I'm new to HBD and I need some advice from the vets on how to put together a coaching staff to develop minor league talent.  What attributes should I be looking for at coaching position?

Please share any thoughts or ideas you have on coaching strategies.

The primary ratings are most important.   Hitting for HC, pitching for PC.    Beyond that, refer to this:

- This is the coach's hitting IQ rating. The higher the rating, the more he'll help your players develop their batting skills.

- This is the coach's pitching IQ rating. The higher the rating, the more he'll help your players develop their pitching skills.

- This is the coach's fielding IQ rating. The higher the rating, the more he'll help your players develop their fielding skills.

- This is the coach's baserunning IQ rating. The higher the rating, the more he'll help your players develop their baserunning skills.

- This is the coach's patience rating. The higher the rating, the easier it will be for him to tolerate and coach younger players. Of course, if he's really good in the other areas, his lack of patience may be acceptable.

- This is the coach's strategy rating. The higher the rating, the more likely he'll succeed as a bench coach. Bench coaches are important, because they can improve/hurt the day-to-day management operations of a minor league franchise as well as affect in-game decision making (even at the big league level if the manager gets ejected). They generally have different managerial settings than the ones you've set, for instance.

- This is the coach's discipline rating. The higher the rating, the more focused he'll be on the fundamentals such as bunting, throwing strikes and hitting the cutoff man. Of course, this means he'll spend less time on some of the other important aspects of his role.

- This is the coach's loyalty rating. The higher the rating, the more likely the coach is to re-sign with your club.

You need a great FI to start.  Above all else, this should be your focus.  If you don't have one who's 80+ in fielding, spend the money to get one.  If you're going to be bidding on the open market for an FI, budget at least 12 in coaching.

As for the other spots - take a look at the coaches at each minor league level for each team, and get a grasp on what's "acceptable" and go from there.  Don't get into bidding wars for minor league coaches.  Killing yourself trying to get a pitching coach with a 70 rating in pitching when one with a 65 rating is available, with no bidders, is silly.

Many owners look for "AA, pitching coaches" and just bids on them.  I often like to try to snag the best High A pitching coaches in this scenario...sometimes you can steal one for cheap that's just as good as many coaches in bidding wars.  

Remember that patience plays a part in good coaching as well.  I can't tell you how much, but a coach with a 75 main rating and 0 patience is most likely worse than a coach with a 70 main rating and 85 patience.  

I don't kill myself when it comes with bench coaches on the ML level.  I grab someone from the minors at close to min salary.

Agree with burnsy, but despite the fact that you should avoid bidding wars, minor league coaches are (IMO) much more important than non-fielding major league coaches.  Also, I personally think patience is even more important than burnsy would suggest-- I won't look at a coach with patience under 40, and rate it as at least half as important, maybe somewhat more, than the primary rating.

Keep in mind most of you minor league players are not real prospects. You won't turn a lousy pitcher into a ML pitcher because of coaching. Don't be afraid to have a bad coach at one minor league level rather than overspend. If you end up with a lousy pitching coach at LA put your pitching prospects in HA instead.

Posted by dedelman on 8/21/2014 1:45:00 PM (view original):
Agree with burnsy, but despite the fact that you should avoid bidding wars, minor league coaches are (IMO) much more important than non-fielding major league coaches.  Also, I personally think patience is even more important than burnsy would suggest-- I won't look at a coach with patience under 40, and rate it as at least half as important, maybe somewhat more, than the primary rating.

Interesting.  I wish there was a way to get a better sense of how much patience plays a role.  I probably look at patience as a quarter to a third as important as the main rating.

Posted by crickett13 on 8/21/2014 1:54:00 PM (view original):
Keep in mind most of you minor league players are not real prospects. You won't turn a lousy pitcher into a ML pitcher because of coaching. Don't be afraid to have a bad coach at one minor league level rather than overspend. If you end up with a lousy pitching coach at LA put your pitching prospects in HA instead.

+1

I'm probably not as experienced as the others, but fwiw, I always try to make sure at lead two of my minor league teams have great coaches. I want good hitting and pitching coaches a either low or high A ball, and that's where I'll put my good IFAs or draftees to start. Then I want good AA coaches so my 2nd year prospects can thrive.

I don ever worry about rookie league coaches. Basically I just pick young, cheap ones with a high patience rating. I never put good prospects on rookie league, so all I'm hoping for is that my rookie coaches will eventually grow into good coaches I can promote to a higher level. Coaches are like players in that the younger ones increase their skills much more quickly.

"I dont ever worry about rookie league coaches." - Yes. If I have a legitimate prospect I draft, I'm putting him in Low A to start, so it doesn't matter what my coaches are in rookie ball.

I care about my rookie league coaches only from a coaching development perspective.  I want a rookie league coach who's going to be a good LoA coach in 1-2 seasons; may save me the hassle of trying to find a LoA coach down the line.

the user guide makes it sound like the effectiveness of hitting/pitching IQ is weighted based on patience and discipline...

Therefore, the question becomes- what is better for a AAA coach (for example), 70 IQ with 70 patience and 70 discipline? or 80+ IQ with 35 patience and 35 discipline?

I don't have much data to support either argument but personally i disagree with Mike and i favor the former over the latter.

Furthermore, i prefer that my bench coaches have a "balanced" profile. I am under the presumption that the bench coach contributes to all areas and does so based on all ratings, so if that is true i want them to contribute a medium amount to all areas rather than a lot to one area and nothing to another area. This also tends to favor fielding and baserunning which aren't always substantially helped by the HC alone. This type of bench coach always tends to have been a high-pitch-calling former Catcher in the low-minors when you check their playing profile. 

Also to what dedelman said ^ , i tend to fill the extra spots on my roster with overage minor league free-agents, and an unexpected benefit of doing that is that when they retire in the offseason they compete for rookie league coaching spots and they tend to have really attractive coaching profiles such as www.whatifsports.com/HBD/Pages/Popups/CoachProfile.aspx 
The 55k or 38k or whatever i paid for this guy to play HighA shortstop easily pays for itself with money saved hiring free agent coaches later on at all the levels i'm going to promote him to as well as the presumed-effectiveness he will have at those levels based on his entry-level 52 hitting IQ being very high combined with his 100 (!) discipline and 65 patience ... in my most recent offseason i had 6 or 7 retired guys competing for rookie league coaching spots 

Here's what I usually do when I got conflicting opinions:

 

Record

323-487 (0.399)

Playoff Record

0-0

Division Titles

0

Championships

0

Record

11846-10024 (0.542)

Playoff Record

315-328

Division Titles

58

Championships

6

SSS.  Haters gonna hate, freighters gonna freight, potatoes gonna potate.

you and baseballguru must be really good friends, you have similar opinions on whether it matters or not that you've played a zillion seasons and i have not. if the op wanted your opinion and no one else's he would have just site mailed you. Orrrrr actually in that case he probably would have site mailed somebody who is actually good like boogerlips or mchale. Give it another 250 seasons though and your history might matter

Experience helps but results matter.   Here's your result: 

323-487 (0.399)


Do you really think anyone should take your advice?

people can do whatever they want. it's SSS, the team i took over was awful and made 0 playoffs in 26 seasons and now they're better, so i am 1/1 in turning franchises around. i'm sure it won't take me terribly long to get my career average to a measly .540