Roster Editing Theories

[Funkycorm]

This thread is a continuation of a discussion roster creator Bushido and I were having. I did not want to clog up that thread with more long posts so other users can discuss that roster there.


This thread is meant to discuss roster editing theories, sharing my own, to make long term franchises be sustained and avoid highly overrated rosters multiple seasons down the road.


What I mean by this, is 26 man rosters being packed with 80 plus overall players where entire rotations have ratings of 85 or more before morale and where there are 80+ overall players riding the bench. It also means to minimize those 30 year old 80 or more overall players sitting untouched in free agency.


Long term as well, this edits are a thing that can help with the budget a bit but that is not a true fix for it but numbers do look decent for budgets down the road with these edits I will be sharing.


The purpose of these edits I will share is to minimize the high rated overall rosters that occur a few years down the road when using custom current rosters. This does not apply to classic rosters.


Disclaimer: I am not a CAP creator or roster creator. Any work potentially shared here besides my edits is the work of others.


I apologize now but in order to see why I edit what I do, I need to set it up. I will try and space as much as possible so it's not a huge wall of text.


I also know there are many who will disagree with my theories but I welcome rational discussion. I also am not disparaging any roster creators here but I will be discussing the rosters I used.


This first post is a set up with the next few being my edits once I copy and paste them there.


---------


Until about 2016 I would play franchise modes with a team of fictional players I created in a league with other wise default rosters. I did this for MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL. It was how I played. It was fun. I would always pick a low tier team and make them instant contenders. It created teams I was attached to but something was missing. Until I discovered the dynasty threads here and saw the creativity.


I wanted this creativity. So, I decided to keep the same premise, pick a low tier team and build them up over years. I first did it with the Brooklyn Nets in 2k17. Then moved on to baseball.


Starting in MLB 17, I decided I wanted to build a team up and play with that team in the future. There would be game generated players along with real life ones. This was the first time I had ever used the FM rosters or honestly ever heard about them or any other real life current roster. I had always stuck to default rosters in all games.


I started with the Reds. I simmed 6 years into the future building a good team but I wasn't satisfied with the results. I decided to try it again and used the Orioles. Same thing, I just was not satisfied. I did this with one team from each division simming 6 to 7 years into the future. Making all decisions myself with the CPU controlling the other 29 teams.


I spent hours studying the draft classes, the rosters, everything else to figure out why I was getting such inflated results across the league. I could not figure it out but I had some ideas starting to form. I had probably simmed about 40 seasons in 17 and probably never played more than 30 games the whole year.


So, 18 came along and I said I was going to play more and build one team up then play them. I decided on the Orioles. I went 8 years in and once again was not happy but it had gotten better. I had made some edits to the CPU rosters each off-season. Not satisfied, I decided to try again.


I tried 2 more times with the Rangers and Mariners this time doing some draft class edits each off season as well. Nothing more than lowering ages as I was tired of seeing 29-year-old rookie of the years and rule 5 drafts with prospects who never made it but should have already been in the MLB because of over inflated ratings on the front end of the rosters.


Again, another year I simmed more than I played. I was getting closer but wasn't finding the answers I wanted.


Come 19 and I started blaming the rosters themselves. I did a 7-year sim with my Indians and loved the team but even with some draft pick edits the league was still a little wonky. I spent hours editing other team’s rosters. This was the dynasty I finally ended up playing and have finished 2 full seasons of it with the league still in balance.


Determined the starting roster was the problem, I decided to edit the base rosters a lot to see. I also decided to run one 20-year full roster control sim and I discovered the league returns to default roster ratings in 15 or so years once the inflation is gone. This proved that the starting rosters were at fault.


So, I lowered potentials on almost all prospects after creating a conversion table. I edited large numbers of MLB player potentials. I ran 3 more seven season sims and got results I finally liked. There was some statistical variance that showed uniqueness among the dynasties as well due to high performances over the seasons.


I released a version of this roster in late 2019 to get some feedback on here and it was mixed.


