How player ratings work

Every player is described by ratings: how well he makes contact, how much power he has, his eye at the plate, and for pitchers his stuff, movement, and command, plus fielding, speed, and arm. The ratings you see on the player card are a summary. The engine reads a richer underlying model when it plays out a game.

The 20-80 scale

Ratings are shown on the familiar 20-80 scouting scale, where 50 is roughly major league average, 80 is elite and rare, and 20 is a clear weakness. It is the same language real scouts use, so a number tells you instantly where a tool sits relative to the league.

Under the hood the engine works on a finer internal scale for precision, but you never need to think about that. The 20-80 card is the honest summary of it.

Current vs potential

Each rating has two readings that matter:

• Current is how good the player is right now.
• Potential is how good he could become, his ceiling.

A 22-year-old might have a current power rating of 45 and a potential of 65. Whether he ever reaches that ceiling depends on development, and the ceiling itself is a projection, not a promise.

The number is an estimate

This is the part new managers miss: the potential you see is your scouting department’s assessment, not a guaranteed outcome. A stronger scouting operation gives you a tighter read; a weaker one leaves you guessing. The youngest players carry the widest uncertainty because there is less of a track record to judge. See scouting accuracy for how to read through the fog.

Always pair the ratings with the player’s actual statistics. The stats will sometimes reveal a strength, or a flaw, that the ratings have not caught up to yet.