BuzzerBeater Forums

Hey a thought just occurred to me and i didnt think it was half bad so i decided to put it up here.

No one really likes to get a 19 yo in the draft and most of us end up putting them at the bottom of our list. I was reading the forums the other day and read that a rookie can either have atrocious or pitiful experience (don't know if this is true) but i was thinking that as many people want to draft a player who can actually make a difference right away wouldn't it be fair to give all the 19yos pitiful experience?

There is a lot of speculation as to what it does but the general consensus is that it is an underrated skill and it can make a player a lot better. Thus it makes sense that these 19yos would have had an extra year of experience in say college or where ever our draftees come from and i just think it would give people an incentive to go for a 19 yo over an 18 yo in certain circumstances.

Just a suggestion :)

I would prefer if 19 year olds could have skills that are up to strong/proficient.
That way it would actually be worth getting a 19 year old, and it adds some more strategy to the game as you have to choose between 18 year olds and 19 year olds. At the moment no one would pick a 19 year old over an 18 year old with the same rating.

Something like that could happen in the way that 18y players would have preferences usually even worse than now. I dont think that draft need to make things even easier for managers, because while that training can end up in 500k salary anyway...

But it doesnt look to me (well as a emotional opinion) really well to have players divided like that just because they are older, so they deserve something morem in the start. I think that is normal that someone will grow slightly later.

So what I can imagine is that 19y draftees could have different limitation of the skillup speed. So they could grow by 95 percent speed (example) in 19y like usually, but will not be so dumb in 25 to grow only by 55 percent like they which were drafted in 18y, or something like that.

So would not be so stupid to grow 19y draft for some people, in adition people could think more about when was drafted player which they buy for the training.

It seems to me you want to remove an option rather than add one. Let me explain.

Currently if you have full information about the draftees, everyone will pick a 18-yo prospect over a similarly skilled 19-yo. Only when the 19-yo is substantially better (in terms of current skills or potential or how he fits your training etc.) would you draft a 19-yo ahead of a younger player. This is basically too simple and you understandably see this as a problem. Your proposed change would even things out by making 19-yo draftees more interesting. Basically, this can be done in two ways. Either you only push the mean up for the 19-yo players or you increase mostly their variance (in this case the mean goes up as well unless we want very bad 19-yo's). The end result is that 19-yo players become better players and thus more interesting. OK, nothing wrong with that.

I don't see how it adds much strategy however, as you don't really know whether to go for a 18-yo or a 19-yo player to get a more valuable player. It mostly adds random IMO by making the age of a player less important. The only aspect here where age plays a role (and where I agree with you that it would potentially add a strategic element) is drafting for your own team to get a player who can sooner have an impact. This is a cool element certainly, but it is only relevant for very young teams. The way the training and skill system works in BB, I could for example never draft a player who would have any impact other than financial.

Now, let's look at another scenario, one that is more relevant. Above we assumed full information on the draft. What changes when we have incomplete information? We basically introduce a strategic element to the scouting process, as one needs to choose who to spend their limited scouting points on. This is still a fairly random process, but much less so than in the old draft system. For example, in the current system (once you have gained age information) you can either concentrate on the 18-yo or 19-yo players or a mix of them. Most will go for the 18-yo's for the simple reason that they are typically much more valuable. Another example: If you draft late and you want to "guarantee" getting something useful, you can forget the highest-valued players and shoot for the best of the oldest. This is a valid strategy that many users probably don't follow and many may view as pointless. It's not pointless IMO, although I'm not doing it myself (at least by choice!).

So, we go and increase the value of the 19-yo draftees as you suggested. What happens? People face the same dilemma as in the case of complete draft information. Age becomes not much more than a number. There is either more or less a random choice -- or a table lookup to figure out whether a 18-yo or a 19-yo is the better choice (sooner or later there will be a study, which will help at least the managers active on the forums, right?). Where's the strategy here? I fail to see it at first glance. You simply go for the most valuable player as usual. On the other hand, you have removed the strategic choice of concentrating on a certain age group.

Of course, whether one goes for the age information (which costs 10 points) is a big decision to start with. Therefore many managers will not get to make any scouting choices based on age. In their view, any interview with a 19-yo is basically a wasted opportunity. But at least age remains a useful piece of information.

I'm not for or against the suggestion, but there needs to be some better motivation. The way I see it, the current system is actually better as there is more real choice for the users.

Sorry, I didn't see the original suggestion for some reason. Regarding my previous reply, I don't think giving the 19-yo's a bit of extra experience would be such a problem. It makes them a bit more interesting, but the clear preference would still be to pick a younger player.

At the moment, there is very little point in drafting a 19 year old (except the reasons you gave) because they do not have better skills and have 1 season less of training.
My suggestion is not to increase their skills so much that 18 year olds lose value, but increase it enough so that 18 year olds are still better, but it isn't a complete disaster to get a 19 year old.

At the moment, in my draft, I have 17 players that are 18 years old. Basically, in the current system, that means my draft only has 17 really good players potentially. But about half of those 17 players have 3 balls or less in skill, or 2 balls or less in potential.
Basically, there are only about 8 players that are really worth drafting (without being able to see the player's skills.).

