The 'human' touch - making the players more human

[5cards]

Continuing on with some ideas for OOTP 13, I wanted to bring up some ideas regarding the 'humanity' of the game and some ways that I think would make the players and personnel in the game "feel" more human to us.

Currently there are a few factors that go into a player - leader ability, loyalty, desire for win, greed, intelligence, and work ethic. These are all found in the "personality ratings" that are only viewable through a player's HTML page. For managers/coaches/etc., the only factors that I can see are the ratings such as scouting or managing or doctor or coaching ratings. I also see their preference in terms of tools vs. abilities. Owners give you their financial charity and their demand level as well as setting their expectations each year.

All of these saliant points cover relevant aspects but there are bits and pieces missing here and I think that bringing some of these bits in could have a substantial impact on gameplay. Here are some of my suggestions with regards to the 'humanity' of the game:

1) I think that we need to add agents to the mix, first of all. Remember that the GMs deal with the agent in all major financial aspects UNLESS the player chooses to go to the GM directly. In matters of discipline and major decisions, the agent acts as the go-between for GM and player. This is all off of my limited read on thigs, so the relationship between player, manager, and agent may be more complex than I describe here. Regardless, I think that adding agents to the mix, showing who they represent, and creating a factor system for them would be great. Case in point - some agents (Scott Boras?) always want top dollar for their players. In the FA market, they'll take in the offers and spark bidding wars. Agents have GMs they work well with and GMs they don't work well with.

Imagine how interesting this would make free agency. Entering FA, you have Superstar X. The reputation you have with his agent is particularly good - enough so that you can probably cut a bit of a discount on a contract and still lock up X for some time to come. Or Superstar Y's agent prefers the bidding war method, so everyday he's replying to your contracts trying to up them incrementally so he can get top dollar.

Agents also add to the draft mix, as, nowadays, most of the top draft picks are represented by agents before the draft.

2) I read a very interesting biography of Kirk Gibson yesterday on Yahoo Sports. As a former resident of Michigan, I grew up listening to Gibson play - thanks to Ernie Harwell - and the article made me realize that there was far more depth to him than I had understood at the time. There is a lot more to a manager than just his ability to manage veterans or rookies. Some managers are great at generating confidence. Some focus very hard on the fundamentals. Some (Bobby Cox) go out and get themselves ejected a lot of times to prove points to their teams.

I'd like to see the information on personnel expanded and improved upon. It would be good to have a feel for what the coach or manager or scout or whatnot brings to the table. Also it would be great, in the case of managers, to see what kind of attitude and personality they have. Are they leaders? Followers? Take charge? Casual? Formal? Etc.

3) Along similar lines to point 2, and influenced by some of my contract idea writing, I want to have the manager personalities expanded for compatibility with the GM. Some GMs and managers work well together. Some are like oil and water. Some managers want to have full control of the team. Some don't care what happens so long as you put a product out there.

4) Relationships between coaches is very complex as well. The head coach must rely on his pitching coach to help the pitching staff. The batting coach is relied upon to keep the hitters going. The bench coach (in this game) handles all the other bits. If the coaches don't work well together this causes friction that can harm a team. Set up and show those relationships. Give the head coach the ability to suggest who his staff should be. Tony LaRussa works fabulously with Dave Duncan. They've been together nearly everywhere together and when the Cards signed TLR they knew they were getting Duncan too. Joe Torre took Don Mattingly with him to LA, and Mattingly became his successor. Kirk Gibson has Alan Trammel as his bench coach. Etc.

5) Coach input. I played a game called Eastside Hockey Manager. One of the things I loved about it was that you could ask the coaches for their input and feedback on players. If Player X was under-performing, the coach would tell you that he felt that Player X might need to go to the AHL. If Player Y was a solid contributor, the coach's feedback would tell you so. I'd love to see the game include the ability to poll the respective coaches at whatever level as to their opinions on transactions or players. Sometimes that input can override the Sabermetrics or the ratings.

Another bit of input would be for the coaches to suggest players who should be obtained. And, a nice thing to add to the owners would be the ability to demand the firing of an under-achieving head coach. Two more ideas there.