In pursuit of Juan Soto: OOTP 25 Toronto Blue Jays #3

[@josh1273436]

This series has been great! Found your channel, been getting back into OOTP this year, doing a Mets save as I am a Mets fan, now in 2028. 2025-2027 we made the playoffs every year, got knocked out in the DS in '25 and '26 and the Wild Card in '27. '27 in particular was rough because our top 3 arms all got season ending injuries. I also got Soto, he's been good probably not as good as what I'm paying him though and made some poor financial decisions elsewhere (do NOT re-sign Pete Alonso, whoops god that was bad) and the Lindor contract is really starting to deteriorate now that he can't really play SS anymore (I can't even hypothetically get a shop offer for 100% retained), but I'm learning thanks to your videos and others. Thankfully Jett Williams has developed and I have a couple good college arms rising through the ranks that I'm learning how to develop. With the dev lab, I haven't necessarily noticed a big difference between far away prospects and more pro ready prospects in terms of success but I have noticed two things. First, I think the value calculus is much greater for more pro ready prospects considering that any result besides like the best possible one does not actually raise potential but simply current skill. A guy who might need another year in AAA suddenly being bumped to a guy who can contribute at the MLB level is much more valuable IMO than like A -> A+ bump or someone maybe needing a season less of rookie ball. I might be wrong on that assumption/argument but my belief. Second, I am unsure of how to ensure when I have a success that it's actually improving the player's skill. I've had multiple players succeed in the lab just for that skill according to my scout to remain exactly the same. Maybe it's an improvement but not enough to improve by 5 on the 20-80 scale for example? Not sure, anyways thanks for the awesome videos, the tutorials both new and old have been super helpful!

[@pfholden]

Thanks for watching! Yes, sometimes improvements are too small for 20-80 to catch.

[@Math.Bandit]

@@pfholden Not sure if either of you have played much on the most-recent patch (almost certain that was well after this was recorded, though) but there is a new checkbox setting that will add the change to the results email you get. For example in my online league last night I got a regular success at Improve LF Defense and it says "OF Range increased by

[@josh1273436]

@@pfholden Makes sense! And to the other person who commented, I just turned on that feature, very helpful to be able to see! Just wondering, have you tweaked development/aging at all? I'm not sure if it's just me adjusting to how this game plays vs. the past ones but it feels especially in Rookie ball, guys just take forever to actually be decent. I have HS/intl prospects play multiple seasons of just absolutely horrendous baseball in Rookie ball. Everywhere else largely feels pretty fine, but I'm not sure if this is just the reality of rookie ball I'm not aware of or if it's something that can be tweaked?

[@Math.Bandit]

Build the man a goddamn statue outside the SkyDome for securing the future of this franchise. (The man being Juan Soto of course, but Pat is pretty cool too. He can get like a banner or something)

[@pfholden]

;)

[@307x]

From everything I've experienced, quality of contact doesn't do K. Only two strike approach does

[@jcjvcjc98]

I recall an interview with a dev who hinted/said that QoC increase BABIP

[@pfholden]

Yeah, this is right. I recorded this a bit ago--if I said different than what you said, I had it wrong.

[@noposersco]

One thing to consider when evaluating guys for development lab with a new scout, a lot of the scouting reports were Average when you were looking for guys that weren't yet maxed out. It's possible with more in-depth scouting that they are actually maxed. Great season so far!

[@pfholden]

fair point!

[@kyletroy623]

poor Joshua Mears is going to be in the development lab every offseason for every single OOTP player this year haha

[@pfholden]

haha this sounds correct

[@andyj8841]

Masterclass by soto’s agent

[@17AJ06]

Another option for maxed out guys for the Development Lab is having them work on defense or running. Those don't have current/potential so they can always be raised by the Development Lab. I've started putting my slow and/or bad baserunner guys in the Lab and it's worked out really well. My teams are almost always in the bottom 10 in the MLB in baserunning, but it's definitely helped.

[@armychowmein8021]

Hi Pat, don't know if it matters in the off season, but I have noticed that by the end of the season the AI change the development strategies of players at that I set at the beginning of the season. That is, if you don't check the box above the individual player development sliders.

[@pfholden]

yeah, good call

[@kevinmshea58]

2025 will be a fun year in Toronto.