What do you look for in coaching? Besides Pitching, Hitting, and Bullpen coaches, what ratings matter? Also, how much of a factor is patience?

Click the yellow question mark (help button) on the top right of the page. It has all of the info you need.

I still don't know the answer to this. There are too many moving parts to evaluate coaching. Try to hire the pitching coach with the best pitching rating. Best secondary rating for a pitching coach is probably patience in the minor league and discipline in the major league. Do the same thing for hitting coaches.

Bench coaches in the minors should do one of two things or both of the below:
1. Have a high strategy rating. A bench coach will take over when your manager gets thrown out of the game for arguing. Keep in mind that when a manager gets thrown out for arguing, the entire team gets a minor ratings bump for a half inning. If the bench coach has a high strategy rating, he will follow all of your manager strategies for that level. If he has a low strategy rating, he may do something bonkers with your pitching staff, player rest, pinch hitting, etc. If you do not want to worry about this, set your manager arguing rating to 'never'
2. Evaluate what type of prospects are at the level where u are hiring your bench coach. If you have more or higher quality pitching prospects at that level, hire a bench coach with high pitching ratings. If hitting prospects are the priority, do the opposite.

Another thing to think about...every now and then you have have a few prospects that are Fielding prospects and the only thing holding them back from the call up is the fact that they are not quite there in the Fielding. If you have multiple guys like this, you may want to hire a bench coach that has high Fielding ratings. This is a rare occurrence, but I may run into this situation next season in one of my worlds.

Say you have four guys on your AAA roster and two of them have the bats to be called up, but the other two need to work on defense, well it would make more sense to have a Fielding bench coach because those two bats will leave the AAA team twenty days in.

#1 - Always hire (or re-hire) a good Fielding Instructor. The FI influences the development of every player in your system. THE first thing I do at season rollover is check to see if my FI is leaving or retiring. If I need a new FI I immediately add $3 mil to my coaching budget.

#2 - The secondary coaching ratings for all seem to be Patience and Discipline. Look at coaches' cards and you'll see that they don't change much, if at all, over their careers. If a guy has 32 Patience that's it, it doesn't develop. So at the minor league levels, starting at the bottom, I'll hire coaches with good or great Patience/Discipline combos, matched with high Loyalty. I'll scrub a few points off their "main" rating - Strategy, Hitting, or Pitching - to do this. I'm going to re-hire and promote them all, while their main ratings develop, because those are the ratings which do develop. If you hate Coach Hiring, and overpaying for a free agent coach, this saves you that hassle. I've had one season where I had to replace my major league 1B coach and my Rookie coaches; all the rest were rehires and promotions. This also keeps your coaching budget close to minimum.

#3 - In the majors, Bench coach is the last coach I hire unless I really like the guy I have and I have can really spare the money to pay his demand. All the minor league coaches seem to want to work their way up to major league bench, and he's probably the one coach who has the least impact on your franchise for the most money. If you wait till the end of Hiring - second last cycle to be safe - you can find a decent enough free agent who'll take whatever money you have left just to get a job.

#4 - An exception in the majors is if you are competing for a max level free agent player. If it comes down to tiebreakers the player might look at your coaching staff as part of his decision, in which case you want coaches with the highest hitting or pitching ratings to support him. I've heard of an owner who claimed to overpay an excellent PC to be his Bullpen Coach just to go after a specific FA. That's an extreme example.

#5 - All of this while keeping in mind that you don't want to go to the end of coach hiring and have the AI make decisions for you. Sometimes you see things on abandoned teams like terrible FIs being hired, then their prospects don't develop until another owner takes over and fixes it. Having mediocre coaches at any level isn't going to hurt your franchise, but inappropriately poor ones will set you back.

Makes sense, thanks so much!

Posted by damag on 10/7/2018 9:06:00 AM (view original):
#1 - Always hire (or re-hire) a good Fielding Instructor. The FI influences the development of every player in your system. THE first thing I do at season rollover is check to see if my FI is leaving or retiring. If I need a new FI I immediately add $3 mil to my coaching budget.