I have not touched a single real roster in 20. Any testing I continued to do I used my 2019 roster. I checked out all of the real rosters but they are all flawed the same way and I didn't want to spend that time editing as I was finally set on playing a franchise.


The reason I share this long spiel is because I want to show the amount of data I accumulated and that I have tested my theories. I lost track of how many seasons I had simmed but it has probably been close to 90 now over the last 4 games.


My goal here is to contribute this info to the community in the hope that it helps in the future with roster creators on any of the MLB games.


Anyways with that text block out of the way, I am going to share my edits in the next few posts.

[Funkycorm]

Re: Roster Editing Theories

So, with that out of the way, let's look at how we can adopt a better long-term experience in franchise.


Yes, I understand that many may disagree with this information but keep an open mind if you read it.


For this to work, edits must be done either on the base roster or in an active franchise. It can be done at any point so there is no need to start over. It may just require more edits if you are more than one year in.



First, we need to establish some ground rules and keep in mind some things.


1. First, we need to embrace what an average player rating is. If you base in on ratings with the average MLB player having attribute ratings of 62 (which is what one of the devs said a while back), it comes out to be a 76 to 78. Remember the goal is to have rosters that are similar to base ratings multiple seasons in.


2. We also need to accept that not every player has to be a 95-overall superstar. Teams are made up of average players. They are the ones that come in and work every day and are consistent. They are the bread and butter of your club mixed with those great players that elevate your team.


3. We need to understand that potential has zero effect on progression and regression. None whatsoever so we don't need inflated potentials for faster growth.


4. Morale can have an impact of 4-5 points overall one way or the other. So, when I talk about overall this is ignoring morale effects.


5. We are going to use the 20 to 80 scale for scouting grades and base potentials for prospects off of that. This only works for the initial roster and not future drafts in game. With this scale, 50 is average. But I will share more on this when I go over my conversion scale.


6. We have to keep in mind that in real baseball, prospect grades are done on the individual tools and one overall, not just one overall potential like in the game so this does cause some skewing of results.


7. We never lower prospect grades more than one level lower. E.g., No A to C, etc.


8. We need more D potential prospects and some of the very low C ones will be changed to D (68) potential. This creates better depth charts in the minors long term.


That being established, let's get to current prospects in the rosters and talk about where their potential should be.


The prospect grade scale rates from 20 to 80. With 50 being average. You would find that 65 would be all-star level, 70-75 would be elite, and 80 would be perennial MVP.


With that info, we need to extrapolate and convert those grades to potential grades. We know what an average overall rating is. It is 76 to 78. We have established that already.


So now we have a prospect grade of 50 being a 76-78 potential. With me still?


Let's look at the scale:

Prospect grade to potential:


50 would equal 75-78 potential
55 would equal 79-82
60 would equal 83-86
65 would equal 87-89
70 would equal 90-92
75 would equal 93-95
80 would equal 96-97



The scale cuts off at 97 potential because of morale inflation and 99 should only be reserved for a select few like Mike Trout.


Let's look at an example from 2019 FM roster. Nolan Jones had a prospect grade of 55 which would equal out to a potential of 79 to 82 but in the roster, he was given a potential of 91 which would be closer to a prospect grade of 70.


This is a good example of why we see highly stacked rosters of players 90+ multiple years in. Jones should never reach that potential but in that base roster he does in every sim by year 5.


I understand people want to play with their favorite prospects and they want them all to be superstars but that just doesn't happen. We have to embrace the average. It makes that special prospect that much better when they develop here or from my draft class edits in the next post.


Let's look at the 2020 prospect grades. The highest grade is 65. This means that there should not be a single A potential prospect in the game or on the rosters to start.


Now that is unreasonable, I recognize so the top 8 prospects in all of MLB would be given potential ratings of 90 to 92 to balance this out so they do become eventually become a game changer.


I think the big question you have now is why so few A prospects? If given long enough, most will develop into their 80s overall but because of morale boosting ratings it has a huge effect on depth charts.


Anyway...


