Question about Scouting

[BruceM]

In OOTP 2006, when a Scout left your organization, you lost all his reports.

Is this still the case in 2007?

IMO it shouldn't be. IRL, if a Scout files reports with you, you have them until "you" decide to discard them, not until your scout leaves and takes them with him.

[silvam14]

When this was brought up when 2006 came out, I suggested at the very least, you should be allowed to export any and every scouting report to a text file for safe keeping.

Maybe this will be implemented

[Markus Heinsohn]

This has not been changed, as this is basically intentional. This should you make think twice before you replace a scout with a different one....

[skywalkr2]

But what about retirements? We don't have any control over that. Losing your head scout to retirement is a HUGE loss ... especially considering how long it takes to re-scout.

[BruceM]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

This has not been changed, as this is basically intentional. This should you make think twice before you replace a scout with a different one....

Sorry, but this makes no sense. What about a Scout who won't resign?, or as previously mentioned, retires. What if I want to upgrade to a better scout?

IRL, if I'm a GM and a Scout sends me a report, I keep that report as long as I want, not as long as he wants. Think of it as receiving an email (or in this case a report), it's the receiver who decides when it gets deleted, not the sender.

Heck of a way to make someone think......... GM's make moves irl for a reason, they don't lose the information they had on a player after he's gone.


This unrealistic feature is one of the main resons I never use scouting, that and the fact it takes so long to get the report in the first place.

[battists]

Yeah, I agree with BruceM on this, and have fought for this in the past. (And lost, apparently. )

[Joshv02]

I agree with Bruce, too - if an employee does work for you, you generally own the work.

[ifspuds]

I'll add my agreement. It doesn't make any sense to lose scouting reports. They're part of the organization, not part of the scout.

[Melo]

Originally Posted by Joshv02

I agree with Bruce, too - if an employee does work for you, you generally own the work.

It's considered intellectual property.

Well, unless your scout is a dummy.

[chimanbj]

How many reports are really necessary? Always keep two top scouts in your stable...and hopefully you'll have reliable reports...

[Curtis]

Yeah, but it can take eight or nine months to rescout a league. I'm with BruceM.

[ctorg]

Originally Posted by BruceM

IRL, if I'm a GM and a Scout sends me a report, I keep that report as long as I want, not as long as he wants. Think of it as receiving an email (or in this case a report), it's the receiver who decides when it gets deleted, not the sender.

Yeah, when a scout makes a report, he doesn't own it. The team does. Maybe he can take his reports to a new team as well, since he has them, but the team that was paying him would certainly be entitled to keep them.

[fhomess]

I never play with scouts, so I had no idea this was the case, but the scouting reports are intellectual property belonging to the franchise. They do not belong to the scout.

[chimanbj]

Hmm...so, you'd rather have old scouting reports rather than updated reports from your current staff? I would think that you'd have at least 2 scouts reviewing the league, at least for some different opinions. Now if you have the top-rated scout, you pay him through the roof and then hire another almost-as-good scout to back him up. Then when your top scout leaves, you have information from your #2, who should be very similar in talent.

[ctorg]

Sounds like I still won't be using scouting. There's certainly more than enough to keep me happy in other areas, from the look of things, but scouting has been a trouble area of the game to me in the new engine. Even with the automation, it is cumbersome. My big complaint about not being able to view the latest scouting report on every player at the same time in a sortable list still apparently remains. And things like the issue mentioned above make it somewhat unrealistic.

Ideally, each player should have a team-specific list of scouting reports attached to him. Each time he is scouted, a line is added with the numbers from the report. When we click on the tab to see scouting reports, all the reports he has had should show up, along with who the scout was and whether it was a quick-scout or a full job.

I doubt we'll see a big change like that this year, so I'll look to the future on this one. As I said, there's plenty else to keep my interest right now.

[BruceM]

Originally Posted by chimanbj

Hmm...so, you'd rather have old scouting reports rather than updated reports from your current staff?

You're missing the point entirely. Yes, I can send out another scout and wait a long time to get what I want.

The point here is the realism. If you have an employee working for you and he does a report for you on certain products you sell and how they're doing on the market, he gives those reports to you. They're yours, you decide when you no longer want them. If he leaves the company do you give him back the reports and say "here you go, these are yours take them with you."

Sure, the new guy you hire will likely do you a new set eventually, but in the meantime you still have the old reports to use.

[Stu]

Originally Posted by ctorg

Ideally, each player should have a team-specific list of scouting reports attached to him. Each time he is scouted, a line is added with the numbers from the report. When we click on the tab to see scouting reports, all the reports he has had should show up, along with who the scout was and whether it was a quick-scout or a full job.

This is kind of like a suggestion I made in the suggestions thread last year. I basically wanted it to appear like the game logs do for players. So you could look at all the scouting reports by date. This way you could see improvement/decline in players by comparing a scouts current report to one he filed in the past.

[jerrycapo]

The other part of this that is unrealistic is that when a scout joins your team he has no opinions on any players whatsoever. Why would a major league team hire a scout who knew nothing about anyone currently playing baseball?


Is there a way to have the old scouts ratings stay with that scouting position until your new scout has had a chance to update them?

For example, I have a head scout who scouted MLB last season. After the season he retires (quits, is fired, etc...) and I have to find a new scout fill that position. Leave that old scouts ratings of players with the new scout until the new scout has had a chance to scout all of MLB to update the ratings.

[ctorg]

Really, ratings should be stored separately from the scouts who make them. I'd imagine them as a table that has the date of report, scout who made it, team he was working for, and whether it was a quick scout or a full one. Then it would have the ratings. Teams would have access to any given report if either they had the scout in current employment or the report was made by a scout for their team.

IOW,

Let's say scout Bobo Scottman rates player Xanadu Moss as 55s across the board (for simplicity's sake) while employed by the New York Empires. He then leaves the Empires and is hired by the Philadelphia Keystones. Both the Empires and the Keystones should have access to that report. The Empires would have it in perpetuity, while the Keystones might only have it while they have Scottman in their employment (since they have no ownership of that report).

Then, when viewing a free agent pool, a GM could view ratings by latest report for each player, which could be filtered to include only full reports or quick and full ones.

Personally, I would be much more inclined to use a system that works like this.

[zukes]

This is absolutely something that should be changed. As mentioned a bunch of times, and hopefully will be mentioned a bunch more, the report is property of the team and should remian there. The fact that it is outdated should be punishment enough.