I would like to see the DITR changed to include anyone under 27. It should not be limited to only younger players or anyone with a projected overall rating below 60. Why can't a future good ML player become a great player?

Maybe then there would be fewer DITR but they have a possibility of impacting much better players. Seeing a player with splits in the 20's become a player with splits in the 30's is worthless. That is not a DITR. Now, if every once in a while you got a 4th year AAA player jump from 72 to 80, that would make it exciting.

Right now it benefits more, the owners, that sign a bunch of 25+ year old minor league free agents to fill out their minors than it does someone that moves the prospect each season. Having more 25+ year olds in your minor reduces the pool of players that the system selects from. Giving you a better chance of getting a player that may actually be something, someday. But they never really become ML All Stars.

ALSO, it would be great to create specialized training based on your Training Budget, factoring in a players age and makeup. You would get 2, 3, maybe 4 flags/pins you could designate in spring training. You would pick a specific rating on a specific player that you would like to see boosted over the next season. Maybe baserunning, or a 4th pitch, or the durability/stamina of a pitcher, or the glove on a SS, or the pitch calling on your catcher. It would have to be limited to players under 30. the boost would be something like 5-10 ratings per season. Or in case of adding another pitch, maybe starts at 50 and increases 5-10 in a season.

It's crazy to see a great pitcher with All Star splits, velocity, and pitches but with a 4 in durability. Are you telling me a ML franchise wouldn't put that pitcher on a specialized training regiment to strengthen his legs, arm, and endurance? Or a catcher with 70's glove, 80's arm and accuracy, but a 40's pitch calling. They would have him working with a specialized coach to make him better at calling pitches. Look at Mike Piazza, he became a much better defensive catcher throughout his ML career. I have seen bad baserunners become much better/smarter in their ML careers. Heck, you see ML pitchers adding a new pitch all the time. I believe it was Johan Santana that spent an entire minor league season throwing only fastballs and changeups so that he could perfect his change up.

Maybe this could all be incorporated with the DITR. You happen to designate a pitcher to add a pitch, and by random coincidence he gets a DITR jump on that pitch, his vsL/R, his other pitches, and groundballs.

Just a thought after looking at someone sign a possible future Hall of Fame 2B, IFA prospect, that had a 37 in durability. Are you telling me he could only play in about 60 games. And knowing the normal max rate of growth, his durability will be lucky to get to 65. To me, that is crazy, it doesn't happen in the real world.

I like it!

I like the idea of specialized or focused training. In fact, I recommended something similar on the "quality of life" thread. I think it should be tied to coaching in the rating of focus and the player's makeup rating and age. However, it needs to be limited in some capacity (I.e. Maximum of a 25 percent bump and no opportunity to move above 65 overall). This should not build Greek Gods, it should just give the player an opportunity to work on his wart. A few examples -- 1. That player with 95 + speed, but 45 projected baserunning. If the Organization gets with the player early enough, they can improve the baserunning to a maximum of 57; 2. The pitcher with great ratings everywhere, but a projected 50 R split rating could improve to a maximum of 65 in R split rating through the specialized training. 3. The two-pitch pitcher that has a lights-out P1, but a lackadaisical P2 can be turned into a more true ace relief pitcher.

A very small percentage of owners use advanced scouting so maybe scrap or reinvent it and/or try adding specialized training or specialized scouting.

On DITR, I tend to disagree with the above. Yes, certain owners sign players over the age of 25 so that they can lower the amount of DITR eligible players in their system and give themselves a bit more control of who gets hit with DITR, but that is good roster management as opposed to some type of problem or loophole. I would prefer that Admin works on ways to deter actual loopholes like lopsided trades or comp pick collusion that are events that are prohibited in the fair play guidelines but are difficult to enforce. Lopsided trades are often a zero sum game where one team clearly gets better and the other team gets worse and if the same owner does one lopsided trade per season involving a top ten player at his position, over the course of a few seasons, it becomes a zero sum game for the entire World.

It seems like half the World's im in have at least one owner that thinks this game is a trading card game or thinks it's okay to acquire another team's 23 year old future hall of famer for three bottom 15 of the mlb roster guys. It would be a whole lot more difficult to fleece an owner in a trade if development was less predictable or if the current ratings were fuzzy for players not on your team. If it's a Dynasty game, as they mentioned in the recent thread regarding maintaining minor leagues, then owners should have the most Intel on players within the Organization and the least Intel on players not in the Organization.

I know this got off topic, but I just prefer that Admin focuses on true loopholes.

