# Scouting 101

 CSFBL scouting can seem a bit complicated. Here it is – simplified.

### Scouting 101

The difference in money available between the league salary cap and your front office payroll can be allocated to player development/training and to player evaluation/scouting. Scouting is broken out into 2 separate investments: batters and pitchers.

When you invest more in scouting, your view of players’ ratings will be more accurate primarily due to two factors:

1.)       Less reliance on imprecise extrapolation

2.)       Better discovery and evaluation of mis-scouts and players with rating anomalies

You can always see how much you currently have invested in scouting on your team’s Front Office page.

### Scouting Views

Player ratings are offered in 3 different views, but keep in mind that “Extrapolated View” is the primary/default scouting view and is essentially the only view you truly need. The following is an explanation of each of the 3 scouting views:

1.)       Zero Scouting View: This is exactly what it sounds like. It is a look at each player’s ratings without any professional scouting. What a kid might think when he’s looking through a chain-link fence during spring training. Some player’s ratings are fairly true to their zero scouting numbers – what you see is what you get. In reality, most players are considerably better or worse than they may appear to the untrained eye. NOTE: Zero Scouting View is a secondary view and is offered primarily to allow owners an easy way to identify “over-scouts” (players who are actually not as good as they look at zero scouting) and “under-scouts” (players who are better than they look with zero scouting)

2.)       Standard Scouting View: This view displays your player’s unadjusted ratings. It’s almost like a preview look at your scouts’ notes that have not yet been translated into numbers management can use for their player evaluation. In other words, the Standard Scouting View is a secondary view and not an especially useful one. It is primarily displayed for manual extrapolation and for veteran owners who remember when this was the primary view for scouting.

3)       Extrapolated Scouting View: This is the default view for all ratings in all situations, showing the full effect of your scouting investment, extrapolated out to display the most accurate view of reality. The more money you invest in scouting, the more accurate the ratings will be. However, regardless of your scouting investment, the Extrapolated Scouting View is the most accurate view of player ratings available to you.

While the Extrapolated Scouting View provides the best estimate of the player’s actual ratings based on scouted information, it is important to note that the progression is not always linear, meaning that you cannot be certain that a ratings drop of 10 points based on 5/10 scouting means a ratings drop of 20 points with full scouting. Keep in mind, that in addition to over-scouts and under-scouts, there are also mis-scouts – player ratings that are a lot harder to identify – if at all. The most accurate way to know your players fully scouted ratings is to apply full funding (10/10) to both hitting and pitching scouting points in your front office allocations page.

### Full Scouting and Half Scouting

Players on your roster are always viewed with your full scouting points applied. In other words, if you have invested in 10 scouting points, you see players on your own roster at 10 scouting. If you have invested in 6 scouting points, you see players on your own roster at 6 scouting.

Players in your league that are not on your team – other team rosters, free agents, and draftees – are viewed with 50% of your scouting points applied. In other words, if you have invested in 10 scouting points, you see players in the league (excluding those on your own roster) at 5 scouting. If you have invested in 6 scouting points, you see players in the league (excluding those on your own roster) at 3 scouting.

### Scouting 102

Extrapolation

Extrapolation is the common term for estimating a player’s ratings by using a fraction of full scouting and the values you see with that scouting and zero scouting. The formula used for extrapolating a rating is Z + ((S-Z)*(10/P)), where Z is the zero scouted rating, S is the scouting rating and P is the points of scouting the team has allotted. A pitcher with a 40/70 PO rating with zero scout is displayed as 45/80 on a team with 4 points of scouting: 40 + ((45-40)*(10/4)) = 52.5; 70 + ((80-70)*(10/4)) = 95. Using this formula, this pitchers extrapolated rating is 53/95.

The more scouting points a team has, the more accurate the extrapolation.

Players with Mis-scouted Ratings

A mis-scouted player is one whose extrapolated ratings have a higher actual rating than potential rating. Players cannot truly have higher actual ratings than potentials, so when it appears like this, the player is a mis-scout. When this happens you can trust the actual rating as correct. The potential rating will be at least as high as the actual rating. In many cases, the potential rating turns out to be higher than the actual rating. In some cases, other potential ratings that don’t appear to be mis-scouted may improve (or decline) once more money is invested in scouting. Fully scouted (10/10) players are never mis-scouted.

Scouting in Increments of $500,000 Many experienced players have found scouting to be more accurate when funded in even millions ($1M, $2M, etc.). For example, even though you have enough money to fund a$1.5M (3/10) batting scout, these players would choose to only fund to $1M (2/10). To these players, using$500K scouting increments has been shown to produce more mis-scouted extrapolation results than the lower 'rounded' scouting funds. It is important to remember that players who are not on your team are viewed at half scouting. So 3/10 scouting becomes 1.5/10 scouting for players not on your team. Half scouting of an odd number increases the inaccuracy of the extrapolation.

There are two exception to this 'rule':

1.)       $500K (1/10) scouting is going to provide better information than$0 scouting (since $0 scouting provides no scouted information at all and anything is better than nothing). 2.)$2.5M (5/10) scouting works well even though it is an odd number since both full scouting (5/10) and half scouting (2.5/10) are easily divisible into 10 and therefore limit the imprecision of extrapolation.

As with most player strategies, finding the right scouting levels for your teams each season is best accomplished by individually refining the settings and through practice, experimentation and observation.