Coaches Question

[OldFatGuy]

Still basically a newbie, and I've got a couple of specific questions that maybe veterans could easily answer. If so thank you very much.

1) I've been operating under an assumption governing coaches that I realize may be/probably is flawed. I assumed that the "teach" ratings were important for coaches and the "handle" ratings were important for managers. I.E., coaches "teach" ratings helped players reach their potential ratings while managers "handle" ratings helped get the most out of those players ratings. Put another way, I figured a hitting coach with a 20 teach hitting and 5 handle vets, rookies and players would be a more effective hitting coach (he's strictly teaching) than one with a 10 teach hitting and a 20 handle vets, rookies, and players. Anyone know if that's correct? In other words, do hitting/pitching coaches "handle" rating affect how well they teach rookies, vets, and players or are the "handle" ratings simply important for managers???

2) I've struggled with figuring out the correct number of rounds of amatuer drafts to have. I suppose a league with no minors (reserve roster) would require fewer rounds than a league with a full minor system, and was wondering if there are any guidelines you vets out there use for determining the number of rounds in the amatuer draft.

Thanks for any input.

[1998 Yankees]

Welcome back to the boards, OFG. I take notes from threads on topics that I need to clarify my own thinking about, so with apologies for the length, see if the answer to your second question is in these notes:

Draft Rounds and Feeder System Size

There are a number of threads in the OOTP forums complaining about the ability of the game to manage the talent coming into leagues through feeder leagues. In a nutshell, the game seems to generate highly talented players as a more-or-less fixed percentage of all players generated. The more draft rounds and feeder teams that you have, the more players will be generated, and eventually the league will go through 'talent inflation'. That is, if you have a lot of draft rounds and a lot of feeder teams, you will sooner or later have a highly-talented league with a lot of free agents.

The accepted formula for draft rounds is (5 x number of minor-league affiliates), with a minimum of 5 rounds for a league with no minors because if you aren't using minors you still need to fill up your reserve roster. That ratio appears to keep talent in the league fairly consistent. Now that you can use ghost players, too many draft rounds is worse than having too few because with too many you end up throwing out too many 2nd and 3rd year players. That is, if you have a large draft and try to put new players on a team that is already full, that's where the draft and release "bug" comes in. Teams are already full and may have more than the 25 men on the lowest minor league team already. You then try to add a whole new set of players and the AI doesn't handle it right. It starts cutting players, sometimes the player who was just drafted. A smaller draft helps prevent this.

When the feeder system is used, the game generates players for the draft pool rather than the game merely creating a complete draft pool whose size you can fix before the draft. You can create a smaller feeder system and go with the Feeder + Additional Players strategy; any players needed to fill your draft above what the feeders provide will be created the "old fashioned" way -- that is, out of thin air just before the draft.

If you want your parent league’s first-year player draft to be fed completely by feeder leagues, you will need to do some math to determine how many feeder league teams you will need to fill out your draft class completely. So, using the default of a 5-year age range, we calculate as follows:

Feeder leagues with 5-year age ranges (18-22, for example) typically feed 6-9 players per team to the parent league each year. Smaller age-ranges result in more players entering the draft each year.

[Number of teams in your parent league] x [Number of rounds in your first-year player draft] = total # of players needed in first-year player draft

[total # of players needed for draft] / 6 (rounded up) = minimum # of feeder league teams required

For example, let’s say you have a 30-team major league, and a 20-round first-year player draft (AAA, AA, A, and Rookie = 4 minor league levels x 5 = 20 rounds). You need 30 x 20, or 600 players in your first-year player draft each year. We divide 600 by 6 and round up if necessary, getting 100. If you have 100 feeder league teams, you should get enough players from your feeder leagues to populate your first-year player draft entirely with feeder league players.

Also remember - after your league starts to set the player creation age for your league back to 18 for both max and min age (or whatever your freshman age is) - this way you only be creating incoming freshmen into you college feeder. This will help stabilize - in a year or two- the size of your draft class. It also seems to be the case that feeder leagues take a few seasons to get up to "full production."

IMPORTANT: A feeder league cannot be constructed separately and added later to a template or started game; the affiliation to the major league does not work as intended and it functions as a minor league instead of a feeder league. Instead, a feeder league has to be added to the major league using the Add League button, and saved with the major league as part of the template or game. The ways to check whether this has been done properly are: 1. There will be an option in the major league game setup under Amateur Draft rules called Draft Feeding Mode for how the draft pool should be populated, feeder system only or feeder system + additional players, and 2. The feeder league will show the important age minimums and maximums under its roster rules, while an affiliated minor league does not show these settings.

This is not authoritative, of course, just an edited compilation of opinions posted here previously.

Regarding your first question, I think below will be helpful. I think there is a hint in the order in which it's "Managing/Coaching" for Handle ratings and "Coaching/Managing" for Teach ratings. In other words, I see it (and I suspect the author of the manual did as well) as a blend in which handling is more important for managers and teaching is more important for coaches, but the other attribute is still significant to both. The way that you describe your approach to staffing seems correct, but I would keep this in mind. For example, I would go with an 18/10 (T/H) hitting coach over a 20/5 coach. The 10/20 coach instead of either one of these? No.

Further comments from other member are welcome, of course.

[OldFatGuy]

Thanks 1998 Yankees, that stuff on drafts helps immensely. As for the coaches, I've read the entire manual, and yeah, I read that too, but I'm still unclear about which ratings are more important for which positions. Logic tells me that the teach ratings should be more important for the coaches and the handle ratings more important for the managers, but the manual reads like all the ratings are basically of the same importance for all of the jobs. Again, logically makes no sense. IRL, the manager doesn't spend much time teaching, he spends his efforts making lineup decisions, dealing with 25 different personalites over a long season, and making in game strategy decisions. His job is to get the most out of the talent available to him. (Thus HANDLE ratings). Its the job of the hitting and pitching coaches to improve that talent and have them reach their potential (thus the TEACH ratings). But, again, this is logical as compared to real life but may/probably has NOTHING to do with the way OOTP treats these ratings. Again, thanks for your response.

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by OldFatGuy

Thanks 1998 Yankees, that stuff on drafts helps immensely. As for the coaches, I've read the entire manual, and yeah, I read that too, but I'm still unclear about which ratings are more important for which positions. Logic tells me that the teach ratings should be more important for the coaches and the handle ratings more important for the managers, but the manual reads like all the ratings are basically of the same importance for all of the jobs. Again, logically makes no sense. IRL, the manager doesn't spend much time teaching, he spends his efforts making lineup decisions, dealing with 25 different personalites over a long season, and making in game strategy decisions. His job is to get the most out of the talent available to him. (Thus HANDLE ratings). Its the job of the hitting and pitching coaches to improve that talent and have them reach their potential (thus the TEACH ratings). But, again, this is logical as compared to real life but may/probably has NOTHING to do with the way OOTP treats these ratings. Again, thanks for your response.

No problem, my pleasure. Reread what I said, though, particularly "there is a hint in the order in which it's 'Managing/Coaching' for Handle ratings and 'Coaching/Managing' for Teach ratings." It's a blend, but you have the right idea about what is most important for whom, in my opinion.