How the OOTP Scouting System Works, and the only Type of Scout you Should Ever Hire 

The brief study I did with pitches showed the knuckle curve as one of the best strikeout pitches there is. Could be something to do with your pitching coaches, but if you DM me somewhere I can give you more precise feedback.

The A's have a pitcher friendly park which might have played a part. Could be a really bad streak of luck too. I'm actually doing a stream Thursday night where I'm reviewing people's teams and helping them improve. You can submit your team here - docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScExg0F9_AYmLVQSmDu1feAPM53DNzMMGLQqLSl0cmQ1iQZZA/viewform?usp=sf_link

To my knowledge, it's what you set for last season.

Yes. Those ratings are actually very important, but that's just a testament to how important highly favour tools is.

OOTP 15 was my first (just checked).

Glad to hear it, and thank you very much! I too am looking forwards to 23. The announcement will be interesting to watch for.

I have not found that to be the case but I can't speak for certain either.

I've seen the devs say on the forums that yes it will increase the quality of international player discoveries.

@@stiff2552 It probably does in that case. However, scouting discoveries are very random and therefore not worth overinvesting in.

Definitely all types of ratings. This advice applies to all players.

@@sgtmushroom Thanks for the reply! One thing I've noticed (stupidly) using ability scouts... is that players without any stats tend to all be rated very poorly (intl amateurs and free agents mainly). Might be an interesting test to see how Tools scouts and Ability scouts compare on these players? I would hope an Ability scout would use whatever is available (in this case, ratings only) and thus be comparable to a Tools scout for such a player.... but based on your video, I am now thinking they likely just assign a 0 or lowest rating to the stats portion of their scouting formula, resulting in a chronic underestimation of these players.

@@wkelly73 That could be what happens in the system, and we definitely do know that they are undervaluing players with no stats (and have horrible ratings naturally on them, to an even greater extent than normal)

Don't have one either. I essentially determined this by recognizing consistent differences between the scouts in how they rate players. I then messed around with it in commissioner mode and what I found supported this.

Absolutely make the switch. You might see different ratings, but they're more accurate. You just need to rip the bandaid off so you can build the best team possible.

It can't. That's exactly the point. There is absolutely no advantage to having anything other than a highly favour tools scout.

You may as well lower the scouting accuracy if you're doing that. That's my preferred way.

@@sgtmushroom I've done that on some saves, but not one I've done long-term yet. Maybe for the next? Feels a little weird to significantly alter setting in an ongoing game.

What you have just told me is what the OOTP manual claims is how scouting works, but it is extremely deceptive. I can 100% assure you that everything in my video is the best knowledge available in the OOTP community right now. Essentially, it seems that because ability scouts incorporate stats to evaluation, they can use that to claim they are better at "current evaluations". But really, tools scouts, who just give you pure ratings, are much, much, better. In general, do not trust what you read in the OOTP manual. It's not well written, and can be deceptive or even just flat out wrong at times.

Congratulations, you've been playing the game wrong for 10 years. It's a shame you're so closed minded to my content, you would genuinely learn a lot. I've only been playing OOTP for 3 and a half years now, but I can guarantee I've played the game more than you have, so your point on experience is totally moot anyways. Furthermore, your view of scouts is literally just spitting out the manual. That's not what they actually do. And this is your last warning. Be respectful in comments or I'm gonna start deleting them.

First of all, if you want to disagree with me, please do so professionally and constructively. Taking an aggressive approach benefits no one. It's perfectly fine to disagree with me or ask for more information on my end to support a claim I'm making, but just getting angry because you don't like something I said is not the right way to go about a discussion. Second, to some extent, watching this video today... you have some degree of a point? Scouts were reworked in OOTP 24, and they now rely more heavily on current ratings rather than statistics. The current version of ability scouts are far more reliable at predicting where a player will actually end up than when this video was made, and I wouldn't necessarily say highly favour tools scouts are so much directly better any more. However, I would also point out to you that strictly speaking, all scouts use statistics in their evaluation of players. Ability scouts use statistics to some extent in projection a player's potential rating in each individual rating more than tools scouts to my knowledge. However, given how much of a pain this is to test (and how difficult it is to get reliable results), I can't conclusively say this is the case. By all means, if you can prove statistics aren't used in evaluation, please show me some proof and I will post an update with credit to you. Third, I don't actually think that when you said ability scouts use ability not stats, you meant that. I'm guessing what happened here is you probably read the manual (you did use the exact language in the manual) and regurgitated it to me. The manual is extremely outdated and unreliable (in some cases completely wrong), so it is in no way a reliable source for anything. "Current ability" is a very vague term which actually does seem to encompass statistical performance (at least in terms of how the manual uses the phrase). It certainly also includes current ratings, but I'm guessing if you meant to say that you believe ability scouts explicitly use current ratings to project future ratings, you would have used the phrasing instead of "current ability". Correct me if I'm wrong here.

@@sgtmushroom I am not angry at all. You only inferred that because I posted a conflicting statement to your video. When you peddle your content as a tutorial or guide, you better know what you're talking about, or at the very least acknowledge that you could be wrong. If you don't, you shouldn't be surprised to get pushback from your peers. Even in your reply to me you are spreading false information. Scouts were not "re-worked" in OOTP24.They work the same as they have for multiple versions. Your advice is as misguided today as it was when you posted this video. Stats may be incorporated into scouting reports. But that is a setting you can toggle on and off in the scouting settings. It doesn't change how ability or tools scouts work. If you turn this setting on, then yes all scouts will incorporate stats in their reports. But again, that doesn't change the underlying difference between favor ability or favor tools. Regarding the manual, I did not use "exact language" lol. I even looked it up to be sure. It's not even close to being "exact language". The manual is outdated, but not irrelevant. You still seem to be missing the key difference between the two preferences. I'll preface by saying what I mean by potential ability (PA) and current ability (CA) is their true rating in the editor. The favor tools scout will be more accurate with PA. However, we all know that players rarely reach that potential. The favor ability scout will note the disparity between CA, PA, and development time left (age), and will will produce a more realistic projection of his future ability. For example, a player named Joe Schmoe is 20 years old and his CA for contact is 30 and his PA is 150 (remember I'm talking about true editor ratings). The favor tools scout will be all-in saying his PA is 150. The favor ability scout will think he tops out at 100 because it's unlikely he'll actually get to 150 based on his age and CA of 30. Of course these numbers are only examples to demonstrate the concept. I will admit that I came off as harsh last night, however I stand by my point. You can find me on the OOTPD boards under the same username if you want to chat.