[vhcook]

From everything you've said, it sounds like you were playing smart. We weren't in picking position this season, and I haven't played in Michigan, but here's my take as a scouting mentor...

If there are auton balls left on the field, and you have the power to score them rapidly, absolutely do that. Getting the first cycle started is the most critical thing you can do for your alliance. That's smart play, and it gets noticed. It may not be part of the numeric scouting, but there's always a little qualitative "that was well played - I should watch them a little more closely" thing that gets you a bump. At the other end of the spectrum (which I have no reason to believe you've visited), there's what I refer to as the "oh, honey... no" moment where, for example, the human player has wandered out of their box and is now standing behind the scoring table for some reason, or the robot is doing something that is simultaneously illegal and egregiously inexplicable.

I'm going to recommend against the auto zone defense strategy unless you're 100% confident your robot can autonomously line up and make the block with no risk of driving out of the zone. Since the scoring alliance gets to position last and you can't leave the goalie box, having to move to block is a huge penalty risk.

From a scouting perspective, if you were our alliance partner in quals, and you were reasonably honest about your capabilities and played out the strategy we mutually agreed on or adapted positively to field conditions when that strategy wasn't working, then you would absolutely move up on our pick list. If you went rogue in a way that caused a loss or were a pain to deal with, you'd go down.

Recommendations:

If you can get the low goal auton to 100%, that's a definite plus. If it's below 50%, then what you're doing now is the right strategy. There's a strategic breakpoint somewhere in the middle, but I don't know quite where.

Get throwing teams to practice playing catch with you on the practice field if you can.

Absolutely do a little PR on Saturday morning to make sure probable picking teams know who you are and what you can do. Don't go nuts, but a little nudge can help, particularly since you're new. If you're high on someone's list, there's also a chance they'll send someone over to visit you to check for compatibility with their strategic plan and/or check on the health of your robot.

I don't know what your imagery is like, but having a distinctive team and/or robot look can help folks remember which one you were when they're looking for options in the back half of the draft.

Be ready with your own scouting data. Looking at the draft, you were within a hair of being on the field picking. (That may be the most painful draft result. You have my sympathy.) In addition to being ready if your captain is on the field, you can use your scouting data to guess where you're sitting on other teams' pick lists and what you can bring to their alliance, which can help focus your PR efforts. (Team # has a great truss shot, and we showed them on the practice field that we can catch it. Team $ is a great shooter, but needs an inbounder who passes well. Based on what we've seen of other teams, we're probably their best/second/seventh choice because <reasons>. Team % is an inbounder and not a great high goal scorer, not a likely match for us unless they've already picked up a high goal/trusser and want a good passer.)