[frangipard]

Originally Posted by injury log

You might care if your objective is to develop coaches in the minors, so they can eventually be coaches for your big league team. And you might also care if you want to use a coach's minor league track record to evaluate him. Some coaches in the game are good, but have unproven reputations, because reputation is based on results, not on ratings.

Wait ... so the reputation is only based on results? I thought it was a loose approximation (i.e. like a scouting report) of his ratings. If I put Joe Maddon in charge of a team of stiffs, that will destroy his reputation? Buck Showalter is legendary in the game ... how did that happen with his pedestrian career W-L?

In the same way, if I have a light-hitting AAA affiliate and want to get them to develop power by assigning a hitting instructor who emphasizes that, are they just going to drag his ratings down because of what I gave him to work with? That seems kind of counterproductive.

I agree with your second point here, but not your first. In general, in games, I think if a decision is obvious with complete information, the game is more interesting if it provides incomplete information. Poker wouldn't be a game at all if you could see your opponents' cards. When a decision is not obvious with complete information, then providing complete information can be interesting - that's the situation in chess. But when manager ratings were displayed to users, I think most of us agreed that we were rarely confronted with interesting choices.

Meaningful information =/= complete information.

You're absolutely right that the latter kills the game. But the former is what gives it life.

I agree completely that there needs to be "fuzz" between the ratings and the data we are given. But there shouldn't be such a mystery about what ratings exist. If I decide that I'm scheme-indifferent, and just want to get coaches that works well with young players, I should be able to look for those guys; but other than by clicking on dozens of profiles, there's no way to find those guys. And AFICT the text descriptions don't make a distinction between "he's crappy with young players, but at least okay with vets" and "he's okay with young players but awesome with vets" ... they seem to be purely a relative thing.

Or say I want to build a smallball team, and decide that defense and baserunning are part of that. For both, there are just occasional mentions that I have to click to see. Defense I know matters, because in the editor there's a "teach defense" rating ... but there is no "teach baserunning" rating ... is that just mythical?

Do the tendencies affect player's ratings? If I staff my whole system with smallballers, will bunt ratings improve, or do I need to draft guys with those skills to begin with?

Again, I'm NOT saying we need completely accurate information, where we know exactly how the engine is working ("A spreadsheet game"). But I do need to know what things at least matter.

To make a very concrete example: I am starting a fictional league, and I'm going to put the parent club of the org I will run in an extreme pitcher's park. So the approach I might take is to draft guys with tools -- great speed, good throwing arms -- and stock my system with the best hitting instructors money can buy, and smallball managers who teach good defense and baserunning.

That's a coherent organizational philosophy, right? The kind of thinking and strategy the game should (in time, with luck) reward. But here's the thing: I'll have to click on a hundred or more profiles just to find six coaches who are good at both "teach defense" and "teach baserunning," when I should just have sortable columns for that. Again -- maybe the descriptions are "fuzzy" just like scouting is for players; but I should still be able to quickly locate the kinds of guys I'm looking for. Moreover, I'm not even sure "teach baserunning" is a real thing. I don't know if those hitting instructors will suddenly start looking stupid because of the stiffs I gave them to work with. And finally, I don't know if having a series of smallball managers who call for a lot of bunts will ever help young players develop those skills, or if they'll just keep on popping up to the pitcher, and I should look for guys who can already bunt.

I don't want complete information. I do want meaningful information so I can make decisions.

There's also an 'unorthodox' category of manager. It's very possible the categorizations could be improved, and that's a worthwhile discussion to have.

I think the smart way to do it would be to have the tendencies be

1) Descriptive of the sliders, not coded-in. If I go into the editor and move Joe Maddon's sliders for bunting/stealing/etc all the way over, he should change to "smallball."

2) On 2-3 different axes: smallball vs sabermetrics, uses bench vs. uses starters, etc.