Advance scouting seems to be a worthless place to budget so I agree let's have specialized training

Posted by tlowster on 7/8/2021 4:37:00 PM (view original):
I like the idea of specialized or focused training. In fact, I recommended something similar on the "quality of life" thread. I think it should be tied to coaching in the rating of focus and the player's makeup rating and age. However, it needs to be limited in some capacity (I.e. Maximum of a 25 percent bump and no opportunity to move above 65 overall). This should not build Greek Gods, it should just give the player an opportunity to work on his wart. A few examples -- 1. That player with 95 + speed, but 45 projected baserunning. If the Organization gets with the player early enough, they can improve the baserunning to a maximum of 57; 2. The pitcher with great ratings everywhere, but a projected 50 R split rating could improve to a maximum of 65 in R split rating through the specialized training. 3. The two-pitch pitcher that has a lights-out P1, but a lackadaisical P2 can be turned into a more true ace relief pitcher.

A very small percentage of owners use advanced scouting so maybe scrap or reinvent it and/or try adding specialized training or specialized scouting.

On DITR, I tend to disagree with the above. Yes, certain owners sign players over the age of 25 so that they can lower the amount of DITR eligible players in their system and give themselves a bit more control of who gets hit with DITR, but that is good roster management as opposed to some type of problem or loophole. I would prefer that Admin works on ways to deter actual loopholes like lopsided trades or comp pick collusion that are events that are prohibited in the fair play guidelines but are difficult to enforce. Lopsided trades are often a zero sum game where one team clearly gets better and the other team gets worse and if the same owner does one lopsided trade per season involving a top ten player at his position, over the course of a few seasons, it becomes a zero sum game for the entire World.

It seems like half the World's im in have at least one owner that thinks this game is a trading card game or thinks it's okay to acquire another team's 23 year old future hall of famer for three bottom 15 of the mlb roster guys. It would be a whole lot more difficult to fleece an owner in a trade if development was less predictable or if the current ratings were fuzzy for players not on your team. If it's a Dynasty game, as they mentioned in the recent thread regarding maintaining minor leagues, then owners should have the most Intel on players within the Organization and the least Intel on players not in the Organization.

I know this got off topic, but I just prefer that Admin focuses on true loopholes.

But tlowster, when you refer to DITR signings of 25 year olds as not being a loophole, you are perfectly describing a loophole. Shouldn't the DITR be based solely on some randomness, and possible the quality of your coaches? Shouldn't the game try and minimic MLB as much as possible, when it can? It should promote maintaining your minors and moving guys up every season so that they progress and don't retire. Isn't that truly good roster management? Not the act of signing 30-40 twenty-five year old minor league free agents so that you can loophole the pool that DITR are drawn from.

Yes, I agree there are more deserving loopholes that can be addressed first, but I still find this as a loophole that doesn't reward the people that actually manage their minors as the game (and real life) was intended.

Despite our respectful disagreement on the DITR, I still think the specialized training is a great idea.

Posted by jwynkoop2424 on 7/9/2021 6:46:00 PM (view original):

Posted by tlowster on 7/8/2021 4:37:00 PM (view original):
I like the idea of specialized or focused training. In fact, I recommended something similar on the "quality of life" thread. I think it should be tied to coaching in the rating of focus and the player's makeup rating and age. However, it needs to be limited in some capacity (I.e. Maximum of a 25 percent bump and no opportunity to move above 65 overall). This should not build Greek Gods, it should just give the player an opportunity to work on his wart. A few examples -- 1. That player with 95 + speed, but 45 projected baserunning. If the Organization gets with the player early enough, they can improve the baserunning to a maximum of 57; 2. The pitcher with great ratings everywhere, but a projected 50 R split rating could improve to a maximum of 65 in R split rating through the specialized training. 3. The two-pitch pitcher that has a lights-out P1, but a lackadaisical P2 can be turned into a more true ace relief pitcher.

A very small percentage of owners use advanced scouting so maybe scrap or reinvent it and/or try adding specialized training or specialized scouting.

On DITR, I tend to disagree with the above. Yes, certain owners sign players over the age of 25 so that they can lower the amount of DITR eligible players in their system and give themselves a bit more control of who gets hit with DITR, but that is good roster management as opposed to some type of problem or loophole. I would prefer that Admin works on ways to deter actual loopholes like lopsided trades or comp pick collusion that are events that are prohibited in the fair play guidelines but are difficult to enforce. Lopsided trades are often a zero sum game where one team clearly gets better and the other team gets worse and if the same owner does one lopsided trade per season involving a top ten player at his position, over the course of a few seasons, it becomes a zero sum game for the entire World.

