What do you guys usually look for in hiring coaches? Does the right type.of coaching really make a big differnce in this game has anybody noticed? Not sure if it would be wise to drop 20 million into coaching or if it's not that big of a deal to always keep it low like 6-8 million?

There are no definites in HBD.

If I have a good FI who's willing to resign for 750k, I budget 6m and do just fine.
If I have to sign a FI, I budget 9m and, again, do just fine.

IMO, 12m is overkill. You don't need the best coach at every level.

Nobody knows.

The documentation and HBD Developer Chats they used to hold are inconsistent and intentionally vague.

There are too many variables to know how much more a coach rating of 75 gets you than a rating of 70. Then you add in the 3 soft ratings. You'd have to run tens of thousands of simulations to begin to have an idea if 75 is worth $10,000 more than 70 or if 70 with Patience 90 is better than 75 with Patience 40.

Playing time at a reasonable position seems to be more important than coaching. Absolutely terrible coaching ratings does seem to hurt player development some.

Those to observations could be me and many others hoping it's so. Again, it would take tens of thousands of simulated seasons with all other variables controlled (injury, games played, inn played/pitched, playoff games, training and health budgets) to begin to have enough data to know for sure.

Everything about coach hiring sucks. It's no fun. We have no idea what we're spending our fake money on.

Because it doesn't suck enough on it's own, WIS compounds it by the even more stupid rule of paying a 2 for 1 penalty to move money between budgets. That's not how budgets work in the real world. As new information comes in, businesses and people move money between budgets all the time. If you have money in the budget to buy a house on one of the kids get sick, you don't burn 1/2 that money before you get to pay the medical bills It's unfucking believably stupid and customer hostile that WIS has never removed the few lines of code the cuts money moved in half. I give them a pass on the original version of the game because I pretty sure all the coders were young and had no idea there's a difference between money spent, money contracted to spend (like a contract with players or scouts), and money budgeted to spend. But that's it's never been fixed is inexcusable.

And then, because they really don't give a ****, we can't move any money unless it's in exactly $2M increments. WTF? This would also be a sold 1-2 hours of work by any low end coder. Replace the drop downs with a data entry field. Check if it's a number. Check if it's less than the amount in the budget. If OK, move the money.

The only people I've brought into HBD that I'm still in touch with both quit because coaching hiring sucks so much. One didn't make it to the start of the first season because it put such a bad taste in his mouth. He figured it would be months of bullshit like that. Both are sports fans and gamers. Both might still be here and recruited others in if we just set 1 or more coaching budgets, pressed the save button, and got what we paid for.

End of rant. I try to get this in at least once a year at the end of coach hiring. Only small bit of therapy for the **** they put us all through.

Posted by tufft on 2/2/2017 7:58:00 PM (view original):
Nobody knows.

The documentation and HBD Developer Chats they used to hold are inconsistent and intentionally vague.

There are too many variables to know how much more a coach rating of 75 gets you than a rating of 70. Then you add in the 3 soft ratings. You'd have to run tens of thousands of simulations to begin to have an idea if 75 is worth $10,000 more than 70 or if 70 with Patience 90 is better than 75 with Patience 40.

Playing time at a reasonable position seems to be more important than coaching. Absolutely terrible coaching ratings does seem to hurt player development some.

Those to observations could be me and many others hoping it's so. Again, it would take tens of thousands of simulated seasons with all other variables controlled (injury, games played, inn played/pitched, playoff games, training and health budgets) to begin to have enough data to know for sure.

Everything about coach hiring sucks. It's no fun. We have no idea what we're spending our fake money on.

Because it doesn't suck enough on it's own, WIS compounds it by the even more stupid rule of paying a 2 for 1 penalty to move money between budgets. That's not how budgets work in the real world. As new information comes in, businesses and people move money between budgets all the time. If you have money in the budget to buy a house on one of the kids get sick, you don't burn 1/2 that money before you get to pay the medical bills It's unfucking believably stupid and customer hostile that WIS has never removed the few lines of code the cuts money moved in half. I give them a pass on the original version of the game because I pretty sure all the coders were young and had no idea there's a difference between money spent, money contracted to spend (like a contract with players or scouts), and money budgeted to spend. But that's it's never been fixed is inexcusable.

And then, because they really don't give a ****, we can't move any money unless it's in exactly $2M increments. WTF? This would also be a sold 1-2 hours of work by any low end coder. Replace the drop downs with a data entry field. Check if it's a number. Check if it's less than the amount in the budget. If OK, move the money.

The only people I've brought into HBD that I'm still in touch with both quit because coaching hiring sucks so much. One didn't make it to the start of the first season because it put such a bad taste in his mouth. He figured it would be months of bullshit like that. Both are sports fans and gamers. Both might still be here and recruited others in if we just set 1 or more coaching budgets, pressed the save button, and got what we paid for.

