Scouting features you want?

[BoNity]

Hey all, I'm getting into coding during this quarantine and for my first project id like to try my hand at revamping scouting in mlb the show. My main goal is to create an application that would be a standalone scouting and draft program to help us have some fun and dynamic scouting in the show. Anyway, it's all an idea right now but I'd like some ideas and feedback on how to make scouting cool, fun and dynamic.

[millertime98]

I liked how in Madden there was a player comp.

[BoNity]

Quote: Originally Posted by millertime98

I liked how in Madden there was a player comp.

That's the stuff I'm looking for. Great suggestion.

[millertime98]

Another thing would be a risk factor. Maybe depending on the team, the risk goes up because the player won't sign with you. Maybe the player is a risk due to a shady character. The draft seems to be too easy, at the top at least. The blue chip players are always good. I wonder if there is a way to have a guy be anywhere from a 40-80 and in order to really find out you have to spend a lot of extra time scouting. As of now it seems like 2-3 days is all it takes to find out a ton about the guy. I wonder if there is a way to have it where you can see the player's schedule (high school or college depending on age) and you have to make a choice if 2 or more players are playing on the same day in different parts of the country. Or if, the player doesn't have a game, you could do an individual workout and maybe you don't get to have as much info retrieved. Maybe I'm asking for too much.

Example

Joe Random is a high school prospect in California. He has 2 games a week.
Bill Johnson is a college player at UCLA. He plays a three game series on the weekend.
The west scout can't see both in the same day so he has to decide who to see. Maybe one Friday he sees Johnson pitch and on Saturday he has Random have an individual workout.
Johnson is a Junior and will go back to school if his $5 Million signing bonus isn't met. Random just wants to be a top 5 pick!

Also, in Madden, they have draft projections: Top 5 pick, 1st rounder, etc. If I am picking late in the second round and there is a 1st round projected guy I'll have to find out why that guy didn't get drafted and see what the risk is.

I'm just spitballing.

[BoNity]

Quote: Originally Posted by millertime98

Another thing would be a risk factor. Maybe depending on the team, the risk goes up because the player won't sign with you. Maybe the player is a risk due to a shady character. The draft seems to be too easy, at the top at least. The blue chip players are always good. I wonder if there is a way to have a guy be anywhere from a 40-80 and in order to really find out you have to spend a lot of extra time scouting. As of now it seems like 2-3 days is all it takes to find out a ton about the guy. I wonder if there is a way to have it where you can see the player's schedule (high school or college depending on age) and you have to make a choice if 2 or more players are playing on the same day in different parts of the country. Or if, the player doesn't have a game, you could do an individual workout and maybe you don't get to have as much info retrieved. Maybe I'm asking for too much. Example Joe Random is a high school prospect in California. He has 2 games a week. Bill Johnson is a college player at UCLA. He plays a three game series on the weekend. The west scout can't see both in the same day so he has to decide who to see. Maybe one Friday he sees Johnson pitch and on Saturday he has Random have an individual workout. Johnson is a Junior and will go back to school if his $5 Million signing bonus isn't met. Random just wants to be a top 5 pick! Also, in Madden, they have draft projections: Top 5 pick, 1st rounder, etc. If I am picking late in the second round and there is a 1st round projected guy I'll have to find out why that guy didn't get drafted and see what the risk is. I'm just spitballing.

That could be difficult to implement but it's definitely a good thought. My plan currently is something along the lines of this: you get 3 scouts, a veteran who has high accuracy, but can only make a few reports; a team of scouts who get average accuracy; and a un-proven scout who has the lowest accuracy but also is a Maverick and may be able to find a hidden gem.

I'm trying to make it fun, challenging but also as realistic as I can get with out having to spend xp and unlock attributes like maddeb, its so cheesy.

Also thinking about ways to make it dynamic. For instance my current plan is to have a scout feature that says " this scout has now seen player x 3 times and thinks his power is underrated" if you draft that player AND the scout is CORRECT (veteran scout likely will be, average scout maybe, un proven scout less likely) then that player gets a 5-10 point power boost. So if you never scouted that player and ended up drafting him, his power wouldn't get that boost.

[JWDixon120]

This sounds like a really cool idea! Question for you... will your application/software generate a pool of players that are then drafted? Where later users will go in their games and edit which players were drafted?

For example your application spits out all of the 1st round selections, then I go in game and manually edit those players?

I’d love to hear more about this, as I posted a thread recently with some scouting ideas I believe need to be fixed and supported. I’ll post those in a few!

[JWDixon120]

I’m not sure if this will help or not, but these were some issues and possible fixes I typed up a few weeks back.

The scouting system we currently have is outdated and stale for many reasons.

1. Player ages are off by miles.

2. Only 6 rounds (console limited)

3. AI draft logic (1st Overall picks are 99 potential, 44 OVR CP’s who are 21 YO)

4. Scouting accuracy truly never seems accurate, no matter the scouts attributes.

5. Players from random nations.. (There should be intl draft period)

6. Players are literally assigned random equipment after the draft, so half the prospects are wearing turtlenecks with stirrups.

7. Scouts are only useful for the first 2 1/2 months of the year, then they go on vacation.

8. No dedicated draft pool database so after the draft, you can’t see if that 18 YO is still in the pool somewhere. This also makes it tough to decide how to build your team for the future when you can’t see upcoming draft prospects the year before.

9. College/HS stats would be a nice touch.

10. Height/Weight doesn’t seem to reflect positions well.. 6’5 Catchers//5’8 Power Hitting RF’s etc.

11. Too many players without secondary
positions

As for draft ages:

All that would be needed is for players to have limits on their draft eligibility.

18 YO can stay for 4 years
19 YO for 3
20 YO for 2
21 YO for 1
22 YO for 0

I already know this is too much to be asking for but some soft OVR thresholds would give this a lot more life.

If an 18 YO is a 70 OVR in his first year in the draft pool, he should obviously declare for the draft regardless of potential. Same goes with a 18 YO who’s 60-65 OVR but A-B potential.

[JWDixon120]

Also, here’s some stats from a discussion brought up in that thread as well. We discussed how it’s a very apparent problem within MLBTS that after about 3-4 years, every lineup has 9 players who are 85+ OVR and pitching staffs all in the 90s.

A lot of this is from a poor progression/regression system but some also stems from the draft potentials.

Here’s a look at the stats of player OVR’s after a few years WITH manual scouting and without manual scouting.