It seems like half the World's im in have at least one owner that thinks this game is a trading card game or thinks it's okay to acquire another team's 23 year old future hall of famer for three bottom 15 of the mlb roster guys. It would be a whole lot more difficult to fleece an owner in a trade if development was less predictable or if the current ratings were fuzzy for players not on your team. If it's a Dynasty game, as they mentioned in the recent thread regarding maintaining minor leagues, then owners should have the most Intel on players within the Organization and the least Intel on players not in the Organization.

I know this got off topic, but I just prefer that Admin focuses on true loopholes.

But tlowster, when you refer to DITR signings of 25 year olds as not being a loophole, you are perfectly describing a loophole. Shouldn't the DITR be based solely on some randomness, and possible the quality of your coaches? Shouldn't the game try and minimic MLB as much as possible, when it can? It should promote maintaining your minors and moving guys up every season so that they progress and don't retire. Isn't that truly good roster management? Not the act of signing 30-40 twenty-five year old minor league free agents so that you can loophole the pool that DITR are drawn from.

Yes, I agree there are more deserving loopholes that can be addressed first, but I still find this as a loophole that doesn't reward the people that actually manage their minors as the game (and real life) was intended.

If I'm a parent, I'd want my child in a 10-student classroom as opposed to a 40-student classroom. They'll get more specialized attention.

If I'm running a franchise and I know that I need to develop my top recruited prospects, but I also know that there are going to be players in my Organization that are focused on making it to the show despite not having top attributes/tools, then I need to give those players special attention. In HBD, there are very few ways to single out players to focus more on them. However, if you're clever enough and you've done your homework, you can sign guys under 25 with certain attributes, sign guys over 25 with certain attributes and mix them in with true prospects and tryout camp or late round picks and still find ways to get HBD to only focus on 10 guys on ditr day as opposed to 40 guys on ditr day. I don't see this as a loophole. I see it as achievement of your goal of finding diamonds in the rough through a strict management of the roster.

If we left it to randomness, then the DITR system would be little different than the injury system in place. In the past eight seasons in Moneyball, I've had 9 top prospect type players go down with major injuries before the age of 24. Imagine for a second that instead of my poor injury luck, I had great DITR luck due to some randomness in the DITR code. So instead of nine major injuries to top young talent in my Organization, I've had nine DITRs in 8 seasons that all turn out to be top 18 players on my mlb roster. How fair would that be to the other 31 teams in the World? I did nothing extraordinary, but through dumb random luck, I have 9 extra young prospecs. However, in the current system, if I run an intricate roster where I meticulously manage it to increase my chances of getting a good DITR and every now and then, I get a really good one or almost every season, I get a guy that is at least a bottom of the roster mlb player, that's not a loophole. It's just good management..

An ambiguity or inadequacy in a law or set of rules is the definition of loophole. The DITR event, in my opinion, was implemented into HBD in order to emulate mlb players like Whit Merrifield. I think the system does a fantastic job of emulating players like that because ditr players are never elite, even the best are capped out around 93 or 95 in each category. A true scout/coach/mentor/manager finds ways to get high work ethic guys into the system that want to succeed then gives those players opportunity to succeed. The other players in the Org are just living the minor league baseball life where they get to be chased by women and party every night. And I'm not going to waste my time with those types of players.

So, I think they should leave the DITR system alone, but how about something like the below.

Each player has a randomized trigger or triggers to where if they get matched up with a very specifically rated coach, they get huge gains in that season. An example would be a reliief pitcher under a certain age (say under 21) in a specific level of the minors (say low A) gets connected with a bench coach with a pitching IQ rating above 40 and a patience rating above 80, will achieve a X percent bump to his ceiling rating and an X percent jump to his current pitching ratings per cycle during the season. Then you could even tie in advanced scouting to it to where if the player does get connected to a coach that triggers extra growth, an email is sent to the inbox if the teams advanced scouting is over $X. This way, advanced scouting has more purpose so you don't have to check all your players for weird development spikes if you have high advanced scouting. A good real life example is somebody like Jose Batista. He struggled for a long time then a certain coach he worked with helped him with his stance and approach and he became a star as a late bloomer.

Strength Trainer. Have the ability to increase everyone's durability.

I STILL love the idea of specialized training. The idea of having useful DITR players is good too. That does help the terrible drafts.