Broken Bat - Suggestions: Obligatory Draft Suggestion

Forum >> Suggestions >> Obligatory Draft Suggestion

Post ID	Date & Time	Game Date

#61247	10/09/2018 4:35:27 pm	Jan 20th, 2038
Rock777 Joined: 09/21/2014 Posts: 9617 Haverhill Halflings III.1	Every season we have a discussion on improving the draft. Figured I'd kick it off with my suggestion. Basic concept: - Keep player pools, but prospects are randomly generated when a player picks from a pool. - generated prospects are deleted as soon as the team picks a player - Quality of prospects dependent on round (or possibly pick number for that team). Nothing lower than "Good Potential" in the first round. - Set percentage of late round sleepers. Steve can determine the desired percentage, but this would guarantee the possibility of pulling a "Good Potential" sleeper even in round 10. Enables the following: - more even distribution of talent - fined tuned potential for sleepers in late rounds - prospects never disappear since they aren't shared - draft time of day no longer matters - If quality is based on team's # of draft picks instead of round, missing a week would only equate to losing a 10th rounder instead of a 1st rounder - Available quality per round can be fine tuned based on existing players pulled - Easier to integrate future options such as drafting by position without worrying about shared pool balance Reasoning: Much of the balance issues with the draft come from the fact that everyone picks from the same pool. But without any control over which 10 players we get, there seems to be little point in picking from the same pool. There is no real competition for players, just luck of the draw (with the occasional race condition). Given shared pools create limitations and some issues, while providing little to no perceivable value, why not discard them in place of random prospects. Most of us already perceive our draft options as random prospects as is.

#61248	10/09/2018 4:38:18 pm	Jan 20th, 2038
Rock777 Joined: 09/21/2014 Posts: 9617 Haverhill Halflings III.1	Some may consider this a "band-aid" solution. But the idea is that it is a relatively low impact change coding wise, that can improve on our current system without drastically changing the experience that Steve desires (such as not presenting casual users with too many options to scroll through).

#61257	10/09/2018 9:28:37 pm	Jan 22nd, 2038
MukilteoMike Joined: 08/09/2014 Posts: 3294 Inactive	I like the use of the word 'obligatory.' I think this is similar to previous ideas. It would almost be impossible to not be similar to at least one or two, right? The major problem I see is inflation, and quite possibly hyper-inflation. Here are the first two ways that came to me to fight that inflation. First way--Lower the top end of the choices drastically. If we see nothing but good and very good draftees, odds are there will be tons of awesome players. Eliminate 15+ potential guys altogether and make the vast majority of choices in the early rounds with 100-112 potential. Option two--Eliminate the last six or so rounds. I know that sounds drastic, but it would be necessary. We should only be keeping 3 or 4 players per season. If most draftees were playable or on the cusp, all we should get is 4 players. That being the case, instead of drafting every week, we draft every other week to extend the draft deeper into the season. Also, as Rock said, a benefit could be that if a team misses a draft, they could still do it later than the official time. This would be great for new teams that join mid-season. (That being the case, I would recommend bots not draft until very late in the season.) While I think this suggestion could narrow the wide range of draft luck, it still wouldn't really help with being able to draft for your team's needs. For example, you still would never know if you're drafting a catcher. Updated Tuesday, October 9 2018 @ 9:45:40 pm PDT

#61258	10/09/2018 10:35:28 pm	Jan 22nd, 2038
JJNZ Joined: 12/09/2014 Posts: 1583 Yakima Monster III.3	I like the subtle changes suggested there Rock. I have no issues with the draft the way it is, and as I've mentioned before, I like you, have never drafted a 15 pot. Like Mike I'm worried about Inflation with any changes, but I can't see much merit to either of those suggestions I'm afraid. I can't criticize because I'm unable to offer anything better, other than perhaps draft partitions? By this I mean there would be a set number of draftees, probably 7560 (10 for each team). The first round would have 756 players to choose from which the computer decides are the top ranked prospects. Any unclaimed would stay around for the second around along with the second 756 players and so on. This way there will be SOME predetermined hierarchy of prospects available. It doesn't remedy the first in first served mentality, unless each of the 756 is divided by 7 and 108 prospects become available each day, although we only get one draft per week still?

