Just eliminate coaches from the game. Coach hiring is miserable. I would have ten teams if it weren't for hiring. As it stands, I'm thinking of getting rid of all of them.

Join the club. Coach hiring is the worst. Hoping adlorenz addresses this as changes are made to HBD.

But for now, you are still going to have to pay for them. They do help your players develop.

maybe just allocate budget across the roles, rather than going thru the negotiations?

Posted by Scotb50 on 4/9/2021 9:29:00 PM (view original):
maybe just allocate budget across the roles, rather than going thru the negotiations?

I would be for this proposal. Coach hiring is by far the most miserable part of the game.

Haha I'd be on board with almost anything. It's literally nothing, just get it out of the way. My goal every season is just to rehire as many as possible.

It's a make-work project, just something to do in the offseason that is designed to make you feel like you're doing something. Kind of thing you'd hate your boss for giving it to you to handle.

I've been around far too long and paid far too much to play this game. The coach hiring process is a million times better and easier than it once was. The only real problem occurs if you can't rehire your FI. There is never enough and the decent ones get bid up to ridiculous salaries leaving some really horrible options if you don't move fast and grab one of the decent ones.

I don't mind it as long as they fix a few things.

1. Add a "withdraw and return" button. I am tired of having to click twice and wait for new pages to load twice before I get back to the coach list;
2. Add a way to tell the sim who my #1 guy is if i offer three contracts to the same level/same type of coach. If I am #1 on all three of the guys I have offered contracts to, I either have to withdraw offers to one or more of them and risk not getting any of them at all or I have to keep the contracts offered the entire time and hope the sim picks the #1 guy i want and not the #3 guy I want.

Also agree on the FI. They are the most important coach and every team needs one. If you don't have one with ratings in the 80s, good luck developing those infielders. I paid $13MM for one of them once.

My suggestion is to treat coaches like scouting. Teams can dedicate anything from $20M to $0 and that applies to the quality of coaching at all levels. (I would advocate for a $10M budget boost if this happens to accommodate for how much more teams will be spending on coaches.)

I’m ok with treating it like a budget and allocating it somehow. I’d also be ok with scrapping minor league coaches and having minor league coordinators similar to fielding coaches. I also think the simple changes Tlowster laid out would be super helpful too

I'd be in favor of scrapping it except that it gives me enough of an edge against opponents that I'll put up with the hassle. I only spend $8M/$11M a year (depending on whether FI re-signed) and usually end up with top 5-10 coaches at each position.

The other time it comes into play is in max contract bidding wars. Lock up the right coaches and you've got a much better chance at signing the best FA's. You might argue that coaches isn't a great tie-breaker but HBD is already a pretty bare bones engine compared to something like OOTP so you're taking away one more aspect of the game that can make a big difference.

It maybe takes me 30 minutes of time each season to hire coaches. Some tips:

- re-sign as many as possible
- promote if I can to fill in gaps
- don’t even look at it until day 2 because coaches don’t sign until day 3
- hire coaches with high loyalty ratings if possible
- don’t stress about getting the best coaches...a 89 FI is nice to have but a 75 FI is fine. I’ll live with a 55 hitting coach at AA instead of grinding every four hours for a 70.

After some more thought on this subject, the main beef I would have with changing the coaching budget to something similar to a scouting budget would be two things.

1. As Bripat referenced above, it dumbs down the game and I'd prefer to be rewarded by doing more work;
2. Right now, with the exception of a great FI, it is mostly unclear how much a top mlb coaching staff actually helps the development of your players. My guess would be that it helps in spring training bumps and keeps older players from declining so quickly in some sort of capacity. If I have to pay $20MM to be sure that this continues to happen, no thank you. I can usually get it done with $9-$10MM or if I need an FI, I can get it done with $9-17MM. Also, with the current system, I don't even know exactly what the coach ratings do for discipline, patience and strategy. I know what the player's guide reads, but we all know that the language used in the player's guide is left vague on an intentional basis. Maybe if there was more transparency on those less known coach ratings, the evaluation would be more fun. I don't know, just a thought.

Posted by brianplath on 4/11/2021 2:20:00 PM (view original):
I'd be in favor of scrapping it except that it gives me enough of an edge against opponents that I'll put up with the hassle. I only spend $8M/$11M a year (depending on whether FI re-signed) and usually end up with top 5-10 coaches at each position.

The other time it comes into play is in max contract bidding wars. Lock up the right coaches and you've got a much better chance at signing the best FA's. You might argue that coaches isn't a great tie-breaker but HBD is already a pretty bare bones engine compared to something like OOTP so you're taking away one more aspect of the game that can make a big difference.

I’m the exact same. Coach hiring is easy and gives me an advantage because I know how to do it. I shared my strategy with a new owner and lo and behold he had the same results. Coach hiring is not easy and it’s tedious but if you put in a game plan and stick to it you can have a huge advantage.

I agree with tlowster and a few others. It should not be dumb down. I have spent $7MM for many, many seasons. If you put in the work, you should get an advantage over others. There are a few things they can do to make it easier, better, and/or more enjoyable.
1. There has to be more transparency to the effect of each and every coach and rating. I don't understand why this has never been in the past.
2. I agree with tlowster, we should be able to list in order the coach we want 1st. Too often I get the coach I wanted least. And the coach I wanted most I had 1st position, but remains unsigned.
3. What about 2-3 year contracts for coaches? Maybe just for ML coaches, this would be helpful.
4. When coaches ask for a 'level change' up to ML level, they should automatically take the ML minimum or maybe ($800-900) the 1st season. We should get rewarded for developing them over several seasons.
5. Are there really only 10-15 good ML fielding coaches in MLB? Add a few more.

Just some ideas......

^^ WRT #5 ^^

Define "good". Most players develop just fine with a 75+ FC.

Everyone pays big $ for the 90+ guys, but I'd argue they are the "elite", and shouldn't be common. Not even sure the players see a marked difference having a 90+ FC (or any coach for that matter).

The big deal seems to occur on the other end of the spectrum. You def don't want a 50 in any level above Rookie, but I've had prospects develop really well with a 60 something coach even as high as AAA.

I think PT and MU have more impact on development than coaches unless they are really BAD coaches.