Discovering talent

[Mike Lowe]

Surprised nothing came up for a search...

How does one "discover" a player from another country? Does it just happen automatically based on funding, etc.?

[Athletics17]

here is alink to the manual page. It has to do with your scouting budget and percentage on international scouting in your budget distribution.

OOTP Baseball Manual - Scouting Budgets

[Mike Lowe]

Thanks but it doesn't say anything in there about how a player becomes "discovered." I say discovered because the AI just put a 17 year old on waivers and in his history it says he was just signed today...discovered in Peurto Rico.

[Athletics17]

Originally Posted by Mike Lowe

Thanks but it doesn't say anything in there about how a player becomes "discovered." I say discovered because the AI just put a 17 year old on waivers and in his history it says he was just signed today...discovered in Peurto Rico.

Any player my scout discovered came with with a news update. It say my scout was on a scouting trip in the Sudan and found a middle reliever and has a scouting report and gives me the first option to sign him.

This is an example of all ever seen on the topic.

[JackRules1]

I get maybe 2-3 reports a year from my scout about discoveries, but I don't devote a lot of my scouting budget to international players. Occasionally they want a big league contract right out of the gate, while others will be willing to take a minor league deal.

[zukes]

A question along these same lines, I cannot seem to change my scouting budget, even in the pre-season. I tried last year and never looked again and it reset to what it was set. This pre-season I have tried it on a couple different days, I hit enter after I put the new number in and when I change pages it resets. What am I doing wrong?

[zukes]

nevermind it seems you have a limit, which I was going over apparently.

[Afino]

Originally Posted by Mike Lowe

Thanks but it doesn't say anything in there about how a player becomes "discovered." I say discovered because the AI just put a 17 year old on waivers and in his history it says he was just signed today...discovered in Peurto Rico.

That's one of my personal pet peeve bugs that I have chronicled in the past.

No matter how ****ty the player is (currently) that the AI finds, they sign them to a major league deal and immediately DFA him because he's not good enough to be a major leaguer. This upsets the player, and sometimes he ends up ping-ponging on waivers between teams. It seems like the AI can't sign a scout find to a minor league deal, at all.

[JackRules1]

Originally Posted by zukes

nevermind it seems you have a limit, which I was going over apparently.

I believe if your team is operating at a deficit, then this figure defaults to 50% of the league average and you can't change it. If you are in the black, you can run your scouting budget up, though I don't know how far.

[zukes]

Originally Posted by JackRules1

I believe if your team is operating at a deficit, then this figure defaults to 50% of the league average and you can't change it. If you are in the black, you can run your scouting budget up, though I don't know how far.

Yeah, I was able to get it to move up, I was just aiming too high. League average was $2.5mil and I was going $5mill. It let be go up to just under $4 mil. Must be tied to financials. Last year I just changed it once, left the page and never thought about it again until a few months into the season.

[AirmenSmith]

So I have a question that I just thought of. In the manual it makes it sound like that the more money that is in the internation scouting budget, the more accurate the scouting report will be.

So my question is, if you put everything into your internation scounting budget will your scouts discover more players or is it just the same amount of players but with but scouting reports?

[Afino]

Originally Posted by AirmenSmith

So I have a question that I just thought of. In the manual it makes it sound like that the more money that is in the internation scouting budget, the more accurate the scouting report will be.

So my question is, if you put everything into your internation scounting budget will your scouts discover more players or is it just the same amount of players but with but scouting reports?

Pretty sure more money = more players and/or better players found.

In my league, I had 5 years of 2x the league average for scouting budget - meaning I put more into my international scouting than some teams had in scouting total. I found 5-6 players per year, but actually none of those have been big contributors as of yet.

Last year because of my budget, my scouting budget was half the league average - therefore my money allocated to international scouting was also drastically cut. I didn't find any players last year.

[DanDiaz]

I have my intl scouting budget very high and get great players.

I get 4-8 and even 10 players a season. A lot arent very good, but usually i get a good and great prospect, and every year or two, a superstar.

I just got a 20yr old 2B who was better then any 2B in the draft, this is not uncommon.

the league avg in scouting spend is 2.5M I am spending the max 12.5M and have 22% dedicated to Intl.

[Biggio509]

Originally Posted by zukes

nevermind it seems you have a limit, which I was going over apparently.

You can't set your scouting budget to a point that causes your overall budget, scouting+coaches pay+player payroll, to go negative. The system will adjust your scouting new scouting to get a 0 balance on the budget if possible or go back to last year's budget for scouting if you are negative to begin with.

[Pdubya64]

Has anyone here actually "found" a international prospect with anything other than a 1.0 rating? No matter how good my Head Scout is (i.e., 100+ ratings), he never seems to come up with anything other than bleah.

I mean, what's the point of going through all this if the prospect in question is not even remotely talented?
Frankly, I wonder if this feature is broken the way I have experienced it.

[Jami]

I've found that, like the other areas of scouting, there's a point of diminishing returns when it comes to international scouting. In one of my leagues, I'm playing as the Yankees and I spend ridiculous amounts of money on scouting with a heavy emphasis on finding international players (about 35% of my $8 million scouting budget). Even then, I'm lucky if I find more than a player or two every year that isn't a reliever or a 25-year old 1-star scrub.

I have had a couple of success stories, the biggest of which being the current face of my franchise. When the scout found him, he had a 18 potential in contact and 20 potential in eye (on a 1-20 scale), and both were already highly developed for his age. Needless to say, he didn't spend much time in my minors. Won Rookie of the Year in his first season, and won MVP in his second season. His batting average took a dip in his fourth season, and his RBI total was low compared to years past (but that was because I had to move him to the leadoff spot because no one else could get on base).

[DanDiaz]

I often see them, and a fair amount agree to a minor league delas. True, over half of intl finds stink, but if you spend enough, there will be good finds.

[Daern]

Literally every MVP or Cy Young for the past six years in my league has been an international FA.