If we increase the skills of the 19 year olds, then people in lower leagues might pick the 19 year old instead of the 18 year old because they can use the 19 year old as a good player instantly. There doesn't need to be a brand new system, perhaps just introduce an extra ball for skill, so a 19 year old can have 6 balls in the skill rating instead of the current maximum of 5. Having 6 balls means having higher than 6500 salary and less than 10000 salary or something.
The strategy comes in because it allows someone to consider taking a 6 ball 19 year old with 4 star potential over an 18 year old with 4 star skill and 5 star potential. If you consider my draft, it creates a lot more options in my opinion because at the moment there are only about 8 players in the entire draft that are any good. The 19 year olds have lost a season training so aren't going to be great, and the remaining 18 year olds have bad stats or bad potential. If the 19 year olds were actually worth drafting, then there are more factors to consider, which means more strategy right?

At the moment, there is very little point in drafting a 19 year old (except the reasons you gave)

There is very little point in drafting bad players. Age is simply a factor which helps define how good (valuable) a certain player is. In the current system it however acts as a reasonably good filter to decide which players you want to scout and which not. Another such filter is the player rating. You want to scout good players (4-5 balls), but you want to skip bad players (1-2 balls). The player age however functions somewhat different. It's a filter for focusing on younger players for those who get a good pick, it's a filter for potentially including older players for those with a bad pick. The first filter gives an obvious choice, everyone acting reasonably will focus on the better players and simply place the bad ones at the end of their draft list. Someone with a bad pick may want to scout somewhat lesser players than the teams picking first, but the difference is not huge (and this really depends on the amount of scouting points they have). The second filter presents managers with a real choice. Drafting a 19-yo is after all not a mistake as such. A 19-yo can be valuable although everyone would rather have a player with same skills who is 18.

increase it enough so that 18 year olds are still better, but it isn't a complete disaster to get a 19 year old.

It isn't a disaster to get a good 19-yo. It's a disaster to get bad players whether they are 18 or 19.

At the moment, in my draft, I have 17 players that are 18 years old. -- -- Basically, there are only about 8 players that are really worth drafting (without being able to see the player's skills.).

What you are saying is you want a greater number of good, "draftable" players in each draft. Increasing the mean value of the draft class is rather pointless (as is reducing its variance). Then we all would just get slightly better players, which doesn't really affect the value of the draft. Every single one of the 48 players in the draft will be picked by someone.

If the 19 year olds were actually worth drafting, then there are more factors to consider, which means more strategy right?

No, it's either random (you don't know what you will get, but will go by hunch) or an obvious choice (you know at least the ballpark of what you are getting and go with the highest value). This is hardly very interesting. Everyone will make more or less the same choice.

In the current scouting system age is for the first time very valuable information during the scouting process.

Last edited by GM-WallyOop at 9/4/2010 5:40:03 AM

I suppose I would just like to see a good reason to draft a 19 year old. Improving their skills will do that.
For example, if I saw a 6 ball skill 19 year old with 4 ball potential I would certainly consider picking them up, but other teams might not. This also allows teams picking later a good chance of picking someone good up.
I realise that this will increase the overall level of the draft, but perhaps this could be solved by having a draft of 96 players created and that way 48 are selected by teams and 48 remain undrafted.

I guess it's pretty natural that the top draftees will be 18 given how skills and training works in this game. I think the training system would need to be modified a bit to make 19-yo's (and why not even older then?) potential 1st picks. Anyway, picking late may be a good enough reason to scout 19-yo's. Especially those you know could be good. You know teams ahead of you will pick the best 18-yo talent in the first round. (Sure, theoretically one or two such players could be missed by others even in an active league, but to draft successfully you just can't rely on that.) So, if you pick late, why spend too much to find the best of the best during scouting? The teams who pick first will try to find them, too. Perhaps it is best to go for the okay ones to get something decent from the draft.

Here's some speculation:
There are basically just three types of players of some value that can fall through the cracks in the current system: top 19-yo prospects, high-potential 18-yo's with low rating, and players too short/tall for their suggested position (regardless of age, although 19-yo's have a much better chance of going unscouted). The third group is so-so, but I believe some managers will shun them. Expect every other valuable player to be scouted by most teams that invest in scouting. I believe savvy scouting can potentially give those picking late a better overall result over three rounds than some of the early picking teams going after the top talent -- especially in a fairly weak draft. That makes the draft interesting.

perhaps this could be solved by having a draft of 96 players created and that way 48 are selected by teams and 48 remain undrafted.

That's a huge change and that would be a long discussion (I think this may have been discussed already?). Such change has some merit and some problems. Anyway, I have understood the BB's don't want to create useless players so this probably won't happen. Even now many drafted players are almost instantly fired.

I would prefer if 19 year olds could have skills that are up to strong
That way it would actually be worth getting a 19 year old, and it adds some more strategy to the game as you have to choose between 18 year olds and 19 year olds. At the moment no one would pick a 19 year old over an 18 year old with the same rating.

Yeah,in the actual situation there are very few players that can be really good in the draft,because also the better 19 years old suck
We need to increase the overall level of the draft,without create young super monster

Last edited by Steve Karenn at 9/4/2010 1:37:06 PM

There is a logic that if you see a five ball, five ball potential 19 year old, you'd draft him over a five ball, three ball 18 year old - because he will be the better player once potential is reached.

This doesn't bear in mind that players like to training draftees to a certain age then sell them on while they are still trainable. But training for market value is only one strategy. Training to keep is also a viable strategy and the best potential 19 year olds are worth drafting. Players are still trainable aged 26, if you are keeping them.