Newbie Question: Scouting Comments

[daniducci]

So, I notice the Minor League Report includes scouting comments about whether certain players should be promoted or demoted. I also notice the emails from the scouting director about promoting or demoting players. These two groups don't exactly match (namely, the emails appear to be a subset of the minor league report comments). So my question is two-fold. First, what's the difference? Does the email have more importance than the comments in the report?

Second, what exactly does the scout's opinion mean? Is he saying the player is really ready, ability wise, to move up a level and too good to learn more at his current level? Or does it simply mean his actual ratings have improved close enough to his talent ratings that he needs the next level to improve more?

I don't know if that second question is clear, so I'll use an example. Imagine player X is a player who, at his very best, is only good enough to be productive at the AA level, and will never be good enough to justify promoting beyond that. Is the scout still going to suggest he be promoted solely because his overall ratings have now evolved up to match his potential talent ratings, despite the fact that he's only hitting .250 at AA and is really not going to be able to compete at AAA? Or does the scout recognize that the player sucks, and therefore doesn't suggest a promotion merely based on a calculation of player rating divided by talent rating or something like that?

Thanks for any clarification you can give me (unless that clarification is that I should only promote players who are hitting under .200).

[NYgiantsfan5689]

I always follow the scouting recommendations on the minor league pages for promotions and demotions, except for when it says "should get a shot at the major league level" because I know best who I want on my MLB team. I really don't know if the scout comments are based on stats or ratings or both, but I always follow them, and it's worked out so far. As a general rule for myself, unless I'm trying to rush a guy through the minors, which i don't suggest, I usually don't pay attention to the "Could play at the X level, but may not be ready." From experience, these guys aren't ready yet. I only promote them if it says "Could play at X level" or "Should be ready for X now."

As far as the emails go, these are usually in sync, but occasionally they aren't totally the same. I listen to the emails if that happens, but that's just me. Hope that helps.

[daniducci]

That's kind of how I initially felt like handling it, giantsfan. The reason I asked the question is because the scout is suggesting I promote a guy to AAA when his average is only around .250 at AA and I've got the position covered at AAA already. So I was hoping understanding how the scout comes up with his recommendations would help me interpret what I should do in this specific case, which I'm sure will come up again.

Thanks for the advice.

[OrioleMagic]

Those comments are a good guideline. STATS are the #1 indicator of success or failure at a particular level. Ya gotta give them more than one sim IMHO though to decide if they should be demoted back to wherever they came from.

[Kingdom]

Tell crazy to have the computer handle your minor leagues and you never have to worry about setting them up.

[daniducci]

Tell crazy to have the computer handle your minor leagues and you never have to worry about setting them up.

Oh, I definitely don't want to do that. Managing the players through the minors is the most interesting part of the game. I wish it allowed more in-depth management of the minors, in fact.

[Kingdom]

There's little to no impact in managing them.
And there's really not much to manage.