Once again, thanks to all for your input! Hopefully this post will clarify some of my reasons for taking the approach I did with my arb/free agency decisions, and I'm going to touch on things like the pinch hitting hierarchy later on when I write about in-season events. Here's the next update:

STEP 2: BUDGET

Setting your budget for the season is probably the most important offseason event. If you don't budget correctly, you can end up with excessive injuries (if training or medical are too low), no progression of your minor leaguers (if coaching is too low), or not enough money to land that player you need (if budget is too low). With the Cincinnati Venus Flytraps, money is incredibly tight. I start the season with 99.2M committed to player payroll already and that is before any free agents have been signed. I also noticed that my minor leagues are pretty barren of players and odds are I will need to sign 10 or more minor leaguers just to fill my rosters. I have the extra problem of about half a dozen minor leaguers starting the season on the disabled list, in all likelihood due to the prior owner not budgeting properly for training and medical.* **EDITOR’S NOTE: For those familiar with HD, this seems like a good place to note that you can approach scouting pretty much the same way in HBD as you do in HD as long as you have $20M in a given category. Less than that, and the process will still be similar, just significantly less reliable.

***EDITOR’S NOTE Pt. TWO: One of the features that the most recent update included was the ability to choose between the previous owner’s budget and the default budget when you take over a new team. I strongly recommend you look at how much you want to spend on your Player Payroll based on the results of Step 1 and then make your decision based on which option (the previous or default budget) is closer to your goal amount. From there, you can adjust other categories up or down as needed to get as close as possible to your goal.

The previous owner had the Player Payroll set to $114M, and I’m expecting the following commitments to player payroll for the upcoming season: $82M current payroll, $5.1M used in arbitration, a max of $7.6M in re-signing free agents, $2M for promotion allowances (this is a standard amount for every season), and $5.6M for prospect salaries (that’s what it costs to have max roster sizes at every level) and I need to sign at least 3 ML free agents. All in all, that’s $102.3M plus whatever it takes to sign the free agents. For this year, my goal is to be a bit lower than $114M but also a bit higher than the $102M I just calculated…I could get there from either the default or previous budget, so I will now move onto other categories to help me decide which one to go with.

As a rebuilding team, the next most aspect of budgeting is going to be prospect acquisition. This requires investment in several categories: the prospect budget is the money that you will use later on for signing bonuses for prospects of all kinds, while the IFA/High School/College budgets help increase the accuracy of the ratings you see for prospects BEFORE they sign. The Advanced Scouting budget helps increase the accuracy of the ratings you see AFTER a prospect signs…but you will notice that many veterans decide to go with $0 in this category. That is because there is a fairly simple way to get a good idea of what their ratings will be before they sign (a high investment in one of the previously mentioned categories) and a more exact way once they’ve been in the fold for a couple of seasons (see the section on evaluation position player in the minors for a refresher.) The moral of the story is that significant investment in one or more of IFA/College/Scouting is sufficient to get an idea of a player’s potential and that investing in Advanced Scouting is a waste of money at the moment.

Typically my strategy is to invest in the IFA market and one or the other of College and HS (but not both.) Looking at the previous owner’s budget, he had $20M invested in high school scouting but $0 in IFA, College and ADV. It’s hard to pass on starting a rebuild with $20M already invested somewhere, so I will keep his budget and work from there. I’m going to keep College and ADV at $0, but I do want a few dollars in the IFA category so I bump that up to $4M. He also only had $8M in the Prospect budget, and with a top 5 pick plus a few supplemental round picks likely coming my way I want a bit more than that to play with, so I bump it up to $12M.

At this point, I’ve gotten most of the categories where I want them (or at least as close as possible.) To put the finishing touches on my budget, I cut back in the coaching category from $13M to $10M and add two of the three million I just freed up to my Medical budget. This tweak brings my Medical up to $12M and puts my Player Payroll at $107M…which is a pretty solid halfway point between the previous mark of $114M and the minimum of $102M that I previously calculated.

One more thing I forgot to mention -- Any minor league players that get any of my top three ratings also get a note added on their player profile stating what level prospect they are. This will allow me to quickly look at the GM Office Roster Management page and know who my prospects are and therefore who needs to get maximum playing time. I can then make certain that these players spend little to no time on inactive lists and stay in the lineup as much as possible without having to go back to my notes constantly. ***EDITOR’S NOTE: The addition of the multi-colored dots on a player card are perfect for marking the three different levels of prospects: green for future ML starters, yellow for borderline/long-shot guys and red for career minor leaguers/complete trash.

