuses it should have been left the way it was. Having to give them a major league contract, using up their 3 options, and then having to waive them seems kind of harsh when most will not be ready for major league action before their options are up (at least based on their player development in v12).

[oman19]

Originally Posted by byzeil

I think if it couldn't be done as bonuses it should have been left the way it was. Having to give them a major league contract, using up their 3 options, and then having to waive them seems kind of harsh when most will not be ready for major league action before their options are up (at least based on their player development in v12).

I've gotta agree with byzeil.

[Lafayette53]

Originally Posted by byzeil

I think if it couldn't be done as bonuses it should have been left the way it was. Having to give them a major league contract, using up their 3 options, and then having to waive them seems kind of harsh when most will not be ready for major league action before their options are up (at least based on their player development in v12).

I didn't interpret Markus as saying the current situation was intentional..

[oman19]

Originally Posted by Lafayette53

I didn't interpret Markus as saying the current situation was intentional..

I don't think byzeil was insinuating it was intentional but if this is happening then I kinda wish they would of left as is until they had more time. By no means a game breaker but a minor annoyance.

[SirMichaelJordan]

I hope its very rare if it was intentional.

[byzeil]

Originally Posted by Lafayette53

I didn't interpret Markus as saying the current situation was intentional..

What I got from what Marcus said was that this was a compromise, he wanted to make it bonuses but that turned out to be too complicated at that point so it was left with some demanding major league contracts. Now this did happen in v12 on a very rare occassion and if the rate is the same as it was in v12 then no problem but if it is now set for more of these players wanting major league contracts I'd like to see it reset to how it was in v12.

[injury log]

I haven't seen how this is actually working in OOTP at the moment, but I've been thinking about this, and given that it's impossible to implement a signing bonus system for teenage international signings, I don't think it's so bad if occasionally these guys request big league contracts, provided:

* it happens infrequently

* the players requesting MLB contracts are on the older side - the 18 year olds, not the 16 year olds

* the AI teams understand the importance of keeping top prospects and don't waive these players

If you do find a top 18 year old prospect who requests an MLB contract, that presents you with an interesting decision. The player will be out of options by age 22, so you'll probably need to carry him on your big league roster before he's ready. So you have to weigh the value of the roster spot (both the 40-man spot, and eventually the 25-man spot) and the salary you'll pay against the value of the prospect. Of course, you may be able to trade the player, though his contract will diminish his value slightly. In any case, that seems more interesting, from a gameplay perspective, than what happens in OOTP-12, where international scouting is too cheap and too easy.

Now, if AI teams end up signing these guys, then putting them on waivers once they run out of options (or before), even if they still have monster potential, then that's a huge problem, and it would be better to either fix the AI or eliminate these kinds of contract demands. But if the only problem is that the human player has to make some difficult decisions, well, that doesn't seem like a problem at all to me.