1985 Amateur Draft

[Delandis]

There's actually two changes that should help to eliminate the sudden drop offs. The chances of a prospect losing his potential suddenly has been greatly decreased (unless he gets injured). Also, it takes longer for scouts to figure out the new ratings when they do drop off.

It's also important to remember that the ratings aren't necessarily dropping off. It just might be that your scout was wrong about him in the first place.

Wow, that's a lot of different shit going on at once.

[Clay]

Abilty = Sabermetrics
Tools = Potential

That's the basic explanation I got.

Also, ability will till tend to favor the older guys in the draft, while Tools will favor the younger guys.

[Andrew]

Can someone explain to me the difference between tools and ability in baseball? Or in other words, how will a scout who favors tools be different than a scout who favors ability?

I see it as tools = potential ratings and ability = current ratings. Not quite sure how that applies to the draft though since almost everyone's current ratings are extremely low. Also not sure if it causes your scout to see their ratings differently or if it would just affect their decision in letting the AI draft.

[Riverman]

I set my draft to AUTO Herrera which it did not... nor is it giving me the option to manually pick.

How did you pick him then? I didn't know there was another way to do it.

[Delandis]

Abilty = Sabermetrics
Tools = Potential

That's the basic explanation I got.

Also, ability will till tend to favor the older guys in the draft, while Tools will favor the younger guys.

Sounds logical.

[Andrew]

How did you pick him then? I didn't know there was another way to do it.

I did it.

[Clay]

How did you pick him then? I didn't know there was another way to do it.

Andrew must have done it or there is some type of delay. It eventually happened auto-matically.

[Lintyfresh85]

I see it as tools = potential ratings and ability = current ratings. Not quite sure how that applies to the draft though since almost everyone's current ratings are extremely low. Also not sure if it causes your scout to see their ratings differently or if it would just affect their decision in letting the AI draft.

Exactly what I was wondering... how could a scout favor ability in a draft when pretty much everyone sucks equally.

[Andrew]

From the manual:

The Scouting Director's preference when it comes to projecting the future potential of players. The projection attribute has five settings: Highly Favor Ability, Favor Ability, Neutral, Favor Tools, and Highly Favor Tools. A Scouting Director that favors ability will base players' potential ratings on what the player can already do and project what he thinks the player will become in the future. Think of this type of scout as more of a "Moneyball" scout. The director that favors tools will base the players' potential ratings on the maximum peak the player could achieve. In theory, a scout that favors tools will find more superstars, while a scout that favors ability will find more serviceable major league players.

[Clay]

That's what I said...

[Lintyfresh85]

Well I suppose that's more reassuring when you see your scout (favors tools) post a 8-8-8-8-8 line... he's probably found a superstar in the making!

[Clay]

Well I suppose that's more reassuring when you see your scout (favors tools) post a 8-8-8-8-8 line... he's probably found a superstar in the making!

My guy favors tools also... I bet it's the same guy I have at 8-7-8-7-8

[Riverman]

I always thought tools for a position player were - hit for average/ hit for power / good glove / fast runner / good arm.

[Lintyfresh85]

I sort of thought the same thing... like Griffey Jr. or Josh Hamiliton would be an extreme tools player... fast, strong, good glove.

An ability guy would be like a Dustin Pedroia or Jeter... hard worker that does the little things right...

Also I think a Tools guy could be more of a boom/bust guy while an ability guy is more likely to hit .275/15/80 consistantly.

[Andrew]

OOTP seems to define it more in terms of the college vs high school player argument. Digging around the beta forums a little bit it seems like the scout actually will see players potential ratings differently based on their preference. It sounds like the difference is not very drastic though.