#61262	10/10/2018 6:38:36 am	Jan 22nd, 2038
Rock777 Joined: 09/21/2014 Posts: 9617 Haverhill Halflings III.1	I assume there are a certain % of POT 14s, POT 15, and POT 16s that come out off every draft year on average. The algorithm which creates those random players can be tweaked to release just enough quality players in each round to come out to those same numbers. With randomly generated players the algorithm could even be dynamic (looking back at what has already been generated to tweak how good the prospect lists are for that given round). Randomly generating lists provides a lot more fine tune control options. I was also thinking that this sort of change could also more easily lead other future additions like drafting by position, templates, etc. Once Steve has fine tune control over the draft board creation per player, it opens up some more doors. There are definitely balancing/inflation concerns with any change, but I think this could be handled by careful planning and evaluating current percentages. Maybe "Very Good" is a rare sleeping in round 2 or 3? With dynamically created players Steve would have more control over sleeper positioning, so he could push some of those "Good" players further down the draft board as sleepers. This might mean round 3 or 4 have slightly fewer good hits, but it could keep the draft more exciting for folks later in the year. TR;DR - I think I'm agreeing with part of Mike's option #1, but not eliminating POT 15+. Updated Wednesday, October 10 2018 @ 6:40:30 am PDT

#61263	10/10/2018 6:43:38 am	Jan 22nd, 2038
Rock777 Joined: 09/21/2014 Posts: 9617 Haverhill Halflings III.1	@JJNZ The issue there is that it is still a shared pool. You can achieve the same control over quality of players just by ratcheting down the quality of the created players each round. Too many POT 15s created in the first round, none will be created in round 2. But really, with that many players, Steve should have pretty fine tune control over exactly how many are getting created just using odds. Remember, the POT doesn't get created until after the player is actually generated, which happens after the player is picked. Updated Wednesday, October 10 2018 @ 6:45:39 am PDT

#61447	10/22/2018 8:46:27 am	Mar 20th, 2038
BadgerBoy Joined: 09/06/2015 Posts: 77 Inactive	I agree with the individual draft pools and how that could be structured. I think that we are missing the other main problem of the draft. Let's be honest, people want those 14,15 potentials. So we draft more on what the scouting report says, we want the Very Good or the Good. I don't think we need to see that info, since in real life you wouldn't know who is going to be a superstar or not. What you would know is their abilities. You would know their Speed, Fielding ability, Range, and their arm strength. You may know about their hitting attributes to some extent, you could see HS,college or other league stats that would give you a good idea of their ability. So why do we draft on Potential? We should be looking at some numbers and decide if that player would fit into our team. Hey I need a SS, I'm going to look for a guy with great defensive skills and a good arm and hope he can hit a little. Or I need a catcher, so he has to have a good arm and more than likely played the position. As it is now you draft a SS, he has good defensive skills but a weak arm...well now you got a 2nd baseman. You draft a Catcher he also has a weak arm, now theres another 2b or 1b...still no SS, still no C. Arm strength is a known trait, so why can't we see that number? I would prefer we didn't see any info on Potential until we draft them so no reports on that. Or that we eliminate Potential all together, so thats its a hidden trait. Now you will have to scout what you think is the best player for your team, not just pick the 1st VG you see. Show us scouting for every other trait but potential, again Arm Strength, Fielding, and Speed would be the most accurate with others being a general idea of their skills. I don't want to just pick based on Pot, it's not realistic and adds no value to the game but dissapointment when the computer lies. I want to draft where I need help and pick who I think is the best for what I need.

#61451	10/22/2018 3:30:28 pm	Mar 23rd, 2038
Rock777 Joined: 09/21/2014 Posts: 9617 Haverhill Halflings III.1	That could either be done by showing more underlying data (although I like the fuzziness of the reports), or using templates for player creation (based on positions). If we wanted to let people specify what position they want to draft we could balance those initially proposed ones out so that less defensive oriented players had more guaranteed points in offensive skills. I think you might be on to something there with hiding the overall potential though. Instead make the POT more round based. e.g. a guy in the first round is always scouted "Very Good", just sometimes he is a POT 12/13 "bust" when you actually get him on the team.

