OK, I've been playing HBD for 19+ years, and there are still some things I don't understand. I'm going to try to find the time to get threads going on them, so that people can post their opinions but especially data and educate me on these issues.

The first one was always going to be-- what the hell do the base coaches do? Another thread has gotten into that, so I'll give it its own thread with an easy to search title.

Back in the early days of HBD, the original programmers insisted in developer chats that coaches played no role in game play, only in prospect development. But if that's true, what do the base coaches do? Does the third base coach make your young ML players' baserunning improve? Is the first base coach completely useless? Did the developers intend to make coaches change game play, but never got around to programming it, making all the (non-fielding) ML coaches useless if you have a mature team?

Alternatively, did the developers tell us something wrong about their own program?

Your comments but especially data welcome. Coming soon-- the rest of the ML coaches, the value of the GB/FB rating, and the relative importance of P1-P5 to each other.

I, for one, would love to know if anyone's done a deep dive into any of these things which can be backed up with any kind of body of data.

I know we all have generalized acceptances, for instance "Coaches play no role in gameplay."
We also have small-sample observations "this player X proves or disproves this".

I think back to MikeT's old thread, "The Rightfielder", which went into deep detail with many seasons of data about why it can be acceptable to stash a good-hitting C/DH out there.

I know I don't have the time... or the obsession... or multiple teams LOL... to accumulate reams of data about my own opinions of "how coaching works."

Take all this with a huge grain of salt...

I've seen plenty of titles won with average coaches hired with the min. $6M coaching budget so I'm inclined to be persuaded that coaches have little effect on game play but yeah, there's no way to prove that I can think of.

And even with the prospect develop thing, I haven't noticed any meaningful impact unless you have coaches playing out of their intended position. In those situations you definitely get the big dips in ratings. My HUNCH is that 90+ rated coaches might squeeze an extra development point out of a player over the course of one or more seasons but that it's a very marginal impact. And even then, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense because your FI is the only elite rated coach able to affect prospects unless you call up your 18/19 year olds to the bigs. IMO player appearances in games, including getting prospects into deep playoff runs, will squeeze out more development than having elite coaches.

I don't typically track vet decline that well, so maybe the coaches have a meaningful impact in that area and I just haven't been paying close enough attention?

TL;DR - IMO coaches are fairly superfluous and I only spend $6M on them unless I need a FI

Coaching is a supply and demand game basically. There are many coaching positions that are very deep and I don’t think 10 points in a given coaching category makes much of a difference (especially at a salary premium). There are positions where appropriate skills are more rare (FI) where you can regress or not normally progress ratings if you don’t fill with minimum competency. I also think the par rating for what helps vs hurts varies by coaching position and skill. (1B Coach baserunning of say 50 is ok, but you wouldn’t want 50 that for your FI for example)

Thanks for this thread! I'm curious if a bullpen coach in the Majors is sorta like a 1B. A compliment to the PC/3B coach but not nearly as impactful.

What about primary rating versus patience? At the lower levels I’m often more concerned about patience then a mediocre primary rating

I've brought this up in other threads but I'll mention here again. Way back when I first started playing, I found a way to see a players true (hidden) ratings ceiling. I brought it up to CS and they patched it. But before they did, I looked at a bunch of different players current ratings vs their "true" ceiling ratings (across many different leagues).

The VAST majority of players got within 2-4 points of their ceiling for coach affected ratings (the ones that go up in season). And almost everyone reached their ceiling in the ratings that aren't affected by coaches (the ones that only go up in the offseason). So basically, unless you royally mess up (hire terrible coaches, bench your prospects for extended time, etc) your players are gonna get real close to their potential.

Posted by brianplath on 6/4/2024 7:11:00 PM (view original):
I've brought this up in other threads but I'll mention here again. Way back when I first started playing, I found a way to see a players true (hidden) ratings ceiling. I brought it up to CS and they patched it. But before they did, I looked at a bunch of different players current ratings vs their "true" ceiling ratings (across many different leagues).

The VAST majority of players got within 2-4 points of their ceiling for coach affected ratings (the ones that go up in season). And almost everyone reached their ceiling in the ratings that aren't affected by coaches (the ones that only go up in the offseason). So basically, unless you royally mess up (hire terrible coaches, bench your prospects for extended time, etc) your players are gonna get real close to their potential.