End of rant. I try to get this in at least once a year at the end of coach hiring. Only small bit of therapy for the **** they put us all through.

Awesome!!

"for the **** they put us all through"?

No one has ever forced me to play any sim games. I am truly sorry that they found out where you lived, sent a group of thugs to your house and forced you, probably at gunpoint, to purchase HBD seasons.

You should contact the authorities. I'm almost positive that was illegal.

Oh what the hell. (LONG POST)

I'll kind of agree with tufft on one thing - coach hiring is a make work project, it seems meant to make you to feel like you're accomplishing something big when you may not really be.

Unless someone proves otherwise, IMO - IMO - you don't have to have the best coach to make the biggest difference to your players. Just want to make sure you have coaches who don't suck, because everyone agrees that coaches who suck at their level should be a detriment to your developing prospects.

Only coach I ever compete for the best available - when I have to - is the Fielding Instructor. By the time you get to free agent coach hiring, there are usually only a few major league quality ones available. When I need an FI, I add 3 to 5 mil to my coach budget.

When I need a new coach, first thing I do is decide what's the lowest core skill rating (strategy, hitting, pitching, baserunning) I'll accept. Then I look for options with decent to good patience and discipline combos, because I think that'll make up any gap in the core skills. (I never have coaches with single digit patience unless I get really stuck.) Tiebreaker, I want coaches with good loyalty, for rehiring purposes. In the minors this often means dropping down a level and promoting coaches. I want coaches with signability, guys other owners aren't going to compete hard for. Last thing I want is a bidding war for a HiA pitching coach.

I never get the best coaches, but I get through coach hiring without sweating what I perceive as unnecessary. That starts with rehiring as many as possible in the rehiring phase, promoting from within if I need to. Usually I only need to hire four to six new coaches.

Finally, when I need to hire new big ones - Major League Pitching, Hitting, and especially Bench - and I haven't already promoted from AAA, I wait till the last day of coach hiring. At the 11 AM cycle that day, there are usually only a few openings left and too many major league candidates to fill them, and many (not necessarily all) will take a below-demand offer.

Basically in coach hiring I only need to pay attention on three days - rehiring day, first day of signing, and last day of signing.

First world I was in, I once realized the most loaded team in the world ran with only 6 to 8 mil in coaches. His entire organization was filled with stud IFA and traded-for prospects. He traded away almost all his own draft choices because he knew they weren't really that good, he always picked in the 30s. His entire organization was studs and cannon fodder, so he didn't care who his coaches were.

Like MikeT always says, no absolutes.

You guys make this waaaaaay to hard on yourself.

'Finally, when I need to hire new big ones - Major League Pitching, Hitting, and especially Bench - and I haven't already promoted from AAA, I wait till the last day of coach hiring. At the 11 AM cycle that day, there are usually only a few openings left and too many major league candidates to fill them, and many (not necessarily all) will take a below-demand offer.'

This is the only paragraph you need. I put 6 million into my coaching if my fielding instructor will resign. If my Fielding instructor won't resign, I budget 10 million.

First cycle I put high bids on the top 3 fielding instructors until my extra cash is all gone. For minor leaguers I take the over qualified guys in Low and High A and offer them promotions. They're better then a lot of the options in AA and AAA anyways.

Then for the majors I wait until the last hiring cycle. There are always guys in the mid to high 80's I can get for a little over/under a million.

Easy.

Posted by MikeT23 on 2/2/2017 6:01:00 PM (view original):
There are no definites in HBD.

If I have a good FI who's willing to resign for 750k, I budget 6m and do just fine.
If I have to sign a FI, I budget 9m and, again, do just fine.

IMO, 12m is overkill. You don't need the best coach at every level.

6m is suicidally low, you will for sure have the worst coach at every level
9m is low but you can get by, but you're going to have to save money on a weak ML hitting / pitching and/or bench coach

Head to world->finances->budget analysis and take a look at the distribution for how teams normally budget. For example, in piazza-
18- one (me, I lost a FI I really wanted to hold onto because he has 85 loyalty and it's the kind of guy who might stay 10+ seasons. I still only spent 16)
15, 14- one each
13- seven (one only spent 11)
12- nine (two only spent 10, three only spent 8)
11- five
10- four
9- one
8- two
7- one

Franchise Profile: Somethings for an idea of what 16 gets you. I overspent on FI ($4.5M) because of loyalty attribute, as mentioned. Starting IQ value of 55 equates to ending value of 88-90. $2.3M is the re-sign price for a 90 IQ PC, tied for 6th best in ML. $2.6M is the re-sign price for 87 IQ HC (still improving), T-17th in league, $2.2M is the re-sign price for 90 IQ BC (still improving), T-6th in league. On the last cycle of hiring I had extra cash left over so I signed one of the leftover ML PCs to be my BU, 86 IQ for $1.4M, T-2nd in league.