#61452	10/22/2018 4:21:36 pm	Mar 23rd, 2038
AssumedPseudonym Joined: 10/26/2016 Posts: 1130 Deerfield Beach Rats V.7	I think removing numerical POT scores might well be one of the best things that could happen to this game — and this is coming from someone who runs a side team based entirely on a specific POT value. Looking at a single number when a player is drafted and knowing immediately whether or not you should even bother trying to develop him, when phrased that way, does sound like an oversimplification at best. It certainly isn’t a realistic approach. Sure, nobody wants to spend years waiting to see if that first or second round pick is going to pan out — I don’t envy actual MLB organizations in that respect — but seasons here only last a few months. Broken Bat, by its very nature, is a game designed around the long haul; if you’re looking for an instant gratification baseball simulator, you’re on the wrong site. I have to agree. Remove POT scores entirely. Make us owners have to give players a chance to see if they really are the “very good” or only “above average” their scouting reports give. Updated Monday, October 22 2018 @ 4:36:23 pm PDT

#61454	10/22/2018 6:16:40 pm	Mar 25th, 2038
BadgerBoy Joined: 09/06/2015 Posts: 77 Inactive	Yes, thanks AP and Rock!! I don't think anyone playing this game wants an easy button. Thanks for hearing me out, let's try and keep the simulation real. It's makes the victory sweeter when you know you earned it. I could also see a potential hider helping the waivers as people might cut players they think are not good making the diamond in the rough a possibility.

#61510	10/26/2018 4:28:03 am	Apr 7th, 2038
Jalapeno5 Joined: 06/01/2014 Posts: 226 Inactive	Totally agree - axe the potential scores and ‘overall’ scouting reports from the game. Maybe temper this with revealing the Arm and Range metrics at the point of selection (with scope for adjustment as is currently the case). This facilitates drafting for position and encourages owners to make decisions based on minor league performance, starting SI and projected growth.

#61511	10/26/2018 4:54:27 am	Apr 7th, 2038
LeeRyan Joined: 12/16/2016 Posts: 24 Inactive	Axe the potential, leave the potential report.

#61516	10/26/2018 7:59:37 am	Apr 7th, 2038
BadgerBoy Joined: 09/06/2015 Posts: 77 Inactive	If potential report was left, we would still draft based on that even if pot was removed. I think it is misleading and rarely correlates to what we think it should. I believe Pot needs to be gone, along with reports of it...if you are in a MLB draft you have potential. I too agree on the need for an Arm and Range report, this will help us draft more to our needs. The other main ingredient to a draft overhaul is a better system of giving us choices. Eliminate choosing HS,College...ect. Make one pool, more developed players should be in the upper rounds while the more unknown ones should be in lower rounds. The idea of lists created for each drafter rather than a global one is awesome, no more first come first serve. Instead of drafting on pot, we should be drafting more on SI (the known traits of players) gambling should be left to the later rounds. Logically no one would draft a HS P that has 17 SI in the first round...he may not be drafted at all IRL. Players have to have tangibles to be drafted and we have that in SI. Let's fight to at least get the first stage implemented, no more Pot and give us reports on Arm,Range for NP players. Then some computer ranking for drafts based on SI, higher SI players in the upper rounds and lower SI in the lower rounds. These are Tangibles. Lastly figure out how to make individual drafts, so there is no early bird special going on.

#61538	10/27/2018 12:15:02 pm	Apr 10th, 2038
Rock777 Joined: 09/21/2014 Posts: 9617 Haverhill Halflings III.1	That one is easy. That was in the original post. Just make the players generated per owner per round (on demand). So the percentage of getting a good player is exactly the same for every single team. No reason to get rid of the pools. If we are creating players dynamically per drafter, there is no shared pools. The pools (College, Highschool, etc.) would only influence the makeup of the created players. Updated Saturday, October 27 2018 @ 12:16:58 pm PDT

#61563	10/29/2018 3:24:10 pm	Apr 19th, 2038
lostraven Joined: 07/02/2016 Posts: 1269 Corvallis Ravens II.1	You know what? The "hide the potential but show some of the determiners at selection time" is a solution I never thought of but is instantly growing on me. I almost always draft based on potential in the draft, and I admit it get's a little boring. +1 to the conversation about hiding Potential and revealing other information. I'd like to see what others have to say about this, in conjunction with some of the other changes that have been floated in this thread. Updated Monday, October 29 2018 @ 3:25:30 pm PDT

#61570	10/30/2018 6:46:04 am	Apr 21st, 2038
BadgerBoy Joined: 09/06/2015 Posts: 77 Inactive	@admin Steve? Can we get some input on these suggestions?