Interesting.

In Cobbfather this past season some of the worst hitting coaches were on average to above average teams. From the limited seasons I've seen, it really seems coaches' biggest effect is being the tie breaker for FA signings. But you almost have to think about a season in advance and look at their loyalty to see if they will resign to effect the next season's crop of FAs considering they have sign later than some of the top FAs. Those are times when a mid 80s coach with high loyalty who wants to resign is better than a mid 90s coach who doesn't resign if you are playing the FA game.

Gonna throw together a couple of ideas here, bear with me:

1/ When do AAA coaches demand to move up to the Majors? For the most part, when their Core rating (Pitch, Hit, Strategy) hits 75.
When do base or bullpen coaches demand to become Hitting or Pitching coaches? 75.
Consequently, there are always unemployed coaches floating around the 75 mark, and when they go unhired their ratings start to drop and they can be hired for other roles... until they hit 75 again.

2/ If you know WiS Hockey you know players are assigned a Defensive Rating, zero to 100. When I started playing I saw a veteran owner advise, don't think of numerical ratings as LINEAR. A 90 rated player is NOT a full 50% better defender than a 60 rated player; the rating actually works more like a bell curve. Obviously this isn't true for ALL ratings - ie hitting or pitching ratings in HBD - but at least open yourself up to the thought: Numerical ratings may NOT necessarily be linear.

With those two things in mind, two general questions for the HBD Owner at Coach Hiring time:
1/ Is the game actually telling us that a 75 coach is good enough to get the job done?
2/ Is the premium you pay to hire a 90+ coach over a 75 coach worth it to your team?

"Obviously this isn't true for ALL ratings - ie hitting or pitching ratings in HBD - but at least open yourself up to the thought: Numerical ratings may NOT necessarily be linear."

This hypothesis matches how I evaluate players. I have a formula that projects a player's slash lines that I use for the amateur draft and free agency signings. I had to set things up to give players an extra bump if they're above a certain ratings threshold and an extra decrease if they're below a certain threshold to improve accuracy when I tested it on real players across a couple of worlds. Basically what I'm saying is the difference between a 70 in Power and an 80 in Power may not be the same as the difference between an 80 and 90, according to my sample size anyways. Would make sense if the same were true in coaching.

One thing I don't see much of in the above posts other than Brian slightly touching on it is the effect of incremental development. What I mean by incremental development is the stuff most people can't see even though it's right in front of them. It is like the bureaucracy you see in the government or a bank or an insurance company -- the process is moving, but it's moving so slow you can barely see progress.

Think about it like this, that 75 to 84 rated hitting coach is likely going to get the job done for the season and keep you at $6 million mark. However, if you doubled that to $12 a season and now you have a pitching coach, hitting coach and bullpen coach in that 88 to 97 range. Is that coaching upgrade going to make a huge difference for one season? My guess is that it likely won't.

However, if you are able to have 88+ coaches more consistently, that's three to four spring training bumps where the better coaches might actually get you those extra 2 to 4 development points, over three to four seasons, and get your players closer to those ceilings. And, since you only have so much control over how well your MiL teams perform in the playoffs, I feel like the extra money spent on coaching behaves as a hedge if you're unable to get those really nice end of season promotion bumps when your MiL teams make it to the MiL WS.

Finally, some folks might think two to four points missing from a player's ceiling is not a big deal, but that two to four points could be multiple ratings and multiple players, so that math starts to add up. Can I guarantee the extra money spent on coaching is making an impact? No. Why? Because I can't take the players I have and re-run them through the development process with mediocre coaches to see if there is a major difference. So, I dont have data to back up my theory, but I also don't think anyone else does or ever will because nobody knows true ceilings and nobody can rerun the same players (as a control) through the development process with different coaches.

My point is that we should not be discounting the affect of incremental development.

I thiiiiink base coaches are like pitching and bullpen coaches. Combine the ratings (maybe divide by 2) and you get the rating used to increase your young guys. I hate that I'm going to share this tip, but because 1B coaches ratings are such garbage, I'll sign my 3B coaches ASAP then wait right until the end and sign hitting coaches as 1B coaches. It'll cost a little more but you get guys with ratings in the 80's rather then the 50's and 60's.