This went longer than I thought. I will share the draft edits in the next post and potentially ones to MLB players though that will be quick.

[Funkycorm]

Re: Roster Editing Theories

Now on to how I handle future draft classes.


Some RNG does come into play here but this helps to establish better balance long term.


For those that followed my old roster thread, you read my first draft of this and it has been changed since then.


Let's establish what I do. Remember these edits can only be done in the off-season. I write everything down then go from there.


Edits:


1. Any player with an overall less than 54 is brought up to 55. This is typically 1b, 3b, and C but their potential can be over 80. If their potential is higher than 80 it must be lowered to 79. All must be edited to 18 years old.


2. Age edits: This is a big one. It is based on initial overall ratings. Players 60 or less are aged to 18, 61-65 are aged to 19, 66-70 are aged to 21, and any over age aged to 21. This only applies of they are over the age. I won't change a 19-year-old 72 overall. This means no more 25-year-old draft pick signees and 29-year-old ROY combined with the above edit.


3. RP can only have a max potential of 85. CP can have a max potential of 88.


4. Each team can only have two players total with potential over 80. Any others will need be brought to league average of 76-78. I decide this by RNG. They can also only have 1 player with a potential over 90.


5. The lowest potential player signed that draft must be changed to a 68 potential (D) so as to create some balance and less of a clog at positions unless the team already has a D prospect drafted and signed. They will be career minor leaguers but it is needed. This is a pivotal step as it adds career minor depth.


6. Each off-season, one draft pick who has 90 or higher potential will be bumped to 72 overall and 18 years old to be a yearly young superstar talent. This is chosen randomly via RNG.


7. Speaking of 90 potential players, there can only be 10 in each draft class total. If there are more 10, they 10 chosen will be done by random number generator and those who do not get to keep their potential will move to 85 overall. A very solid all-star player but not elite.


These edits create a better long term more realistic experience in future seasons.


MLB player edits:


I will keep this brief as nothing else has been.


In order for any of this to help balance out the rosters long term, the MLB players potentials need adjusted. Players tend to grow until they are about 29 years old in game then stabilize or regress. Any player 29 or older will have their potential locked at that number. They can have good years still but they are seasoned vets and will not have more natural growth. Also, most players with potentials over 95 other than a select few special players get their potential lowered to 95 if they are higher than that.

[Funkycorm]

Re: Roster Editing Theories

Now I realize that not everyone will see eye to eye on this. And those who start a new franchise yearly this won't apply too which is a big population of franchise players I would assume.


But keep in mind the edits to a base roster will also work great for RTTS. You just can't do any editing after.


Now I initially was not moving on to 21 but my wife got me a PS5 for my 40th birthday last week. Took her about 5 tries but finally scored one on sony direct and pre ordered the new game.


My plan for 21 is to take the default roster which will be a likely part full minors and do a bunch of editing then apply all of the in-franchise edits going forward. I will likely do a one-time test to see how progression is on the PS5 before I settle in and play a new Indians franchise.


As a side note, I do occasionally add new edits as I go along and when I have a season in future years I finally want to play, I do massive edits around the league out.


I hope these long posts are helpful to people and that some stuck around and read them.

[CBoller1331]

Re: Roster Editing Theories

This is a cool and helpful thread. I was working on a roster for myself for 16 on PS3 (never made the jump to PS4, but snagged a PS5 around New Years, so been enjoying that roster on 20), and I was also trying to fix potentials a bit as well. I came up with this format for position players (See attached pic at bottom)

This was based on FanGraph's scouting scale as well as 3-year ZiPS projections to find corresponding potential ratings for specific WAR values.

I think my format has the potential to run into the same future problems that you mentioned in your first two posts with somewhat inflated potentials. I can probably tweak my formulas to converting WAR to Potential to tweak this a bit, but your insights are definitely intriguing.

(Definitely want to continue the discussion in this forum, but I got to get to work now!)

[Madden08PCgmr]

Re: Roster Editing Theories

I'll say first, the more info that can be documented, teh better.

