Greetings,

Having a thought here, as a n00b...inherited a team that is a hot mess, major rebuild...as I read the budget descriptions, the Medical budget is for healing injured players (whereas Training prevents injury)...since this year is a wash and rebuild will be slow, I don't really care if guys spend too long recovering from injuries this season, nor next, and could use the budget elsewhere. That is, except for this line in the description: "spending money on a medical staff can reduce a player's stint on the disabled list and aid his performance following recovery."

Does this mean they might not ever "fully recover" to their old/potential performance level?

I'm thinking very low Medical budget this year, then slowly ramp up as team/players better and hopefully in contention. But not if this means some injuries can be permanent/long lasting.

Thoughts from the veterans?

This is my area of expertise. The big thing with medical is that if your guys get injured and you have your medical budget too low, they will never return to their pre-injury ratings. On the other side, there is the ‘Injury Bug’ which is one of my favourite parts of the game to exploit. If you have your medical budget at $20 million and a player gets injured, you can leave them on the DL for longer then they were supposed to and they can get medical bumps making them BETTER then they were before they went down to injury. (The players makeup will also have a very large effect on this)

to my point, have a look at my stud Johan Butcher.

https://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerRatings.aspx?pid=9118445

he went down earlier this year with a shoulder impingement (minor ratings loss, about 30 injury days) I put him on the long term DL and was patient with him and after the process was done he GAINED about 2 points in major pitching categories that he never would have gotten before.

there is a lot more to the injury bug then I’m talking about here which I can help out with if needed.

on the opposite end some owners put 0 into medical and accept that if a player gets a bad injury their career is pretty much done. The benifit to that is that then you have an additional 20 million to use on free agency, prospects, scouting etc.

I honestly run at $0-1M for Medical, but $20M in Training. It almost feels like some are wishing their guys get injured so they can use the bug. I'd rather use the budget space in other areas. It all comes down to what you value most.

Posted by jimt14120 on 10/22/2020 1:07:00 PM (view original):
I honestly run at $0-1M for Medical, but $20M in Training. It almost feels like some are wishing their guys get injured so they can use the bug. I'd rather use the budget space in other areas. It all comes down to what you value most.

Sometimes I do. But more so with prospects rather then big league guys.

you know those AAAA guys everyone always complains about? If they have health below 50 I am licking my chops and will often trade for them getting them at pennies on the dollar. Then I put them in AAA wait for them to get hurt and use my medical doctors to groom them into a big league serviceable player.

it’s one of the things I love about this game. There are a million and one ways to build a winner.

I would never run less then 20 in med. Especially with injuries seeming to be happening more often after they fixed the arb/long term thingy. Even with 20/20 in med and training I have had players not come back to pre injury ratings which is stupid and I do not remember this happening before.

Also take everyone's advice with a grain of salt I do not know everything for sure. Id take advice from people with success but maybe that is just me.

Posted by brianp87 on 10/22/2020 5:01:00 PM (view original):
Also take everyone's advice with a grain of salt I do not know everything for sure. Id take advice from people with success but maybe that is just me.

Agree with this statement. Both strategies work, but there are nuances to each one. The injury bug (if you want to call it that) only works if the injury is a minor injury (5-26 days) or if it is a major injury that happens near the very end of the season. I use $20M for medical and training, but that is because i don't want an injury to totally derail a player of mine. I know plenty of veteran owners that use the $0 Medical budget successfully. I can't remember the owners name, but he has so much talent in his organization, that he will have top tier guys just sitting in AAA for a handful of seasons just to cover himself if there is an injury at the Big League Level. He is able to do this because he has the extra $20M every season to recruit.

Also, despite the high training/medical budget strategy, you will still have bad luck some times. I run six Organizations and for some reason, in one World, I have had at least one top ten prospect/MLB player go down with a 125+ day injury every season for the last four seasons. It is just bad luck though. Of the six guys that went down with major injuries, only two of them had health under 50. All six of them went down early in the season so I only got the one injury recovery cycle and the rollover recovery so even though I had 20/20 in medical and training, each of those players is at least 4-6 points away from their peak ratings potential. I have had bad luck when it comes to the frequency of injuries (six major injuries over four seasons), the type of player getting injured (top players/prospects in my Organization), and the timing of the injuries (since the injury occurred early in the season, they only got the minimal injury recoveries).

Vent session: It has been quite frustrating to be honest. What are the chances that six of the top ten players in your Organization go down with a 125+ day injury over the course of four seasons? Even if it is just six guys with a major injury, that would be hard to swallow, but six guys that are top ten players on your team? That is unfathomable. The MLB pitcher that got injured was on a low pitch count. The MLB player that got injured was at 100 percent energy and had a health rating of 89. The other four guys got injured while they were prospects and all of my prospects are either on low pitch counts as a pitcher or coming off the bench as a position player or hitter. So, as stated above, the injury bug can get you hard core despite the 20/20 budgets. The silver lining is that the medical budget made the injuries hurt less and five of the six players still made it to the MLB and are performing fine. However, if you think about it in the aggregate, if each player is now 5 points away from his peak potential due to major injury, in the aggregate, that can mean the difference between an 85+ win team and 92+ win team. The sixth player was a pitcher and he got injured twice in the minors despite a low pitch count. Both were major injuries, so I doubt he makes the MLB. It's too bad too, he was going to be a pretty good pitcher.