TEAM OPTIONS

You can check on "options" status before doing your budget and take that into account. You do have to have enough in the player budget to cover all existing salaries, including the option salaries you intend to decline. But you can decline the options before resigning any of your free agents or doing arbitration. This potentially allows you to cut the player budget right to the necessary minimum knowing you can generate some ca$h by declining the options after the budget is finalized.

Hartford does not have any options this season, but this is always a good thing to remember to check! What the Hornets do have is an ML quality bullpen arm who is currently unassigned…adding him to the roster will create even more financial flexibility because he’s already counted in the current payroll but I did not include him in my Depth Chart. As a result, I only need to sign two free agents in the upcoming offseason.

^^^I like "red" dots for DITR's and leave the career minor leaguers undesignated (I use the green and yellow dots similar to how described)

Posted by 2xRedRaider on 1/4/2021 4:32:00 PM (view original):
^^^I like "red" dots for DITR's and leave the career minor leaguers undesignated (I use the green and yellow dots similar to how described)

Here's my thinking on that: when rebuilding a team, it's nice to know which guys you can release without having to worry about it when you sign players who will actually be useful. To that end, I use the red dot and make all of my notes DITR related so that any time I see a note on a player I know I need to pay attention...but this is also why I mentioned in the "Quality of Life" thread that a 4th colored dot would be useful: then you could have a color for ML starters, a color for longshots, a color for DITR's and a color for guys that you can get rid of.

Nice job with the above, Bruinsfan.

I think there is a separate thread about the dots. Lots of users chimed in about how they use them. I have gotten lazy recently due to all the teams I run now. I now use just green and yellow. Green represents true prospects or DITR candidates -- these guys need playing time. Yellow means, I don't want the player to get DITR, but I still want him to get playing time because he could turn into a useful player in the minors.

I used to use all three. Green=true prospect; yellow=DITR candidate; red=do not let him be active on DITR day. However, i have honed my DITR strategy to where if I get a DITR, he is going to be an MLB player so any DITR that hits is a true prospect. So, now I only need to use two colors.

Edit: 9:09PM Monday, January 4, 2021 -- btw, is the formula that you use in your spreadsheet one of mine or a mixed bag of the ones you have collected over time?

Posted by tlowster on 1/4/2021 9:11:00 PM (view original):
Nice job with the above, Bruinsfan.

I think there is a separate thread about the dots. Lots of users chimed in about how they use them. I have gotten lazy recently due to all the teams I run now. I now use just green and yellow. Green represents true prospects or DITR candidates -- these guys need playing time. Yellow means, I don't want the player to get DITR, but I still want him to get playing time because he could turn into a useful player in the minors.

I used to use all three. Green=true prospect; yellow=DITR candidate; red=do not let him be active on DITR day. However, i have honed my DITR strategy to where if I get a DITR, he is going to be an MLB player so any DITR that hits is a true prospect. So, now I only need to use two colors.

Edit: 9:09PM Monday, January 4, 2021 -- btw, is the formula that you use in your spreadsheet one of mine or a mixed bag of the ones you have collected over time?

Yours is one of several I include in my spreadsheet....I use yours as a "first pass" to see who has a good shot at being ML quality, then apply more complex ones that I've found over time to refine further.

Posted by bruinsfan911 on 1/4/2021 9:21:00 PM (view original):

Posted by tlowster on 1/4/2021 9:11:00 PM (view original):
Nice job with the above, Bruinsfan.

I think there is a separate thread about the dots. Lots of users chimed in about how they use them. I have gotten lazy recently due to all the teams I run now. I now use just green and yellow. Green represents true prospects or DITR candidates -- these guys need playing time. Yellow means, I don't want the player to get DITR, but I still want him to get playing time because he could turn into a useful player in the minors.

I used to use all three. Green=true prospect; yellow=DITR candidate; red=do not let him be active on DITR day. However, i have honed my DITR strategy to where if I get a DITR, he is going to be an MLB player so any DITR that hits is a true prospect. So, now I only need to use two colors.

Edit: 9:09PM Monday, January 4, 2021 -- btw, is the formula that you use in your spreadsheet one of mine or a mixed bag of the ones you have collected over time?

Yours is one of several I include in my spreadsheet....I use yours as a "first pass" to see who has a good shot at being ML quality, then apply more complex ones that I've found over time to refine further.

Nice.

Posted by 2xRedRaider on 1/4/2021 4:32:00 PM (view original):
^^^I like "red" dots for DITR's and leave the career minor leaguers undesignated (I use the green and yellow dots similar to how described)

The problem I would have with leaving players blank is that I might forget to assign a color to a newly acquired guy and then accidentally put him up for release or deactivate him.