#61613	11/02/2018 9:16:25 pm	May 6th, 2038
admin Joined: 01/27/2010 Posts: 4985 Administrator	Interest ideas. I've had several people suggest to me that they would like a system closer to what Hardwood has (you can see all the prospect and recruit accordingly). This would alleviate the issue of picking pitchers or specific position players, because you could draft to your need or desire. What I'm not sure how to do is convert a college recruiting based system to a draft system. So each team gets some draft points...but how does this translate into draft picks. Teams can't possibly rank thousands of prospect, so how would this work? Steve

#61615	11/03/2018 4:49:06 am	May 6th, 2038
LeeRyan Joined: 12/16/2016 Posts: 24 Inactive	If each team is assigned an x amount of their own unique players at the beginning of the season. Than given a certain amount of scouting points each week to uncover data (scouting reports, attrubutes, ect.) about those players. And than making informed drafting decisions based on what they learned from scouting those players. The x amount could equal 100 since that's already what we're seeing throughout a season.

#61618	11/03/2018 4:37:08 pm	May 8th, 2038
Rock777 Joined: 09/21/2014 Posts: 9617 Haverhill Halflings III.1	Players aren't actually created until you draft them. No need to create X players at the season start. Just create prospects on the fly each round.

#61623	11/04/2018 8:35:52 am	May 10th, 2038
dlwarren1 Joined: 06/21/2017 Posts: 39 Saginaw Crusaders VI.23	Just simply add a filter for positions where there is already a filter

#61624	11/04/2018 1:17:47 pm	May 10th, 2038
lostraven Joined: 07/02/2016 Posts: 1269 Corvallis Ravens II.1	I'm also not really sure how you translate the recruiting point system of Hardwood into BB. You recruit in college basketball but draft in professional baseball. Hardwood: Massive pool of players at various levels of HS. Easier to recruit players close to your college. Given a fixed amount of recruiting points in the beginning, and more as the season progresses. A number of variables determines what team (human) the player (AI) selects in the end. The players selects the team at seemingly random times throughout the season. Broken Bat: Limited pool of players (10) from various regions (Asian, Latin America, International) and at various development levels (HS, college). The team (human) picks the player (AI). The player is added to the team immediately. 1. What happens if you increase the pool from 10 to its entirety and allow managers to draft (select) who they want? Would the pool have to be modified? 2. If everyone could be seen at once, you end up with the best players going to the team manager who logs in the soonest at draft start. Not particularly fair. So how do you prevent this? These are the two biggest questions I have. One thought: a player could be assigned a draft value in points, based on a number of factors (such as POT). Teams would X points in their draft pool to use. So you might be able to draft a 15 POT and a couple 13 POT, but your remaining pool of points would only let you draft a few more 12 or 11 POT players. Or you could opt for more 12 and 13 POT players and get more of them. This could be problematic though. Teams are already keeping, at best, two to three of their players each game year. A manager could opt to draft a 15, 14, and 13 and be super content to not draft anyone else until next game year. Perhaps this worry is less a concern because there's only a handful of 15 and 14 POT players, and they all get taken in Round 1. But then are the handful of 15 and 14 POT players first come first serve? Yuck. Just thinking out loud. Sorry.

#61633	11/05/2018 6:44:25 am	May 14th, 2038
BadgerBoy Joined: 09/06/2015 Posts: 77 Inactive	I like the idea of 100 players being placed into your private pool. We could then select out the 10 we wanted to draft. It wouldn't have to be weekly either we could select our 10 at will. Once chosen the players would be created into the game. We also don't need to choose a pool, a mixture of all pools could be in your 100. No Potential reports or numbers, i'm an advocate for eliminating the the whole Potential system. It is the most unrealistic part of the game, and the biggest pimple on the drafts face. Without potential, we would be using the waivers and FA market a ton more looking for guys to fill roles. FA/Waiver guys are knowns, we don't need a crystal ball to see the future. With no Pot we would covet all our draft picks, we would be excited to see if they will turn out. We would invest time in them. It wouldn't be a draft and dump like it is now, or instantly knowing you have a superstar in 6 seasons. Most importantly we need to have reports on ARM,RANGE This will allow us to better draft on positional need. We could also literally just see their current stats, make it like FA/Waivers. Without Pot we would not know if they are done developing or not so would still be gambling. It's crazy to think if we were drafting real life we would not know their tangibles, we would know Arm,Speed,Range,Defensive Skill. Let's do THIS!! Yeah!! Make the Draft GREAT!!

