Absurd Scouting/Coaching Advantage

[misterawesome]

I'm posting this to the "new to the game" thread, as I am new to the game and this might be a result of my own ignorance, but here goes:

I just began playing the game (and want to quick my job because I'm addicted) with Melo's Cubbyfan update, as the Seattle Mariners. As the 2007 Mariners were not as good of a team as their real life W/L record indicated, I've set about rejuvenating the farm system.

When I go to hire scouts and coaches, I have my pick of guys with ratings in the upper 90s/low 100s. And there are tons of them. Sure, they're slightly more expensive, but it's a small price for top-shelf talent. Is this normal throughout the game (even if I used a fictional universe), or am I missing something that would make this a bit more...competitive.

[eriqjaffe]

I've considered coaches & scouts to be an unfair advantage for many, many versions now. I always play with them off.

You could also try playing with the ratings off, so you have to go by stats alone.

[injury log]

That's almost certainly a byproduct of the roster set. If you start a new fictional league, you might start with good coaches or bad- seems random- but there won't be any good ones available to hire. It's definitely possible to outhire the AI teams over time, but this is harder now than in past versions of the game. Still, I'd think that playing with scouts on puts the user at a disadvantage, no matter how good your scouts- you're playing with scouting error, then, and not seeing true ratings. I've never seen any evidence that AI teams actually use scouts- even in Commissioner mode, you'll never see an AI team's scouts on assignment- which makes me think AI teams base their decisions on underlying ratings, not on scouting reports. There may be some scouting error built in there, though, with scouts on- I'm really just speculating here.

Since you'll always be able to hire (eventually) better coaches than AI teams, I keep coaching off to avoid having an additional advantage.

EDIT- of course, if you play, as eriq suggests, with ratings invisible, then what I'm saying about scouting error is irrelevant- and turning ratings off is a lot of fun, if a lot more challenging.