We know more about Madden then we should care to know.. we might be better off not knowing, frankly. We simply don't have enough documented info on MLBtS, so I applaud any endeavor such as this.

After a brief read-through; I think a vital aspect that is missing;

what impact does the progression system have on this? (I don't know, honestly, which is why I am asking)

How long does it take a 60s rated prospect to reach 80 potential, if at all? Or a 70s prospect to hit the 90s?

A massive overhaul on progression might not yield the results you're looking for if it drives prospects up the ladder too quickly. But again, I don't know. I don't trust the system. I just create a new roster after I complete a season.

.. look forward to reading about your findings.

[Funkycorm]

Re: Roster Editing Theories

This is a cool and helpful thread. I was working on a roster for myself for 16 on PS3 (never made the jump to PS4, but snagged a PS5 around New Years, so been enjoying that roster on 20), and I was also trying to fix potentials a bit as well. I came up with this format for position players (See attached pic at bottom)

This was based on FanGraph's scouting scale as well as 3-year ZiPS projections to find corresponding potential ratings for specific WAR values.

I think my format has the potential to run into the same future problems that you mentioned in your first two posts with somewhat inflated potentials. I can probably tweak my formulas to converting WAR to Potential to tweak this a bit, but your insights are definitely intriguing.

(Definitely want to continue the discussion in this forum, but I got to get to work now!)

I gotcha. Not bad. I like the using of WAR.

One thing to remember is that in this game morale inflates overalls. As users we can see this, but the cpu doesn't. If someone has good morale, meaning contract, location, role, coaching, and injury status are all positive, you can see overalls inflated 4-5 points.

The cpu will use these inflated overalls for their depth chart and when assessing free agents to sign. It can have huge impact.

[Funkycorm]

Re: Roster Editing Theories

I'll say first, the more info that can be documented, teh better.

We know more about Madden then we should care to know.. we might be better off not knowing, frankly. We simply don't have enough documented info on MLBtS, so I applaud any endeavor such as this.

After a brief read-through; I think a vital aspect that is missing;

what impact does the progression system have on this? (I don't know, honestly, which is why I am asking)

How long does it take a 60s rated prospect to reach 80 potential, if at all? Or a 70s prospect to hit the 90s?

A massive overhaul on progression might not yield the results you're looking for if it drives prospects up the ladder too quickly. But again, I don't know. I don't trust the system. I just create a new roster after I complete a season.

.. look forward to reading about your findings.

Long story short: an overhaul to progression and regression is what this game needs so much more than anything else in my personal opinion.

Long story not so short: I got a lot of info here I can share. Give me a few hours to write it up. I am still rounding for another good 2 hours today.

[CBoller1331]

Re: Roster Editing Theories

I gotcha. Not bad. I like the using of WAR.

One thing to remember is that in this game morale inflates overalls. As users we can see this, but the cpu doesn't. If someone has good morale, meaning contract, location, role, coaching, and injury status are all positive, you can see overalls inflated 4-5 points.

The cpu will use these inflated overalls for their depth chart and when assessing free agents to sign. It can have huge impact.

Yeah I like how FanGraphs gives the corresponding WAR protections for each scouting rating. Since I used ZiPS WAR projections for MLB potential ratings, I figured it would be best to keep things consistent. Like I said, the formula might need a little bit of tweaking. I'll probably mess around with it again when FanGraphs releases the updated 3-year ZiPS projections.

Sent from my SM-G930VL using Operation Sports mobile app

[Funkycorm]

Re: Roster Editing Theories

I'll say first, the more info that can be documented, teh better.

We know more about Madden then we should care to know.. we might be better off not knowing, frankly. We simply don't have enough documented info on MLBtS, so I applaud any endeavor such as this.

After a brief read-through; I think a vital aspect that is missing;

what impact does the progression system have on this? (I don't know, honestly, which is why I am asking)

How long does it take a 60s rated prospect to reach 80 potential, if at all? Or a 70s prospect to hit the 90s?

