What do I do now? (Opening Day/last day of ST)

[battists]

I mentioned in this thread that I'm toying around with the idea of some sort of newbie tutorial thing divided by different times of the season. So, to that end, I'm creating several threads to get feedback on specific times of the OOTP year.

So, with no further ado:

What should new GMs do on the last day of ST/Opening Day?

[Left-handed Badger]

This might be a bit of a "duh" moment but......


Go through your organization and make sure you got everyone in the proper level (Majors on down) that you want them. Make sure your lineups rotations/bullpens, etc are set up the way you want them. It seems minor but sometimes you can overlook such things.

Is this the sort of thing you're looking for?

[TigerGDK]

This is a good time for me to look at my team/individual strategies -- particularly the individual strategies for my new promotees and FA acquisitions...generally, I do not make a lot of team strategy changes----(assuming that I haven't recently been fired and am not managing a new team )

Individual strategies may change from season to season based on their projected position in the batting order, how they've improved/regressed from previous season, etc....

[jmknpk2]

Check the front office. Am I within budget. Do I have the ticket price set how I want? Do I have the right amount of money in scouting?...

[Pdubya64]

In my short time dinking around with OOTP9, I have come up with the following Opening Day tidbits I discovered that may be of some help:

1. Scouting Budget. If you want to change the Head Scout's budget, make sure you adjust it on day one- you can't do it after you advance the day. Simple, yes; but I have forgotten it.
2. Replacement of the Head Scout (HS), if needed. This is arguably THE most important decision you can make as GM. The way I think about it is- everything seen by the GM (you) player-wise is through the HS's "glasses"... whether they be clear (he's good) or "rose-colored" (not so good). That information is vital to whether or not you make the great majority of roster moves and modifications. In other words, GIGO (garbage IN, garbage OUT). The better your HS, the better the info you have to work with from then on. Beware though... the game has a small error that after you replace your existing HS, it sticks the new HS's name on the old HS's reports. Don't believe them! You will not get a actual scouting report from your new HS until April 1st. Hence, if you are running a team where you really need to upgrade the HS position, it would be wise to wait until April 1st to start making serious evaluations and roster moves. Otherwise, you are probably working with lousy info and run the risk of trading away the very players you should keep and spending $ you can't afford on worthless players your former HS thought would have great potential. (This is an issue I hope Markus plans to address at some point.) I suppose you could call it realistic, though.
3. Replacement of bad coaches at all levels. You have to be careful here, because the game forces you to fire a coach before you can hire his replacement. Not normally a problem until you find out that the guy you really want at AA refuses to coach at that level... and then you can't find a replacement better that the guy you just fired! Doooh! Game Over! Don't just drop the hammer willy-nilly and fire six or seven guys Day One without doing your homework first. Don't assume that just because a coach has little to no experience means he will play anywhere for a song- some have very distinct ideas about what they want and will repeatedly reject what would normally be reasonable offers. I have had zero experience coaches who I hired for $45K for 5 years, and others that held out for close to $200K.
4. Are your players setup to succeed or fail? By this I mean are they at the proper farm system team to maximize their potential? Rookie and Short Season A ball leagues don't start until after the All-Star break in July, but the rest of the minors need looking after. I usually start after my new coaches are in place by going through and having them organize the minor league rosters as they see fit and then going back through and tweaking them after April 1st rolls around and I have better information from the HS to make decisions with regarding my farm system. Note that you will invariably risk pissing off a number of your players by all this jockeying around within the farm system, but it can't be helped unless you intend to be really anal about studying each and every move and it's consequences before executing it. As the old saying goes, you can't please everybody. Besides, it is important to provide as balanced a roster at every level as much as you can as GM. If you don't have enough pitchers or position players, the team will not play well against competition and their morale will suffer. (Also, if their team is winning it will tend to nullify any morale problems due to roster moves in my experience). If they have no backups, your injuries will increase due to them rarely if ever getting a rest day. None of this is good and starts snowballing the longer you ignore it. Granted, it's tedious and time-consuming to adjust and re-adjust the minor league roster rotations and lineups everytime you make a move like advancements/demotions and adding or trading away a player, but it could prove to be the difference between a player succeeding or not.
5. Experimenting with player positions. Once your HS and Coaches are in place and you have the best info on your players (April 1st, or earlier if you didn't replace the HS), I have found that it behooves you as GM to take some time with moving multi-position players between these possible positions to see the effect on their potential. This is one tidbit I discovered completely by accident. Playing as the Nationals GM, I had a Single A player who starts as a 1B with a position rating of 54, but also can play LF with a position rating of 74. I noticed his 1B fielding ratings were average or below. His Current/Potential rating at 1B was .5 star/3 stars. So, on a whim, I decided to change his "default" starting position to LF and lo and behold his potential shot up to a 4 star rating and since then (in July) has gone to 5 stars. Same thing can be said for your ML players. Some Pitchers are better off potential-wise at one starting position versus others, same for veteran players. My veteran Catcher Paul LoDuca started getting upset that he was riding the bench except against LH pitchers, and wrote me a e-mail asking for a chance to prove himself. I gave him the chance and he responded with some great play and improvement not only on the field, but both his Current and Potential ratings increased.

Well, that's my for the moment. If I think of any others I will edit them in here. Hope it helps someone out there.
pw