#2 - The secondary coaching ratings for all seem to be Patience and Discipline. Look at coaches' cards and you'll see that they don't change much, if at all, over their careers. If a guy has 32 Patience that's it, it doesn't develop. So at the minor league levels, starting at the bottom, I'll hire coaches with good or great Patience/Discipline combos, matched with high Loyalty. I'll scrub a few points off their "main" rating - Strategy, Hitting, or Pitching - to do this. I'm going to re-hire and promote them all, while their main ratings develop, because those are the ratings which do develop. If you hate Coach Hiring, and overpaying for a free agent coach, this saves you that hassle. I've had one season where I had to replace my major league 1B coach and my Rookie coaches; all the rest were rehires and promotions. This also keeps your coaching budget close to minimum.

#3 - In the majors, Bench coach is the last coach I hire unless I really like the guy I have and I have can really spare the money to pay his demand. All the minor league coaches seem to want to work their way up to major league bench, and he's probably the one coach who has the least impact on your franchise for the most money. If you wait till the end of Hiring - second last cycle to be safe - you can find a decent enough free agent who'll take whatever money you have left just to get a job.

#4 - An exception in the majors is if you are competing for a max level free agent player. If it comes down to tiebreakers the player might look at your coaching staff as part of his decision, in which case you want coaches with the highest hitting or pitching ratings to support him. I've heard of an owner who claimed to overpay an excellent PC to be his Bullpen Coach just to go after a specific FA. That's an extreme example.

#5 - All of this while keeping in mind that you don't want to go to the end of coach hiring and have the AI make decisions for you. Sometimes you see things on abandoned teams like terrible FIs being hired, then their prospects don't develop until another owner takes over and fixes it. Having mediocre coaches at any level isn't going to hurt your franchise, but inappropriately poor ones will set you back.

I hired a FI coach with high patience and low experienced. Right now he's a 50 FI IQ. Is that inappropriately low?

50 IQ is good if he's brand new to coaching. I've seen other coaches develop their own FIs, pick up a young one and let him grow. Your players might stagnate for a season or two until his rating ramps up, but if he's brand new it should ramp up real fast.

Posted by damag on 10/7/2018 3:49:00 PM (view original):
50 IQ is good if he's brand new to coaching. I've seen other coaches develop their own FIs, pick up a young one and let him grow. Your players might stagnate for a season or two until his rating ramps up, but if he's brand new it should ramp up real fast.

He's 54 years old, but a rookie. I assume he'll improve a lot, right?

They generally improve about 4 points a season, for the first ten seasons or so. Only thing is, at age 54, by the time he maxes out he might retire... I can't remember exactly but it's around age 64 or 65.

Posted by damag on 10/7/2018 4:21:00 PM (view original):
They generally improve about 4 points a season, for the first ten seasons or so. Only thing is, at age 54, by the time he maxes out he might retire... I can't remember exactly but it's around age 64 or 65.

Will having a 50 this year be really bad for my prospects?

To be honest, I don't know for sure.

Posted by damag on 10/7/2018 7:11:00 PM (view original):
To be honest, I don't know for sure.

Ok. Thanks for the previous help.

Posted by Sportsbulls on 10/7/2018 4:26:00 PM (view original):

Posted by damag on 10/7/2018 4:21:00 PM (view original):
They generally improve about 4 points a season, for the first ten seasons or so. Only thing is, at age 54, by the time he maxes out he might retire... I can't remember exactly but it's around age 64 or 65.

Will having a 50 this year be really bad for my prospects?

Yes. They won't lose ground but they'll gain much more slowly than you want.

Posted by dedelman on 10/8/2018 7:40:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Sportsbulls on 10/7/2018 4:26:00 PM (view original):

Posted by damag on 10/7/2018 4:21:00 PM (view original):
They generally improve about 4 points a season, for the first ten seasons or so. Only thing is, at age 54, by the time he maxes out he might retire... I can't remember exactly but it's around age 64 or 65.

Will having a 50 this year be really bad for my prospects?

Yes. They won't lose ground but they'll gain much more slowly than you want.

Ok, if I have my bad coach for one year then go hire the best FI next year, will it even out?