Leaving the game after 20 years, but first compiled a list of tips to share with everyone! Enjoy

https://clemenshbd.blogspot.com/2025/03/hardball-dynasy-pro-tips.html

Taking a break or retiring? Pretty successful owner. I hope you come back.

Posted by mmustain on 4/10/2025 3:15:00 PM (view original):
Leaving the game after 20 years, but first compiled a list of tips to share with everyone! Enjoy

https://clemenshbd.blogspot.com/2025/03/hardball-dynasy-pro-tips.html

Did't realize that about a Bench Coach. That will help. Though I've had good success with 80 splits and low power, even zero power. OPS won't be huge but high BA, and OBP especially one who can run and steal bases can be of great value.

Good luck.

Good solid tips that I'm sure other veteran owners have a slight spin on. I have read long ago in the forums that the bench coach impacts other coaches ratings so, for example, a highly rated bench coach might (invisibly) bump a hitting coach at 85 to 87 as an example. Whether this is true or not I really don't know but it's in my memory banks.

I will double down on the comment about defense. A new owner to a franchise should get top quality defense in place and then slowly replace them with good defense Plus hitting as it becomes available in future seasons. The defense will absolutely impact pitching and you will be able to get by with non-elite pitchers while building the optimum staff over time.

I personally waiver on the catcher and PC. I have gone both ways and what works for me is a catcher with approx. 60 PC and a good solid arm for base stealers. There enough of these that you can land a formidable hitter with those type ratings without breaking the bank or even in rule 5 draft

I agree with most of this... Like Shalacc, I've had success with below average but not awful defensive catchers that can really hit. Typically arms in the 65-75 range and PC in the 60s.

A couple of minor differences, nothing to write home about:
1) I play my very old major league players in spring training a little bit; somewhere some developer once said that might slow decline. Not sure I believe it, but it's what I do. ML players in their prime should not play in ST for sure.
2) I'm even more extreme on training than mmustain; I never play with training less than $20M. It reduces injury frequency, and it's the only rating that helps development of range, arm strength, power, durability, and stamina.

A lot of info that i thought to be true, that you basically verified. But this is GOLD for any newbie. Thanks for putting all the time and effort into this. my only complaint is, I dont think i ever played in a league with you!

Love this… The $0 in Advanced Scouting is something I’d like to know more about, though.

Posted by mrtheedge on 5/1/2025 5:15:00 PM (view original):
Love this… The $0 in Advanced Scouting is something I’d like to know more about, though.

This is just about you being comfortable projecting how players are going to progress. It takes time studying (formally or informally) how prospect ratings increase over time.

perhaps the single most important thing to advise new people is to pay absolutely no attention to projections. I remember being new and thinking those numbers meant something. I even remember putting money into advance scouting!

I believe that you need to pick either HS or COL and max out scouting in that area. After the draft copy that scouting report into player notes, like Mmustain said. If your budget is 20m, those numbers are pretty reliable.

regarding the importance of pitcher handling, I had a team that was so bad once I actually made a somewhat tedious study of this. Over the course of a season, my pitchers had an OPSA (OPS allowed) .017 lower when the 87 PC guy was in, instead of the 51 PC guy. A significant difference.

Great post! I will make sure to direct any new players I meet to it. It’s an excellent place to start. I’ve been playing since 2013 and I actually learned some things - like I had no idea about the player watch list, but it sounds pretty useful. Coincidentally, I use almost the same rating system as you with the dots: blue for superstar, green for solid ML starter, yellow for fringe player. (Only difference is I use orange for a future ML role player).

one small quibble: you mentioned that players over 80 never re-sign, but I have had (very few) players do this before. One example comes to mind is a pitcher who was 84 overall but 90 patience. He re-signed for me several times.

Also I didn’t realize other people knew the secrets about how worthless Bench coaches are. I thought it was a clever trick that only I knew! I always just promote my AAA bench coach every year and pay him $600,000. Truly a waste of money to pay more.

Disagree about the MLB closer (usually my best lower stamina bullpen arm prevents the SIM from using a leftover Setup B arm in closer situations), bench coaches (read the HBD FAQ), and spring training (I'll play MLB players who are <29 to get some development AB and omit top prospects with low health).

The only time I’ve ever used a closer is on the rare occasions when I have a pitcher with elite L/R and pitch ratings, but DUR/STA that are really low, say 35/20. I figure those guys can only handle like 50-60 innings over the course of a year, which is what closers tend to get in my experience. If I have an elite pitcher with good DUR/STA, I’ll put them in the setup A role to try to get as many innings as possible. Imo it’s psychologically damaging to lose a game in the 9th, but in reality, giving up the losing run in the 7th inning is no worse. And these players are electronic, so I don’t worry about them being emotionally damaged from a loss. So I just try to maximize the innings my good pitchers get, rather than save them for the end of the game.

That said, I know a lot of people like to use closers, probably in part because it’s fun. A lot of HBD players grew up watching great closers like Dennis Eckersley and Trevor Hoffman and Joe Nathan and that Rivera guy, so they want one themselves. And of course, many people have practical reasons (like the mad monk in the post above) and just don’t agree with me on the details of the strategy. And that’s totally cool.

Perfect. A reminder that Mariano Rivera was, at first, the eighth-inning guy in front of closer John Wetteland. The superior talent got the high leverage outs, the fastball guy was the closer. The job of a closer is: start with bases empty, get three outs. You don't have to waste your best guy on it / save your best guy for it. So yeah, I use either the guy who can't throw a lot of innings, or has only one good pitch - the guy with a weakness. I always think of Fernando Rodney.