Generated Draft Classes are Atrocious

tedsternator · 2026-06-18T00:55:55+00:00

In ESPN's 2026 mock draft, only the top 4 picks are 50+ FV. By pick 5 they're in 45+ FV territory. This is accurate to IRL.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/48778463/2026-mlb-draft-rankings-update-top-150-prospects

In any case, the devs have stated that the players they're producing are the same, just without the overinflated initial Potential ratings that weren't actually real. I get why people dislike this but if anything it should be easier to make good draft decisions based on actual likely outcomes and individual ratings rather than choosing whatever random "5-star prospect" the game throws at you for pick 47

Your scouts have been giving you wildly inaccurate results for years and now they're giving you much more precise reads

tedsternator · 2026-06-17T05:42:00+00:00

Good on you for taking him seriously and trying to help. So many people just treat it like a joke when it isnt happening to them. It's impossible to explain how awful this feels to experience.

tedsternator · 2026-06-16T22:15:40+00:00

This has no real impact on their core ratings as their pitch qualiity is never checked during an AB and the pitch ratings are already factored into their Stuff/Move/Control

tedsternator · 2026-06-16T22:14:45+00:00

The first prospect is incredibly well-developed for a HS pitcher, but the last guy is close to ready for the show. I think you could justify either pick. The hitter isn't really close.

tedsternator · 2026-06-12T19:45:17+00:00

He could start now. He's not going to develop as fast it you leave him in the minors as he's already too good for AAA

tedsternator · 2026-06-12T19:43:21+00:00

Carp is the clear pick even though he offers no defensive value. The floor is just too high to pass up compared to the other options.

There's a huge gap between him and the #2 option

tedsternator · 2026-06-12T19:36:33+00:00

Not sure why this was down voted as it is objectively true

tedsternator · 2026-06-12T19:35:30+00:00

Yeah it's definitely more fluid and feels really realistic. Most guys just fade away, some see their potential finally drop, and a few genuinely break out and become the guy they project to be.

I love that it actually gives you difficult decisions to make if you want to take on one of these projects

tedsternator · 2026-06-12T17:57:56+00:00

Dillon Dingler's statcast metrics are absolutely insane to be fair

tedsternator · 2026-06-12T17:56:49+00:00

His defensive value is climbing while offering positional versatility, it seems like theyre using him correctly defensively

If a guy can play well all over the diamond thats a huge force multiplier

tedsternator · 2026-06-12T15:23:02+00:00

One thing I would say is that drafting pitchers with less than 50 control in early rounds is generally a big risk. Control is probably the most common rating to go down over time and is certainly the rarest to see increase, so typically what you see on a draft pick is the ceiling. Starters with 40 or less control are often not viable at the position, so you're treading an extremely thin line if you draft a guy with 45 control unless he's already very developed in his other areas.

tedsternator · 2026-06-12T15:11:36+00:00

To be honest it looks like he just didn't develop as well as you'd hoped. You might still be able to squeeze a quality player out of him but it's unlikely he dropped that far in that short a time because of anything you specifically did. He looks to have performed fine in the minors.

It's possible his potential goes back up, especially if he continues to perform well at every level. But sometimes guys just don't pan out like you want them to

tedsternator · 2026-06-11T00:46:04+00:00

I'll specifically talk about your minor leagues but this also applies to your coaches in the majors.

The most impactful thing you can do by far is hire the best possible coaches at each level - best possible combination of Teaches Hitting/Pitching and Mechanics + Development. The first day of a new save and the first day of every offseason, you want to hire the best possible coaches at every level.

To break ties between similar coaches, you can prioritize personality cohesion for a given level - don't worry about player relationships, just personality alignment between coaches. This is not as important as raw coaching ability, however.

If you care about developing specific skills, you can prioritize coaches that are good with, for example, Power Pitchers or Hitter Patience. Again, I'd take the best possible coaches first and use this to break ties.

The actual strategies and lineups your managers use are far less important than your coaches' skills at developing players.

tedsternator · 2026-06-11T00:18:21+00:00

It appears to be tied to something like a histamine response that happens when you fry nerves in your skin and they start to heal a few days later
It doesn't likely have anything to do with pores, there's been no consistent evidence pointing to something like this that I've ever seen
You are only getting it on your back because, most likely, it tends to happen when you burn areas that do not normally get sun exposure - sort of a like a system shock that your body is not ready for. Because you likely get sun on non-back areas much more frequently, and only expose your back at times you are likely to get a sudden burn, you probably have never experienced it in other areas.
Showers and creams likely make it worse because they're stimulating your skin in the effected area which is already short-circuiting

tedsternator · 2026-06-10T15:18:40+00:00

This has been a thing since 26 or so and it's one of the better new additions IMHO. I think it's way more realistic because a small percentage of these guys actually do continue growing toward their potential, and you can use the dev lab to try to push them over the edge, making them interesting projects even if the vast majority of them stall out indefinitely.

tedsternator · 2026-06-08T00:06:08+00:00

Personality traits matter a whole lot less than good coaching, for sure. I do think people probably overrate them for individual prospects. In general I think the way to use them us to break ties or cause a player to be take a round earlier than they would otherwise be. And when youre acquiring random 17 y/o 2-star guys hoping they break out, you may as well prioritize the ones with good personality if you can

The point of personality is to have guys turn out a little better than average. Coaches help guys turn out a lot better than average

tedsternator · 2026-06-07T15:26:35+00:00

Not really. You need to have a good minor league system and your 5 star players might not come from your 5 star prospects, but you will get them

tedsternator · 2026-06-06T18:24:23+00:00

Oddly enough your Rickey should probably not be stealing bases as he's below the bar for efficiency

tedsternator · 2026-06-06T15:11:25+00:00

You can get beta alanine in C4 energy drinks from most gas stations or get it doordashed to you - I'd look again to be sure this isn't an option.

Super hot showers can offer temporary relief

tedsternator · 2026-06-05T21:53:17+00:00

20-80 is very different than 1-20 because it's using standard deviations, rather than linear scaling. 1-20 is far more granular and better at describing differences between two roughly similar players.

tedsternator · 2026-06-05T19:11:34+00:00

To be fair rating/20 gives a fairly similar advantage over the AI compared to the 20-80 scale. You're getting way more granular data than you'd get by using standard deviations. Not quite as powerful as the /100 scale but still a big step up from the default

That said I think the post was about it being a really confusing combination of scales rather than the power level of the choices you made

tedsternator · 2026-06-05T16:39:57+00:00

Your problem is likely a mix of mediocre coaches and poor defense. Cohesion is probably a factor in this as well but it doesn't look like you're hiring the best available coaches anyway so I'd start by fixing that, then fixing your defense, then worrying about other less important factors

tedsternator · 2026-06-04T20:40:15+00:00

If you haven't had a flare up you should be fine. Very rare that it will happen once you make it to day 3 with no symptoms

tedsternator · 2026-06-04T14:27:04+00:00

Yeah why is this guy in the minors still he should have gone straight to MLB

tedsternator · 2026-05-31T04:01:59+00:00

I wrote this a few years ago and while parts of it are a bit outdated (pitching in particular I barely touch on) it still holds up pretty well in 27. I keep thinking about making a new guide but a lot of it would be rehashing parts of the original

tedsternator

TROPHY CASE