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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.

i would love to see something implemented to make 19 year olds more appealing or simply stronger players but i still think that 18 year olds should have a higher value when it comes to training.

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.

BB wouldn't have to create useless players, it could be made so that the players that aren't drafted simply don't get created.
So the draft is a list of info, and then at the draft this info gets translated in to a player(not sure if this is how they do it now).
Basically what I am saying is that the players that are not drafted can simply be deleted from the system as if they never existed.
Having extra players would allow the skill level of 19 year olds to be higher, but also doesn't gaurantee that you get a great draft pick, and hence doesn't just give everyone better draftees. But it still means that if a great 19 year old is scouted then even a team with the first pick would consider choosing the player.

Having extra players would allow the skill level of 19 year olds to be higher, but also doesn't gaurantee that you get a great draft pick, and hence doesn't just give everyone better draftees. But it still means that if a great 19 year old is scouted then even a team with the first pick would consider choosing the player.

This again increases the randomness of the draft (if we assume everything stays the same). Or we would need to have much more draft information available for each team, most of which would be about useless players no one will want to draft. That would either force everyone to spend more on the draft (more money going out of the game) or we would need to give all teams a lot of free scouting points. So, the draft basically becomes more random or we give everyone better draftees.

I think we don't need extra players in the draft,we need more useful players that caome from the draft
At the time,the only 19yo that you could think to draft are the five balls in skills and five balls in potential....maybe one player per draft,but the 19yo are the half of the players,so in the 48 players we ave in the draft,only for the age,the half are yet useless.

If it is not the best, it is automaticly useless?