A massive overhaul on progression might not yield the results you're looking for if it drives prospects up the ladder too quickly. But again, I don't know. I don't trust the system. I just create a new roster after I complete a season.

.. look forward to reading about your findings.

Thanks for catching that I missed something big.

Progression in madden is very understood. We know when a player grows the most, what the direct impacts are, when they slow down, and when they start to regress. There is some exception with random dropping of dev traits and what not.

That system isn't perfect. I am not a huge fan of the xp but as you said we know plenty about it.

I would describe it as one word: predictable


-----


Now on to the Show.

Only 90 man rosters do hamper progression and regression and make our life more difficult.

The Show's progression is predictable then unpredictable then predictable again. I will explain what I mean.



What's predictable?

I know a prospect will grow about 3-6 overall points a season in AA, AAA, and MLB. We will discuss A ball later so leave that out for now. I would say 4 overall is your average for yearly growth.

I know players will progress until they are 26-27 years old then slow down around 29 or earlier if they reached their potential.

We know that most prospects will reach their potential with enough time to grow before age 27 or so. See under unpredictable for exceptions to this.

We know that performance has a big impact as well as playing time.

We know that the more a player plays and plays well the faster they may grow. Meaning they may get about 5-6 overall a year if they rake in the minors.

Knowing that, I keep all my future MLB players at AA so when they reach the high 60s and low 70s they are facing much weaker competition and have a better chance of having a good year. They also will progress better starting than on the bench. A 70 overall A potential prospect will grow more starting at AAA than warming the bench at MLB level simply because of weaker competition and play time.

We also know a player can grow in potential with good performance at all playable levels, excluding A ball.



What is unpredictable?

This stuff is not all bad in general. It's what mimics baseball the best for development relatively speaking.


We know a player once they reach potential may grow to about 1 over that with solid performance but will lose attribute points in another random attribute to keep them at potential or close to it.

We know a player who has low ratings can have a good year and high ratings can have a bad year and this will affect their attributes accordingly.


We know that attributes like stamina and speed will rarely if ever increase and only decrease. Stamina has the notorious -1 per year for any player. This is unpredictable because it is not across the board and if a player leads their league in IP and complete games it will still usually decrease. Unpredictable yet predictable.

The fact that player ratings can grow in some areas even at the age of 30-32, it does a decent job of mimicking that unpredictability of MLB players.

Some prospects will only grow 1-2 points a year and never become MLB players. Referencing above that not all prospects will reach their potential. There is no pattern to tell who is affected ahead of time as this has happened to prospects of all potential grades. But if it happens for 2 seasons in a row, that player will likely be a bust long term. Again unpredictable but predictable.



What is predictable again?

We know that prospects in A ball with grow in all growable attributes 2-3 a year thus 2-3 overall. No regression, no negative growth, no nothing. There is no performance boost to ratings here as they don't play or play via simmed games.

We know at 32 most players will show a decrease of 3 points per attribute per season but good performance can delay this. This becomes more pronounced at 34 when attributes will go down 5-7 a year, in spite of performance. Example, in my 2027 Indians, Aaron Judge was 34 and hit .300 with 30 HR and 100 RBI with a WAR of 5.0 and we won it all but dropped 8-9 points per attribute with me playing all 162 that season. It was about a 9-10 drop in overall in one year despite those numbers.


------


There is more to this as well but I wanted to throw these ideas out there for you.

As you can see, it's more complicated than madden which makes it good and bad.

To actually answer your question, and ignoring morale effects, it predictably takes 5 years for a player to grow 20 overall assuming at the average of 4 points per season.

Also when you make a new roster is it at the beginning of the next season of a continuing franchise? If so, sounds like we want similar things but go about it different ways.