Major Back Injury to a power hitter in his rookie season. It's too bad too, this guy had high 90s power projections with a $20M HS scouting budget;
Tore his hamstring in his first year in the bigs. It's too bad too, this guy could have won Rookie of the Year;
Nerve Injury to forearm. It's too bad too, this guy got hit with the injury near the beginning of his second year in low A so he lost the entire season. He had some hefty coachable hitting rating projections to where he was going to be a 900 OPS type of player. He is still pretty good, but this guy had HOF potential type of projections;
Elbow surgery, it's too bad too because this guy had low to mid 90s L & R spits and three above average mlb pitches with near 50 control;
Elbow tendinitis , it's too bad too, he is now only a slightly above average mlb pitcher.
Rotator Cuff & elbow surgery, it's too bad too because this guy would have been a solid relief pitcher

I'm not sure, but I think it could have something to do with your team name! ;)

Posted by Scotb50 on 10/22/2020 9:43:00 PM (view original):
I'm not sure, but I think it could have something to do with your team name! ;)

I see what you did there. Nice job..lol

Posted by tlowster on 10/22/2020 9:01:00 PM (view original):

Posted by brianp87 on 10/22/2020 5:01:00 PM (view original):
Also take everyone's advice with a grain of salt I do not know everything for sure. Id take advice from people with success but maybe that is just me.

Agree with this statement. Both strategies work, but there are nuances to each one. The injury bug (if you want to call it that) only works if the injury is a minor injury (5-26 days) or if it is a major injury that happens near the very end of the season. I use $20M for medical and training, but that is because i don't want an injury to totally derail a player of mine. I know plenty of veteran owners that use the $0 Medical budget successfully. I can't remember the owners name, but he has so much talent in his organization, that he will have top tier guys just sitting in AAA for a handful of seasons just to cover himself if there is an injury at the Big League Level. He is able to do this because he has the extra $20M every season to recruit.

Also, despite the high training/medical budget strategy, you will still have bad luck some times. I run six Organizations and for some reason, in one World, I have had at least one top ten prospect/MLB player go down with a 125+ day injury every season for the last four seasons. It is just bad luck though. Of the six guys that went down with major injuries, only two of them had health under 50. All six of them went down early in the season so I only got the one injury recovery cycle and the rollover recovery so even though I had 20/20 in medical and training, each of those players is at least 4-6 points away from their peak ratings potential. I have had bad luck when it comes to the frequency of injuries (six major injuries over four seasons), the type of player getting injured (top players/prospects in my Organization), and the timing of the injuries (since the injury occurred early in the season, they only got the minimal injury recoveries).

Vent session: It has been quite frustrating to be honest. What are the chances that six of the top ten players in your Organization go down with a 125+ day injury over the course of four seasons? Even if it is just six guys with a major injury, that would be hard to swallow, but six guys that are top ten players on your team? That is unfathomable. The MLB pitcher that got injured was on a low pitch count. The MLB player that got injured was at 100 percent energy and had a health rating of 89. The other four guys got injured while they were prospects and all of my prospects are either on low pitch counts as a pitcher or coming off the bench as a position player or hitter. So, as stated above, the injury bug can get you hard core despite the 20/20 budgets. The silver lining is that the medical budget made the injuries hurt less and five of the six players still made it to the MLB and are performing fine. However, if you think about it in the aggregate, if each player is now 5 points away from his peak potential due to major injury, in the aggregate, that can mean the difference between an 85+ win team and 92+ win team. The sixth player was a pitcher and he got injured twice in the minors despite a low pitch count. Both were major injuries, so I doubt he makes the MLB. It's too bad too, he was going to be a pretty good pitcher.

Major Back Injury to a power hitter in his rookie season. It's too bad too, this guy had high 90s power projections with a $20M HS scouting budget;
Tore his hamstring in his first year in the bigs. It's too bad too, this guy could have won Rookie of the Year;
Nerve Injury to forearm. It's too bad too, this guy got hit with the injury near the beginning of his second year in low A so he lost the entire season. He had some hefty coachable hitting rating projections to where he was going to be a 900 OPS type of player. He is still pretty good, but this guy had HOF potential type of projections;
Elbow surgery, it's too bad too because this guy had low to mid 90s L & R spits and three above average mlb pitches with near 50 control;
Elbow tendinitis , it's too bad too, he is now only a slightly above average mlb pitcher.
Rotator Cuff & elbow surgery, it's too bad too because this guy would have been a solid relief pitcher

I'd take a look at your team culture and team discipline. I bet these guys are running around town in the wee hours of the morning in the wrong parts of town, with questionable people, and bad intentions. Off the field "accidents" being posed as "rotator cuff injury". Just my 2 cents, I could be wrong.