Monday, May 4, 2015

Coach Ratings

There are seven different coaches in HBD.  Three are common to all major and minor league levels (bench coach, hitting coach, and pitching coach), three are specific ONLY to the major league level (bullpen coach, first base coach, and third base coach), and one is shared across all levels (the fielding instructor).

The consensus among most veteran HBD players is that the fielding instructor is the most important coach because he helps with the development of the fielding skills (glove and arm accuracy) of all players in your organization.  Fielding is sometimes an undervalued asset in HBD, so those owners who "get it" in terms of valuing fielding skills appropriately in conjunction with hitting skills for position players will have a step up over their opponents who pay little to no attention to defense.

From the "help" page for coach ratings, here is a description of the ratings for coaches.

- This is the coach's hitting IQ rating. The higher the rating, the more he'll help your players develop their batting skills.

- This is the coach's pitching IQ rating. The higher the rating, the more he'll help your players develop their pitching skills.

- This is the coach's fielding IQ rating. The higher the rating, the more he'll help your players develop their fielding skills.

- This is the coach's baserunning IQ rating. The higher the rating, the more he'll help your players develop their baserunning skills.

- This is the coach's patience rating. The higher the rating, the easier it will be for him to tolerate and coach younger players. Of course, if he's really good in the other areas, his lack of patience may be acceptable.

- This is the coach's strategy rating. The higher the rating, the more likely he'll succeed as a bench coach. Bench coaches are important, because they can improve/hurt the day-to-day management operations of a minor league franchise as well as affect in-game decision making (even at the big league level if the manager gets ejected). They generally have different managerial settings than the ones you've set, for instance.

- This is the coach's discipline rating. The higher the rating, the more focused he'll be on the fundamentals such as bunting, throwing strikes and hitting the cutoff man. Of course, this means he'll spend less time on some of the other important aspects of his role.

- This is the coach's loyalty rating. The higher the rating, the more likely the coach is to re-sign with your club.

Another way to look at coach ratings would be to break down which ratings are most important to each of the seven coaching roles in an organization.

Fielding Instructor - fielding IQ is primary, and the patience and discipline ratings would be secondary.  Since the FI works with all levels, you would want the secondary ratings to be adequate (ideally 50+).

Hitting Coach - hitting IQ is primary, and the patience and discipline ratings would be secondary.  I like to have (patience + discipline) > 100.  The lower in the organization you go, the higher you want the patience rating to be since the youngest players are typically in the lowest levels of the organization.

Pitching Coach  - pitching IQ is primary, and the patience and discipline ratings would be secondary.  I like to have (patience + discipline) > 100.  The lower in the organization you go, the higher you want the patience rating to be since the youngest players are typically in the lowest levels of the organization.

Bench Coach - the strategy rating is primary, and all the other IQ ratings are secondary, as the bench coach in the minor leagues will "help" the hitting, pitching, and fielding coaches at each level.  The same guidelines apply for the patience and discipline ratings are noted for the hotting and pitching coaches.

Bullpen Coach - basically, he's an assistant pitching coach at the major league level, with pitching IQ as the primary rating.

First and Third Base Coaches - like the bullpen coach, these two only apply at the major league level.  Baserunning IQ is their primary ratings, but hitting IQ is a secondary rating as the 1B and 3B coaches also act as assistant hitting coaches.

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