Click here to visit the OOTP14 site to purchase the game.
An amazing part of the game is the attention to detail. The collective bargaining agreement is fairly well covered in this offering. It is not replicated completely word for word, but it is light years closer to the truth of the CBA than any other game I have played. For example, the international amateur free agent cap rule uses last year's rules as opposed to this year's rules. That is a pretty fluid aspect of the CBA, so that is fairly understandable to get that wrong. For the most part, OOTP14 is the most realistic game I have seen on the market.
As we get closer to the draft, I want to focus on that aspect of the game. Again, it catches part of the CBA, but not the entirety of it. For instance, it does well to figure out slotting, talent levels, and free agent compensation. However, there does not appear to be a cap or penalties, so as long as you have the money...spend wildly. Anyway, lets step through it.
The Beginning
It will take a little while to acclimate to the game. When you get into playing a season, you have 25 or so buttons staring at you. The first thing you want to do with respect to the draft is go to your scouting page, which you can find after clicking on your team menu button.
On this page, you can see that the Orioles have Gary Rajsich as their scouting director. At this point (the preseason), you are still able to change the amount of money allotted to the scouts, so I bumped it up from $5,460,000 to $9,460,000 with most of that increase going to amateur scouting. Rajsich will do other things than scout amateurs, such as scout international amateurs and give advanced scouting reports on opponents. I am not interested in these things, so I move forward to May 7th when the game announces the amateur draft player pool. First off though, the Orioles select 24th instead of 22nd due to Milwaukee retaining their first round selection and the Orioles being forced to draft after the Rangers instead of their real position before them. I think worrying about this is splitting hairs though.
The Draft Pool
If you list the players by potential, you get a prospect list that is a little squirrelly. For instance, Mark Appel is ranked about 50th with a potential of two and a half stars out of five. That is not exactly the elite talent that real scouting suggests. However, this may simply be an issue with a scouting service. As you may know, MLB scouting service has provided rather poor scouting information for baseball teams for the past four decades. It may well be, it is doing the same here.
Anyway, as I am selecting 24th. I decide to use my scouts to produce scouting reports on 23 players. Which includes: Clint Frazier, JP Crawford, Jon Denney, Dominic Smith, Ryan Boldt, JaCoby Jones, Ryan Tellez, Kris Bryant, Phillip Ervin, Colin Moran, Tucker Neuhaus, Cord Sandberg, Rob Kaminsky, Mark Appel, Eric Jagielo, Josh Hart, Oscar Mercado, Hunter Dozier, Nick Ciuffo, Aaron Judge, Austin Meadows, DJ Peterson, and Kohl Stewart.
You sometimes get agreement with the scouting service and your own scouts. Crawford's OSA and my own team report indicate that this player has 4.5 star potential, which I take to mean is a pretty strong talent. Other times, not so. The team scouts come to a pretty sizable disagreement here with Phillip Ervin being considered 2 stars higher than what the OSA gives him.
The Draft
Although the order of amateurs selected seems a little peculiar, but that it also makes a little more sense than what one would have expected simply from potential as described by the OSA rankings.
With my turn up, I see a number of excellent prospects according to both OSA and my own scouting director's reports. I decide to ask him who I should take.
He suggests Sean Manaea, which is a pick (pre-injury) makes complete sense. I take a look at the scouting report on him. OSA gives him one star potential while my team scouts give him half a star and the projection of him being a "batting practice pitcher." This confuses me. Ryan Boldt is available about my scouts gave him a 4 star ranking with OSA giving him 4.5 stars. Why would my scouting director want me to take Manaea over Boldt?
It makes little sense to me, so I select Boldt. The Athletics pick Sean Manaea right after me. I am confused as to what I did not understand. Does the computer know something that I do not know? Should I even trust the scouting reports being handed to me? This is not even a ceiling vs floor issue as Manaea has neither at a MLB level based on the reports.
In the second round, my scouting director want me to select Chad Pinder. Pinder is a solid 3B prospect out of Virginia Tech in real life. According to my scouting director's report, he is slightly above replacement level for his ceiling. Instead, I go with Aaron Judge who my scouts love...Pinder goes two picks later. Next, I select Ryan Tellez over Garrett Williams. Then Cavan Biggio over Jordan Dunatov. Whoever my scouting director tells me to select, the Athletics take him next.
Here is a comparison of season 1:
CF Ryan Boldt (Aberdeen, 70 OPS+) vs. SP Sean Manaea (Rook, 103 ERA+)
RF Aaron Judge (GCL, 152 OPS+) vs. 3B Chad Pinder (Rook, 124 OPS+)
1B Ryan Tellez (GCL, 179 OPS+) vs. SP Garrett Williams (Rook, 164 ERA+)
3B Cavan Biggio (GCL, 109 OPS+) vs. RF Jordan Dunatov (Rook, 85 OPS+)
Conclusion
I really do enjoy this game. It is such a large and complex entity that I can be swallowed up and confused by how some of the processes work. I am not sure if I am smarter to use my scouting directors reports over his suggested draft strategy. Time will tell. That said, it is really fascinating to be able to orchestrate your own approach to running an organization. For anyone who wants to dissolve into the couch for a couple hours and navigate your franchise to the championship, this game is definitely one you should consider.
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