The Draft
"What you like about this kid coming straight out of high school is the upside. Tremendous upside."
So you're successfully tanking your way through the season and want your hard earned first dibs on the new young talent looking to earn a spot in the league? Well, on the Draft and Scouting page you can look at the new crop of talent and find that diamond in the rough that will carry your team out of mediocrity, bring fans to your stadium...or warm your bench.
So, how does the draft work? Throughout the season, you will be able to purchase scouting points that can subsequently be spent to reveal information about potential draft picks. Unused scouting points will carry over and can be used in a future season. The information you have available about each player depends on how many times he has been scouted. It works as follows:
Unscouted: Your scouts have provided a very rough estimate of the player's skills and potential based on the word on the streets. Expect this evaluation to be fairly inaccurate.
Scouted once: Your scouts have seen this player play one game, and have provided the player's boxscore for that game. They are now able to give a more accurate assessment of his current skills. Scouting a player uses 1 scouting point.
Interviewed: Your scouts have invited this player to a workout at your team's facilities. Along with all of the information you have learned from the initial scouting, you now have a very good understanding of this player's current skills (grade rating) and potential abilities. You also discover how tall the player is and whether he is 18 or 19 years old. Interviewing a player uses an additional 2 scouting points.
In addition, there will two options available following the All-Star break for 10 scouting points each:
Scouting Combine: Every player in the upcoming draft class will show up to be measured. You can send a scout to the combine to learn the ages and heights of all 48 players in the upcoming draft class.
Group Demonstration: In order to help get their names out there, all of the players your scout estimated to be 1-ball or 2-ball prospects have offered to arrange a demonstration of their skills. This option is equivalent to scouting each of these players once, though it will not provide any additional information for players you have already scouted.
Set the order that you would like to draft these players by dragging players around in the list. When you are satisfied with your draft ordering, click Submit Ranking below to submit this list. You must click on the button for the list to be used when the draft is conducted during the next offseason. Clicking the button to scout or interview a player will also submit the current ordering of the draftees.
Teams with the worst records will have the highest draft picks, so scouting is most important for teams that are at the bottom of the league. But, watch out for forfeits because each one means dropping a place in the pick order.
To see the results of your team's most recent draft, go to the Draft Summary page.