#61635	11/05/2018 11:14:30 am	May 14th, 2038
Garnash1970 Joined: 08/07/2014 Posts: 199 Inactive	I had actually had the same thought regarding POT ... let's get rid of it, except perhaps for a full reveal when a player has retired ... HOWEVER ... the fielding notes would have to be vastly improved ... what about fielding comments to include the sum of all three attributes ... for example, a guy that is AMAZING in the field has to have a cap for all three somewhere between 50 and 60 (up to 20 for fielding, range and arm) OUTSTANDING could be 45 to 55 and so on ... which would eliminate AMAZING shortstops with a range of 6. Something I've long thought the game overlooks ... "yeah, he IS amazing at D, as long as the ball is hit right at him, he can catch it!" LOL There would be hundreds fewer "catch and release" guys each week after the draft. My 2 pennies.

#61645	11/05/2018 10:54:46 pm	May 17th, 2038
admin Joined: 01/27/2010 Posts: 4985 Administrator	At some point, there was suppose to be some strategy about which pool you picked from. Obviously, you can convert college players and turn them into pros faster. But if everyone is picking college players, then maybe the high school pool has more talent. Steve

#61648	11/06/2018 7:28:02 am	May 17th, 2038
BadgerBoy Joined: 09/06/2015 Posts: 77 Inactive	^^^ This is the only takeaway from this discussion? I think we are throwing out some pretty solid ideas on how to improve the game.

#61656	11/06/2018 4:19:39 pm	May 19th, 2038
Rock777 Joined: 09/21/2014 Posts: 9617 Haverhill Halflings III.1	I don't see any point in eliminating the pools. They work fine. I just think the players should be randomly generated when we pick for each person. If you wanted to do 100 pre-picked players for each team, fine, but that probably takes up a lot of DB space. The simpler change is the leave the pools as is, but randomly generate the prospect when someone makes a pick. So if I picked someone from the College Pool, there is one less player available in that pool, which may effect the overall quality of potential future players. Additionally, the quality of picks can be maintained for each pool. So basically, if there were 300 players picked from College in the first round and their average SI was 13, the talent modifier for round 2 would then be ratcheted down so that the average skill will be 12 from College (just an example). Doing this requires practically no storage, and ensures every team has an equal chance to get quality players regardless of draft time.

#61691	11/09/2018 1:24:50 pm	May 29th, 2038
FreddyTheEye Joined: 11/11/2014 Posts: 625 Inactive	I like many of these ideas. My preference is for very small changes, no overhauls and I like the "pools" system. The only thing that really bothers me about the pools is for example, the asian pool, it is too small, it is picked clean at 4am before most ever make their first round selection. I'd be in favor of small changes like managers pre-selecting draft pools so everyone drafts at the same time and if there has to be an "order" to it then the lower leagues should get first crack. Also as mentioned before I'm in favor of a little more control over drafting by position. I've been able to draft one playable SS in 19 full seasons. For the last 5 seasons my number one goal was to draft a SS or 2B...fail. Having said that, in general I prefer player acquisition to not be made any easier but perhaps just a tiny bit more "fair". I caution guys who constantly want an easy way to draft exactly what they want and ask for an easier waiver system, create a player drafts, and trades etc. This will not magically turn your team into legends caliber as all teams benefit equally. To me, the beauty of the game is that there are no perfect teams and all should have some good and bad acquisition seasons.

#61732	11/14/2018 5:22:35 am	Jun 15th, 2038
lostraven Joined: 07/02/2016 Posts: 1269 Corvallis Ravens II.1	I'd be in favor of small changes like managers pre-selecting draft pools so everyone drafts at the same time ... I admit to being a little confused here. Can you elaborate? If you mean manually select at the same time, obviously that will never happen. If you mean the system makes a selection for you, then yes, everyone can draft at the same time, but you're then taking the element of control out of the team's hands.

#61749	11/15/2018 6:30:26 am	Jun 20th, 2038
Rock777 Joined: 09/21/2014 Posts: 9617 Haverhill Halflings III.1	Randomly generating prospect on the fly is really the only way to make it completely fair. That is the only way to remove the early bird advantage.

#61750	11/15/2018 8:36:32 am	Jun 20th, 2038
BadgerBoy Joined: 09/06/2015 Posts: 77 Inactive	I agree with Rock, this should be the primary focus if we are taking baby steps. Next would be some sort of reports for arm,range. Elimination of Pot I realize is a big change and may take some more time to sink in.