Does Scouting even matter anymore?

[Schaefling]

I always thought that good teams had good scouting and that as important as it is to have very talented players and excellent coaching it was equally important tohave excellent scouting.

Basebal Mogul seemed to follow this trend in all its cd-rom version and in the first version of the online game. But the revised online version does not seem to continue this trend.

Team cans now spend almost nothing on scouting and on farm teams as well and there appears to be little negative effect. In the past if you did not spend a minimum amount of like 30-40 points on scouting and farm your players would actually get worse in the offseason and would not improve much during the regular season.

So I have to ask Sports Mogul is this really the case with the revised version? If so I must admit to being disappointed.

It certainly seems this way to me. In EML 2 Atlanta is going to win over 130 games for the second year in a row and do so while spending almost nothing on farm and scouting. Such fantastic seasons have been possible although rare in the first version of the game but could never have been achieved at the expense of farm and scouting.

P.S. It's also really crazy that after less than 10 years of play in the league Atlanta can boost ticket prices to between 50 and 70 percent above normal and still practically sell out every game. I sure would love to know about this too. What's going on with these sort of ticket prices, Sports Mogul? Can you give us an answer to this rather strange development also?

[takaplan]

Personally, I have actually seen the opposite of this, so I'm not sure if anything is actually wrong. Does anyone else have comments on this? Just going by one team in one league is not enough to back a trend throughout all the leagues.

[Schaefling]

I agree one team is not enough and I have had some pretty phenomonal runs myself although my best results have come in leagues where you can trade with the computer.

Atlanta in EML2 is having great success where computer trading is not allowed. Khan in 2002 and Beyond is also having some great seasons and is winning in the 130 plus games area as well.
So now there's a second team for you.


I still think though that there's something strange about being able to spend 4 pojnts a year on farm and win 130-145 games year and and year out which is almost beyond comprehension in a league where trading with the computer is not allowed. In the original online version if you spent so little on farm and had a team salary of 800 plus point you would run the risk of all your players deteriorating into crummy players.

So I say again I think there is a lack of play balance in the game with respect to signing veteran players versus developing players with farm teams. In fact, it is so bad many players I know are pretty much abandoning trying to develop players through farm teams and are focusing exclusively on signing free agents or acquiring players through trades.

Perhaps this is a case of overcompensation after it was discovered that rookie crops were loaded with too much talent. Now there appears to be a lcak of talent and unless your team does really poorlyyou don't get any talent no matter how much you spend on farm teams.

Whatever the case I think ther e is a real play balance issue here. I say this not to criticize what I think is a great game but simply to inform Sports Mogul of my observations.

I hope this helps.

[georgefc3]

Hello

I'm the Yankees in Real Baseball League. I was the #1 spender in FARM and got NO rookies last year.

None at all!

Note: I had very few roster slots open. 2 pitcher and 4 or 5 positions slots. It would have been nice to get something for my 150 points spent....

[takaplan]

Weird...I'll send your bug report.

Schaefling, remember farm system effects the development of only your AAA players, so having a poor farm wouldn't hurt the deveopment of your big leaguers.

[lancelot55]

I consider scouting a luxury. I find it pretty easy to judge players for the most part by the numbers they put up. Don't get me wrong, scouting is nice to have with big market teams, but you really don't need it.

Big A

[dturkenk]

I would argue the other way. It seems to me scouting is essential for small market teams because of how variable the performance is. But what do I know, I don't win anything anyway.

[Schaefling]

I think lots of players now see scouting and farm teams as a luxury that's not needed any more. And that's unfortunate.

It was nice to have the option of building teams through the draft. Now the only way you can build a team through the draft is if you are at the bottom of the standings for several years in a row which effectively puts you out of the mogul points race for best manager. Gone are the days when even the best teams got one or two good rookies if they spent enough money on scouting and farm teams.

More and more players I talk with online are noticing this problem and few if any are happy about what's happened to rookie development. We knew something had to be done about the large numbers of great rookies but this is overkill! All of a sudden we are back to last summer when everyone was complaining about the lack of decent rookies.

This is a real shame because it reduces options for managers and makes the game too simple for my taste. Now it's all about signing the best players for the least money.

To be frank, I really enjoyed developing rookies and if I have no chance for good rookies because I'm at the top of the standings each year I'm honestly not sure how much longer I will stick with Baseball Mogul Online. And believe me, it's not nearly as much fun if you never ever get any decent rookies. And that's a shame because this has been a great game to play.

Is there any chance Sports Mogul is going to do something about this? I hope so because I think the way rookie development is being handled right now is most definitely endangering the long term life of this online game.

[lancelot55]

I find that if I manage a tier one or tier two team, it is pretty easy to build a contender year in and year out--lately I have experimenting with KC, and it seems to be good challenge--epecially if you take over some bad teams. Schaeling, I don't know if you ever manage a team like KC, if not, give it shot, it's a new challenge.

Thanks Big A

[toner37]

I think the way it is set up now mirrors the NHL, NFL, and NBA a little more closely than MLB.

Sure, losing teams do (and should) get BETTER talent in the drafts than winning teams, but it's usually not as noticeable in baseball as it is in the other sports.

With basketball, football, and to a lesser extent hockey, players can make an immediate impact from the time they are drafted. In baseball the talent is usually (except in certain cases) not that obvious. Players usually spend a few years in the minors before even getting a sniff of the big leagues. That leaves lots of room for error in judgement on a players skill level.

I don't think Schaefling is saying this is a bad system you are using, it just went a little too far the other way when you changed it.

[Schaefling]

Nicely put toner37 and said much more simply than I did!

[winginit]

Just to follow up on the thread, I just got done losing the WS again in the old Survivor league (a 2001 league). But having top spending on farm netted me 5 or 6 All-Star rookies.

In the 2002 leagues that I have been in, I've mostly given up on developing talent and scouting. I had Pittsburgh in the 2002 and beyond league. What a disaster. Spent years making room for scouting and farm spending... and got nothing in return. Having young pitchers is a virtual sin (See the develpment of Ozzie Shearer in Survivor2).

In my opinion, that's not the biggest problem now, though. It may just be me, and bad luck, but I've seen drastic differences in production year-to-year. Take a look at Benji Bebb and Yancy Ainsle in EML2. In Survivor2 I ended up cutting my top starter (Eric Milton) and benching my top reliever (Ulrich Babich) before the end of season. Oddly, since I've quit spending on scouting, the scouting reports on these players seem more realistic. I've wondered if the injuries are getting attributed to the right players. By and large I don't have a clue how to play the game anymore, except that farm and scouting spending are not path to improvement.

[faulk28]

...you're right...i have been experimenting with different ways to play...i have not been spending much on farm anymore though i have been trying to stay #1 in scouting and it seems to be doing ok...