[CBoller1331]

Re: Roster Editing Theories

Most of the discussion so far has been about potential so far (which is perfectly fine cuz its a pretty interesting thing to discuss), but curious to hear your approach in re-rating specific attributes, particularly for minor leaguers/prospects (if you did any of that....seemed like you focused on lowering potentials for most of your edits)

I used xSiq's ratings combined with a custom "regression formula" I came up with for each the attributes he had spreadsheets for. Just kinda curious to hear your approach if you edited other attributes beside potential

[Funkycorm]

Re: Roster Editing Theories

Most of the discussion so far has been about potential so far (which is perfectly fine cuz its a pretty interesting thing to discuss), but curious to hear your approach in re-rating specific attributes, particularly for minor leaguers/prospects (if you did any of that....seemed like you focused on lowering potentials for most of your edits)

I used xSiq's ratings combined with a custom "regression formula" I came up with for each the attributes he had spreadsheets for. Just kinda curious to hear your approach if you edited other attributes beside potential

I do not know anything about his edits but I will take a look later today to see what they are about.


As far as edits to current prospects at the start of year 1, I don't typically do much. But, since I roll with single team control and let the CPU handle the other 29, I have occasionally moved a player's overall up or down a few by doing even +1, +2. -1, etc. across all hitting and fielding attributes so that player gets more playing time on the depth chart because in real life you would play them over a career minor leaguer. I don't spend much time editing real life prospects other than potential because I want them to grow over time.


As a side note, I don't run 30 team control typically because of how I sim into the future. It would be way too much work handling free agency for all 30 teams after doing mass draft class editing. Though admittedly, it is something I have been toying with as I change my sim and play approach in MLB21. It would all depend if we hear that y2y saves have come back or not but they said they have no idea yet if it will return.


In future years, if these players are not growing fast enough, I still typically leave them alone unless they fall under the 55 overall threshold for prospects.


Example: In one sim I ran back in 2019, Vlad Jr. was a CAP and started at around a 77 I want to say. He had bad years for Toronto and only grew to an 86 at the time he was eligible for free agency even though he had a 99 potential. Again, proof that potential does not affect growth. But back to ratings, though. I did not edit any attributes because he was a solid MLB player at that overall and grew to an 89 after 2 more years.



It is a whole different story for draft class edits. I need to bring those players who come out in the 40's overall to that 55 threshold. This typically affects 1B, 3B, C, and occasionally other positions. Usually I have found it is due to super low fielding attributes so I will bring those up then slowly and evenly bring up their hitting attributes. With SP, the culprit is usually stamina or an insanely low per 9 attribute.


I have toyed with some ideas about these low level players. The first change I made was to make their potential 79 if it was over 80. I may leave potential where it is at for one of each position and assess after a year of simming about how their ratings have played out. Still deciding on this but I am not doing any more testing right now.


It's hard to specify exactly what I edit attribute wise on a prospect to get them to 55 because it varies by position. One thing I will never touch is speed though.


I also assess corner OF prospects. They end up all the same in the draft classes. They all have high speed and stealing but low power. These require attention as well.


In the end for me, I don't mess with real life prospects ratings because I have found potential editing to have a much better and lasting impact.


The sad thing is that if we had better draft class generation or the ability to edit classes during scouting, it would solve a lot of my problems on a much easier scale.

[Bushido]

Re: Roster Editing Theories

So, with that out of the way, let's look at how we can adopt a better long-term experience in franchise.


Yes, I understand that many may disagree with this information but keep an open mind if you read it.


For this to work, edits must be done either on the base roster or in an active franchise. It can be done at any point so there is no need to start over. It may just require more edits if you are more than one year in.



First, we need to establish some ground rules and keep in mind some things.


1. First, we need to embrace what an average player rating is. If you base in on ratings with the average MLB player having attribute ratings of 62 (which is what one of the devs said a while back), it comes out to be a 76 to 78. Remember the goal is to have rosters that are similar to base ratings multiple seasons in.


2. We also need to accept that not every player has to be a 95-overall superstar. Teams are made up of average players. They are the ones that come in and work every day and are consistent. They are the bread and butter of your club mixed with those great players that elevate your team.


3. We need to understand that potential has zero effect on progression and regression. None whatsoever so we don't need inflated potentials for faster growth.


4. Morale can have an impact of 4-5 points overall one way or the other. So, when I talk about overall this is ignoring morale effects.