For me:
Green = sure MLer

I keep things pretty simple. I don’t do a lot of trading, so I’m more concerned with making sure I keep an eye on playing time, promotions, and injuries for guys I see as future ML, in any capacity. For each of these, I just put a note on them so they stand out when I’m looking at the “Edit Rosters” page. If they’ve got a note, I should care about them for some reason. If not, they’re a career minor leaguer that can be easily replaced.

Obviously as lot of folks like the different colors to get more granular, but I like just using notes.

The Hornets Get A Trade Offer

Budget Day, which is usually fairly uneventful for me since I’ve already figured out what I want to do with my cash for the year, got a little more exciting this season when another franchise expressed interest in Yamaico Chung. I know that I’m in full rebuild mode, so any trade that I make needs to get me prospects…ideally ones who are 3+ seasons away from the big leagues right now because that’s about the length of time that it will take for anyone I draft this year to make the majors, so that’s the timeline I’m looking for as a general goal in my rebuild.

Generally speaking, those kinds of prospects are found on single-A rosters (and sometimes the rookie teams as well) so that’s where I start my search for a potential return in a Chung trade. However, I have Chung rated as an SP1 aka a legitimate ace, so I won’t be asking for just any prospects…I need at least one blue chip guy in return. However, this is where things get a little tricky. In the HBD universe that existed when csherwood penned the original WKRP thread, everyone was able to see how every single player progressed from season to season. In today’s HBD universe that is only possible with players currently in your organization and you need to rely on Advanced Scouting for information on guys in other organizations under the age of 27 as well as guys in your organization with fewer than 2 pro seasons under their belt. The Hornets are operating with $0 in Advanced Scouting, which makes trusting any projected ratings essentially impossible.

With such a low Advanced Scouting budget I’m looking for prospects that are, to borrow a phrase from the banking industry, “too big to fail”…which I’d say is probably a 90+ OVR type. I say that with the reminder that OVR really is essentially meaningless and that you shouldn’t put too much stock into it in general, but as one of my mentors told me early on, “If a player is 90+ overall there's basically little chance he's anything but very good.” Without being able to rely on Advanced Scouting, I need to make guesstimates based on the current ratings of guys I might target. If I’m looking for someone who will end up in the 90’s eventually their current rating should probably be in the 80’s already, but definitely nothing lower than 75.

At the single A and Rookie levels, the franchise who was inquiring about potentially trading for Chung has a few players with current ratings in the 50’s and one or two with current ratings in the 60’s but nobody near the 75+ range that I’m looking for. This makes a deal highly unlikely, although I don’t want to rule it out just yet.

STEP 3 (A) -- EVALUATING THE MINORS, POSITION PLAYERS

I spend a ton of time working on my team during the offseason (from budget day until the end of free agency). The majority of that time is spent working on my minor leagues - evaluating the talent, ranking it, getting my players set to the appropriate level, and finally filling out the minor league rosters with the right mix of players. This is time I consider well spent because if I put my minor league teams together properly, they will need very little time commitment during the regular season from me.

With projected ratings out, I will of course first take a look at any major leaguers that are younger than 27 and get a good idea of where they are. My next step is to go through each player on every minor league level one at a time. I use the GM Office screen to do this so I can edit their positions. I use the recommended based on projected ratings button here, but will occasionally edit it myself if I do not agree with the projections. ***EDITOR’S NOTE: Based on Step 1(A), I already know where these guys are for this season, so I spend this time figuring out where they will end up at their peak. Anyone still on the roster at this point is going to be useful this year, or I would have gotten rid of them already...this just tells me how long I’ll want to hang onto them in future seasons.

To figure out where guys will be at their peak, I use a formula that one of my mentors shared with me early on in my career that involves looking at a player’s progression from their first pro season to their second. To save time, I combine this formula with one that I have recently learned which is useful in projecting a player’s batting average based on their Contact, vR and Eye ratings. (For clarity’s sake: I save time by only applying the formula to those three ratings.) If a player projects to have a peak batting average under .200, the only way I will use them at the ML level is at SS, assuming their defensive ratings are good enough for that. Anyone who projects to a batting average over .200 will get a bit of a closer examination.

The current Hartford roster only has a handful of guys who will be capable of hitting over .200 at the major league level, and on further examination only two of them (Player Profile: DJ Kelly - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports & Player Profile: Robert Sweeney - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports) look like they could be capable of handling an every day role. I do however also have a shortstop prospect (Player Profile: Cla Stewart - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports) that will be able to handle the defensive expectations of the position next season. None of these guys are going to be super stars, but I have to start building a team somewhere…these three are that place.