Suggestion A: Whenever a coach sits out a season without being hired he drops his position demand to the next lower level for the next season.

Suggestion B: Whenever a coach sits out a season without being hired he drops his salary demand to the minimum for his level and position. If he sits out two seasons he drops his position demand to the next lower level.

This won't solve the coach hiring issue, but either would help and I would guess both would be easy to implement.

In one of my leagues, currently in coach hiring, there are 13 ML HC that went without work last season and 40 total ML HC available, or 8 more than could possibly be hired assuming all 32 teams have an opening (poor assumption). The lowest salary demand of any of these coaches is $1.5M. So a rebuilding team that wants to save on coach salaries has no choice, but to drop down to AAA in order to pay league minimum.

There are only 13 AAA HC's available. The AAA pool would immediately be doubled which would mean that teams wouldn't have to hire as many AAA HC's from AA. It will take a few seasons, but this effect should eventually ripple all the way down to RL.

This solution seems so obvious, I have to think I'm missing something. Feedback is welcome.

I would take it a step further and say that if a coach hasn't had a single offer by the last cycle of coach hiring his demands should drop to minimum. And I'd also support Suggestion A, too. I also think money should be more important than level (maybe possible exception being ML will always win over minor league offers). It's kind of dumb that I've offered $450k salaries to guys in AA and HiA and they will take AAA jobs for half that money. I've also seen AAA coaches making over $1 million a few times.

How about making it like free agency where you can offer long term deals to coaches. It would make such an awful strenuous part of the offseason much easier and not so stressful.

Everyone well at least the majority of HBD seems to dislike signing coaches

I don't think that's true. While it's not a joy, it's only a task if you make it one.

I've brought 3 people into HBD. 2 of them quit during coach hiring. I don't blame them.

Coach hiring sucks. Worst part of HBD. It's time consuming. It's no fun. Nobody knows who any of their coaches are. We have no idea what we're bidding on, and never will (unless the new owners publish the algorithm).

I believe Mike, after 100+ HBD season, doesn't spend much time on coaching. For 95% of HBD GMs, it's all about checking in every 4 hours. That sucks.

Who's the better coach? Hitting Rating of 60 with Patience 60, or Hitting 50 w Patience 80? Then add the other ratings. It's not possible for anyone who does not have hundreds of seasons and spends hours running math models to every have even an educated theory.

Make MinL and ML coaching a budget, like Training & Medical. We get what we pay for.

There are a lot of reasons HBD is struggling to survive. Coaching hiring is high on the list. HBD would have more customers if there was more fun, more strategy, and less time wasting stuff like coach hiring.

I don't fret over stuff like this:

Who's the better coach? Hitting Rating of 60 with Patience 60, or Hitting 50 w Patience 80? Then add the other ratings. It's not possible for anyone who does not have hundreds of seasons and spends hours running math models to every have even an educated theory.

I also know that BL coaching doesn't matter if MOST of your players are in their prime. I also know I don't have 77 future BL players in my minors. Finally, coach hiring does suck but not for the reasons listed in this thread. It's backwards. The way the game works, you need your best coaches in the minors. If I want to pay a HIA hitting coach 4m, he should take that job over a Triple A job for 240k.

The BEST thing they could do is remove levels. The market will sort it out. Obviously a BL offer would outweigh a similar offer to coach AA but a huge disparity in pay should make up for it.

Can you tell me what BL means? That way I can understand your post thanks

Big League

He means big league.

A number of seasons ago I began hiring minor league coaches, starting in rookie ball, using youth and loyalty as tiebreakers.

Now, as those coaches move up through my minor league teams, I usually don't have the most "talented" coaches, but I get 80% of hiring done in the first 5 minutes of rehiring. And the only free agent coaches I have to compete for are at major league level.

Mike's right. I forgot to list all of the ways HBD coaches and coach hiring sucks.

Get rid of it. Make it a budget.

Or fully publish the algorithm so we know what we're paying for.

That would dumb down the game.

Simply saying "Here are the coaches. Have at it" would get the job done.

I disagree.
It's at it's dumbest point now. We have no idea what we're bidding on.
Setting a budget and getting what we pay for would be a big boost to strategy vs. luck.
I think your suggestion is better than how it works now. Trying to improve a bad idea isn't what I hope they do.

I have an idea. I think most people have an idea.

I don't see anything changing in the near future so this is mostly just mental masturbation.

New ownership offers a glimmer of hope. SportsHub seems to understand making money on the internet. Something Fox Sports didn't care about doing.

Every minute every customer spends doing something boring, not fun, not strategy, no way to know if / how it's improving their fake or fantasy team, is time they're not checking out or buying more stuff from HubSpot. Or clicking on an ad on a HubSpot webpage.

Coach hiring is an economic drain on HBD, WIS, and SportsHub. Simplifying it puts money in their pocket.

So I'm going to hope the realize this, too.