5. We are going to use the 20 to 80 scale for scouting grades and base potentials for prospects off of that. This only works for the initial roster and not future drafts in game. With this scale, 50 is average. But I will share more on this when I go over my conversion scale.


6. We have to keep in mind that in real baseball, prospect grades are done on the individual tools and one overall, not just one overall potential like in the game so this does cause some skewing of results.


7. We never lower prospect grades more than one level lower. E.g., No A to C, etc.


8. We need more D potential prospects and some of the very low C ones will be changed to D (68) potential. This creates better depth charts in the minors long term.


That being established, let's get to current prospects in the rosters and talk about where their potential should be.


The prospect grade scale rates from 20 to 80. With 50 being average. You would find that 65 would be all-star level, 70-75 would be elite, and 80 would be perennial MVP.


With that info, we need to extrapolate and convert those grades to potential grades. We know what an average overall rating is. It is 76 to 78. We have established that already.


So now we have a prospect grade of 50 being a 76-78 potential. With me still?


Let's look at the scale:

Prospect grade to potential:


50 would equal 75-78 potential
55 would equal 79-82
60 would equal 83-86
65 would equal 87-89
70 would equal 90-92
75 would equal 93-95
80 would equal 96-97



The scale cuts off at 97 potential because of morale inflation and 99 should only be reserved for a select few like Mike Trout.


Let's look at an example from 2019 FM roster. Nolan Jones had a prospect grade of 55 which would equal out to a potential of 79 to 82 but in the roster, he was given a potential of 91 which would be closer to a prospect grade of 70.


This is a good example of why we see highly stacked rosters of players 90+ multiple years in. Jones should never reach that potential but in that base roster he does in every sim by year 5.


I understand people want to play with their favorite prospects and they want them all to be superstars but that just doesn't happen. We have to embrace the average. It makes that special prospect that much better when they develop here or from my draft class edits in the next post.


Let's look at the 2020 prospect grades. The highest grade is 65. This means that there should not be a single A potential prospect in the game or on the rosters to start.


Now that is unreasonable, I recognize so the top 8 prospects in all of MLB would be given potential ratings of 90 to 92 to balance this out so they do become eventually become a game changer.


I think the big question you have now is why so few A prospects? If given long enough, most will develop into their 80s overall but because of morale boosting ratings it has a huge effect on depth charts.


Anyway...


This went longer than I thought. I will share the draft edits in the next post and potentially ones to MLB players though that will be quick.

When I get my new PlayStation, I'm going to go back and re-rate the prospects potentials based on this formula, and the 1500prospects.com tier rankings.

It will water down the prospect pool, giving us a much realistic sim experience as we go deeper into our franchises, IMO.

[Caulfield]

Re: Roster Editing Theories

when it comes to potential I like for it to be 40% D potential, 30% C potential, 20% B potential, 10% A potential
& dislike having any potential under 50 (F potential). personal preference.
the rare player I want with an F potential are players under 40 Overall

[CBoller1331]

Re: Roster Editing Theories

when it comes to potential I like for it to be 40% D potential, 30% C potential, 20% B potential, 10% A potential
& dislike having any potential under 50 (F potential). personal preference.
the rare player I want with an F potential are players under 40 Overall

Using ZiPS WAR projections for 2021 to calculate potential, this is the breakdown I got:

Position Players:
A Pot: 92/1174 = 7.8%
B Pot: 199/1174 = 17%
C Pot: 383/1174 = 32.6%
D Pot: 500/1174 = 42.6%

For pitchers I used their WAR projections as well as FIP projections to give dominant relievers a small boost

Pitchers
A Pot: 70/1337 = 5.2%
B Pot: 205/1337 = 15.3%
C Pot: 455/1337 = 34%
D Pot: 607/1337 = 45.4%

Worth noting that this is only one year and I prefer to use the 3-year projections to calculate potential, but they are not out on FanGraphs yet. I don't think the breakdown would change much, but individual ratings certainly would