Skip to main content

International Scouting: What You Get for the Money, Part 1 of 4

In an attempt to begin to make sense of the often frustrating relationshop between the International Scouting budget and the actual players your scouts bring to you as prospects, we will survey 4 owners with varying budgets this season to see who gets what for their money.

mnnorthstars is spending $20M on int'l scouting this season and will be our high-end budget rep. The other owners who will share what they see are myself(16M), sjstapleton(11M), and crickett13(7M).

It wouldn't be very accurate to report on these players based upon their overall projected ratings, since this always fluctuates based upon multiple scouting budgets(advance and international), so we will instead look at two very basic elements: total number of players seen and the player's initial asking bonus. The ladder is not a great determinant of actual projected value, but will at least give us a quality approximation of the players scouted.

The numbers listed below were reported at approximately the 7-8 game point of the season, which also includes all of the international players scouted during Spring Training. The four of us will attempt to update these numbers at the following approximate intervals as well: game 50, game 100, and game 150.


Listed as follows: Team, (int'l budget), total # of players seen, # of players asking for a bonus of greather than 3M, #of players asking between 1M and 3M, # players asking less than 1M.

Minnesota(20M) total=16, asking more than 3M=2, 1-3M=6, less than 1M=8

Anaheim(16M) total=15, asking more than 3M=3, 1-3M=5, less than 1M=7

Little Rock(11M) total=10 asking more than 3M=1, 1-3M=4, less than 1M=5

Scranton(7M) total=7 asking more than 3M=2, 1-3M=2, less than 1M=3

Initial Findings: Of players asking for less than 3M, there is perfect correlation to money devoted to international scouting; the more you spend the more of these players you see.

For players asking more than 3M, those who may be not only eventual big leaguers, but maybe even stars at the big league level, there is some inconsistency. The 7M budget has seen two of these guys, same as the 20M budget, and 1 more than the 11M budget. The 16M budget has seen the most of these guys at 3 thus far.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Anaheim Anteaters Future Shock: Top 10 Prospects

1/ SP Hugh Palmer . Age 24. AAA. ETA: S10 Selected 13th in the 1st round of the S6 draft, Palmer dominated the lower minors and has averaged a 16-4/3.35 record in 3 minor league seasons. Palmer's big calling card has been the punchout as he's K'd 502 batters in 51o frames. His heater is in the mid-90s and still developing. Palmer comes with 2 good pitchers, the fastball and slider, but could use a better forkball and curveball to sharpen his repertoire. Palmer's about a season away from the bigs and projects to a solid #2 or #3 starter. 2/ SP Vasco Almonte . Age 22. AAA. ETA: S10 A former 1st round draft pick by Atlanta/Chicago, Almonte was traded to Anaheim for fellow prospect Tony Mendoza . Almonte has been consistent in the minors, if unspectacular, with a 4.15 era and 1.32 whip. However, Almonte is just 22 and has progressed quickly through the minors with a AAA season already in the books. If he continues to develop his fastball and change-up he can become a stalwa...

HBD Ballpark Factors

Ballpark effects are ranked on a scale from - 4 to + 4, based on their impact on hits (1B), doubles (2B), triples (3B), home runs to left field (HR LF) and home runs to right field (HR RF). The more negative or positive number, the more extreme the effect for that hit in that direction. These numbers are just indicators of the relative effect in the simulation engine. They are important for users and founded entirely on historical fact, but are meant for display purposes and not explicitly used in the simulation engine. City/State Ballpark Capacity 1B 2B 3B LF RF PF Division  Albuquerque (New Mexico) Isotopes Park 11,124 4 4 4 1 0 1.211 West  Anaheim (California) Angel Stadium 45,050 0 -2 -2 0 0 0.951 West  Atlanta (Georgia) Turner Field 50,062 -1 -1 0 1 1 0.950 South, East ...

Recent HBD Update

The March 6 update to the HBD engine features some important developments we should all be aware of. mnnorthstars mentioned one of these in the chat page: Spring Training playing time now has increased importance. Specifically, those with adequate playing time could get a friendlier boost in ratings, and big league players who don't get enough playing time can take a hit in their ratings. This latter element is the key thing here to note. As far as what equals adequate( or as tzentmeyer called it "enough") playing time, we don't know yet. Since this update is so recent, there have yet to be any studies in the forum. Before the update, I tried to get as many players as possible 40 at bats and 15-20 innings for starting pitchers to capture the Spring ratings boost. Perhaps when ST is over some of us can report back here with the varying results of playing time. The other update to the engine involes rookies and big league service time. Previously, you could call up rook...