As you can tell, almost your entire budget goes into the ML guys. Those five guys alone total $13M out of the 16M I spent. I really only go wild on minors when I first take over a team. The first two years I'll target new coaches but once they are established in my system, you save money by spending extra on rookie and low-A and then promoting them over and over for the minimum salary at higher levels. It's annoying to bid $500k-$1M+ on AAA coaches instead of promoting your AA coaches for $240k.

You can save cash by promoting AAA Bench, PC, and HC coaches to ML level for the minimum salaries. In my experience, ML bench always promotes to 600k (12 teams in piazza have a bench coach at 600k) but both PC and HC often promote to a higher, established salary between $1.2M and $1.8M. In piazza, only 5 teams have a PC at $600k-$640k whereas 9 other teams have a PC between $1.2M and $1.8M, and only 4 teams have a HC at $600k and 5 teams have a HC between $1.4M and $1.8M.

In other words, because the sunk cost for ML PC and HC are higher ($1.5 for a rubbish promotion), you might as well just spend the extra money to get a good guy at both of those spots. ML PC and HC are sunk cost, ML bench is a good spot to save cash, and you should expect to spend between 10 and 12 depending on whether your FI stays or leaves.

You know you can check those things. Feel free to look at any of my four teams and tell me which one has the worst at every level. Go ahead. We'll all wait here.

Also, as tufft and damag alluded to, nobody (including me) really has any quantifiable idea of how much each individual coaching attributes contributes to development. Is it good? Is it valuable? How good? How valuable? Alls I know is that having good coaches can't be bad, and having bad coaches can't be good.

If that's alls you know, stop saying stupid crap like "6m is suicidally low, you will for sure have the worst coach at every level" when it's absolutely not true.

Here's the thing:
I think you have a pretty good understanding of HBD. So the question is.....Do you just make statements to intentionally mislead new owners or are there simply facets of the game you don't understand/haven't explored?

Posted by MikeT23 on 2/3/2017 12:50:00 PM (view original):
You know you can check those things. Feel free to look at any of my four teams and tell me which one has the worst at every level. Go ahead. We'll all wait here.

I'll do you one better, here are the four teams who spend the least on coaching in each of my 3 ongoing leagues. It isn't about you buddy, it's about the bigger picture in general.

Franchise Profile: Otters budget 7m, worst coach at literally every level except for the FI who re-signed.
Franchise Profile: Dirty Deeds budget 8m, worst coaches in ML and AAA bench + pitching and some decent guys who re-signed / promoted
Franchise Profile: Scorpions budget 6m, worst coaches at literally every level down except hiA thru rookie Pc

Budgeting 6-8 gets you the worst ML coaches (and that's really the only level that matters anyways) and probably bad coaches in minors. Budgeting 10 gets you a little extra at the ML level, budgeting 12 gets you a little extra at all the levels. Budgeting 14+ gets you more of everything everywhere plus a top free agent fielding instructor. Budgeting 20 is so excessive that I have never personally seen anyone do it, I don't even know where you would possibly spend it all

No, just do what I ask. Which is back up your ridiculous, and wrong, statement.

Show me which one of my 6m coaching budget teams has "the worst coach at every level".

Should I wait here while you check or would you prefer to admit you're spewing bullshit?

Posted by MikeT23 on 2/3/2017 1:15:00 PM (view original):
No, just do what I ask. Which is back up your ridiculous, and wrong, statement.

Show me which one of my 6m coaching budget teams has "the worst coach at every level".

Should I wait here while you check or would you prefer to admit you're spewing bullshit?

Franchise Profile: Grass Skirts you spent 9, not 6. Despite the wasted 3M, your FI is 5th from the bottom, ML PC 5th from the bottom, HC 9th from the bottom, a double-A caliber BC you're paying $1.2M, the worst AAA bench coach and below average aaa pc and hc, average aa coaches, bad hi a coaches, good low a pc terrible hc and bc, good rookie hc

Franchise Profile: Charge budget 6, average FI, good HC, good 3b, slightly below average ML pc, AA caliber ML bc, terrible aaa coaches, terrible aa coaches, ok hia hc terrible bc and pc, below average lowa, terrible rookie

I'm not even going to go any further than this. You literally have the worst coaches at *almost every single level and you insist that you don't. At least make an intangible argument that you feel like it doesn't matter. But objectively, these coaches have terrible ratings. Each level has a "par" value, or at least a league average value. Your coaches are absolutely terrible relative to other teams coaches at the same level, that is objectively fact in every sense. you don't understand your own stupidity sometimes