I am curious if others believe good major league coaches help you win more games?

• Does a really good 1B/3B coach get you x wins above a replacement level coach?
• Do you feel like PC/HC/BC contribute to your win total?
• Has anyone ever looked at something like record in one run games vs. quality of coaches to see if that is a way to evaluate their impact?

I have no data on this. I take the developers' word that coaches, except for the bench coach's strategy rating, only factor into player development and not game play. So, unless I have a very young ML team, I see the only value of the ML PC/HC as being Spring Training improvement of prospects.

Regarding the ML BC-- I set argumentative to zero and spend the minimum.

Regarding the 1B/3B-- I have no idea what they do. I assume my ML team will run the bases better with a good 3B coach but I have zero evidence for that. The 1B I treat as irrelevant.

Lately on one of my teams I'm just using the 1B coach slot to stash a future FI.

Posted by dedelman on 7/10/2020 12:08:00 PM (view original):
I have no data on this. I take the developers' word that coaches, except for the bench coach's strategy rating, only factor into player development and not game play. So, unless I have a very young ML team, I see the only value of the ML PC/HC as being Spring Training improvement of prospects.

Regarding the ML BC-- I set argumentative to zero and spend the minimum.

Regarding the 1B/3B-- I have no idea what they do. I assume my ML team will run the bases better with a good 3B coach but I have zero evidence for that. The 1B I treat as irrelevant.

Points 1 and 2 are exactly what I do, also. As far as 3B/1B coaches, other have told me they do not affect game play at all. They only help to develop baserunning ratings, and their hitting ratings also somewhat help your hitters develop their hitting skills. So I try to get 3B and 1B coaches who have respectable 1B/3B ratings, and have good hitting ratings.

So it sounds like coaches impact player development more than they impact team performance. So if you have an older ML team with very few top minor league prospects, it seems like you could shave a few million off of your coaches budget to spend elsewhere and not really experience material negative impact to your team? Agree?

Yep. Just don't skimp on your FI, though, because he coaches all levels of your organization.

TBH I think this is kind of a misconception due to the way they wrote the guide:

From Player's Guide - "At the big league level, you'll need a bench coach, hitting coach, pitching coach, bullpen coach, 1B & 3B coach. The 1B & 3B coaches contribute to the development of players' basestealing and baserunning. The hitting coach, with a little help from the 1B & 3B coach, contributes to the development of all hitting ratings. The pitching coach, with some help from the bullpen coach, contributes to the development of pitcher ratings. The bench coach takes over as manager after any managerial ejection."
I can see how people would get how the Bench coach only contributes if the head coach gets ejected, etc.

From FAQ:

Does a major league bench coach have any effect outside of when the manager is ejected?

Bench coaches don't just have an impact when they take over for the manager (i.e. you). They impact all of the ratings and performance of the players.<br> <br> The main ratings that the bench coach has an effect on for position players are hitting, pitch calling, and base-running. For pitchers at the minor league level they take over (to a lesser extent) the bullpen coaches role.<br> <br> At the minor league level bench coaches play a role in all facets of player development. That is why they are one of the most desired and highly compensated components of your coaching staff.

This i think is commonly overlooked. Spells out bench coach directly has impact on performance.

Posted by damag on 7/10/2020 12:16:00 PM (view original):
Lately on one of my teams I'm just using the 1B coach slot to stash a future FI.

Yeah, all my MiL bench coaches are just more PC's or HC's for the pipeline to the majors.

Sorry if this gets a little longwinded: I'm pretty agnostic about my coaches, especially the Bench. I do agree that in the minors they contribute to the development of minor league players. Fair. But those guys aren't highly paid. In the majors there are other coaches to cover their minor league jobs.

There is no observable way to read the output of having a "good" coach. The only way you'd see something, and over time, is if you consistently employed "bad" coaches and saw your players deteriorate.
In that absence, and considering the amount of time and potential budget one can invest in "winning" coach hiring, yes, we are told that coaches are important. But in the minors there are a lot of just-as-good coaches, and in the majors, given the state of your league, there can be a deep backlog of just-as-good coaches waiting for jobs.
Sometimes, coach hiring just feels like a make-work project to me.

More power to anyone who wants to put his money into hiring the best coaches he can get. Wish you well. I prefer to take the easy road.
- Always get the best FI available if I need a new one.
- Hire minor league coaches who look to me like they'll project to grow well.
- Promote from within as much as possible.
- When I need a free agent coach in the majors - the highest paid coaches in my system - I budget low, watch the free agent pool, and hire cheap on the last day. Sometimes it's not even hard to get a top ten BC for far less than demand, if everyone else has already hired.
I usually don't have to hire more than a handful of new coaches, and keep my coaching budget lower. Only exception is if I end up with a major league coach I'm sentimental toward or feel good about their record; I'll raise the budget enough to keep them.

I put 6m into coaching, unless I need a FI. Then I bump it to 8. My minor league players develop, my major league players don't seem to decline any faster than they should.

I wonder if anybody has tried benching a player that is underperforming and if that benching has turned said player around? I am super annoyed with a particular player on my team, Rick Simon, his batting ratings are:

76

90

77

77

82

37

34

so yep, 77 L and R. I am playing in Durham, so very friendly hitters park and yet he is batting .264 through 110 ABs, and only 2 HRs. Now, I know many of you will say SSS, and its true, it is a SSS, but he should be raking it in Durham. But he is playing like he is hungover from hookers n blow. He has 79 DUR, so he wont play the entire season, so I figured maybe try benching him for 5 games or so, see if that lights a fire under his arse. Any thoughts?

Yes, he's probably underperforming, but it's also that his ratings are Very Good but not by any means Super Dominant. I think this is the natural low end of his production. Might have been going through a tougher part of the schedule, or facing a run of better pitchers. He's the kind of hitter who should feast on lesser competition, but the elite pitchers can still shut him down.

I know all that really. I was just wondering if anybody had tried benching a player for underperforming and if it made any difference?

He is not a real person. He has no emotions. So no, it does not help. (circa MikeT).

I have a player who was out of options and at the ML level. I DFA'd him and he passed through waivers without being claimed. I thought I could then assign him to a minor league team, but an error occurs saying he may only be assigned to the big league team due to his current contract and option status.

Is there any work-around here, or am I just going to have to release the guy?