I know I am still a newbie but I have done a handful of seasons now and find next to waiting for owners to fill a league prior to roll, hiring coaches is my least favorite thing. I have read quite a bit in here about coaching strategies and while it seems the only constant is you gotta have a good FI, I haven't found much consistent messaging around the other positions.

So here is my actual question. I have a couple fairly good teams that could compete for the WS and was wondering if the knowledge base here might have some insight they'd share about if/what types of coaches for a ML team will help you win a WS. Maybe some of you have had several titles and can share what types of coaches you had on those teams or perhaps several winning owners might share their coaching focus and if enough do that maybe a pattern could be found?

I hope to garner some generalities around how to structure a coaching staff that will maximize my shot at winning a WS given a solid all around team. Hoping you all don't mind sharing.

Thanks,

Coaches only affect development/decline. If you have a team full of 26-30 y/o BL players, coaches do not matter in your quest to win a WS.

So then a follow up question would be why bother investing much in a ML coaching staff, wouldn't AAA and AA be the most important since your highest value prospects are doing the most developing there? And why then does a fielding coach matter so much assuming most players on the big league staff are for the most part done developing? (Okay that's two questions)...

Posted by Zattack on 8/18/2017 11:32:00 AM (view original):
So then a follow up question would be why bother investing much in a ML coaching staff, wouldn't AAA and AA be the most important since your highest value prospects are doing the most developing there? And why then does a fielding coach matter so much assuming most players on the big league staff are for the most part done developing? (Okay that's two questions)...

Fielding coaches affect all levels of your organization - not just the majors.

And if you have young (under 26-27) or aging (33+) stars on your team, coaches can help improve development/halt decline. But yes, good minor league coaches are helpful, if you can get them.

Posted by Zattack on 8/18/2017 11:32:00 AM (view original):
So then a follow up question would be why bother investing much in a ML coaching staff, wouldn't AAA and AA be the most important since your highest value prospects are doing the most developing there? And why then does a fielding coach matter so much assuming most players on the big league staff are for the most part done developing? (Okay that's two questions)...

That's a sound question and most don't think to ask it. There is no reason unless you have very young/old players.

FI affects entire organization. A poor FI will leave you with undeveloped/underdeveloped prospects.

Another reason to spend on FI is a bug that has them asking for $750K if they'll return to your team, while other coaches usually demand an increase over the previous season. If that works for a couple of seasons your $3-4M Season 1 investment becomes a $1-$1.3M annual average, and you can slash $2-3M from Coaching budget as long as he'll stay.

Posted by joshkvt on 8/18/2017 7:36:00 PM (view original):
Another reason to spend on FI is a bug that has them asking for $750K if they'll return to your team, while other coaches usually demand an increase over the previous season. If that works for a couple of seasons your $3-4M Season 1 investment becomes a $1-$1.3M annual average, and you can slash $2-3M from Coaching budget as long as he'll stay.

https://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/CoachProfile.aspx?cid=744460

for FI, the most important attribute is year-1-fielding-IQ (55+ in year 1 gets to 90 by full development), and imo loyalty is the 2nd-most important attribute because it maximizes your chances for long-term $750k renewal

I've taken to MikeT's approach. Spend whatever it takes on a fielding instructor. For all other ML coaches, 1.5 million + is too much.