Help me understand player development

[Xogo]

Im not talking about the three options that are there when you create a season.

I mean about how the Front Office/Coaching Staff impact player development.

First, which roles have the strongest impact? It seems that the Bench Coach does as he has the relationship tab. I would think the specific coaches (Hitting, Pitching, Fielding, etc) would have the biggest impact. So can someone help me understand these coaching roles and positions and how they can increase or decrease a players ratings.

This second question is probably more complicated. What attributes/ratings do I look for so that the coaches I pick will get the most out of my players. For example, I know not every player will be a great fit with every coach. But if I want to pick the best coaches for my "star" players so their ratings increase the most, how do I do that?

[zonk84]

Far and away the best tactic is to match the coaching "type" with your best players.

I.e., your hitting coach selection should depend on what types of hitters your best players are -- are your three best hitters power hitters? You absolutely, positively want a hitting coach that specializes in power hitters. Are they young? Lean towards a power hitting specialist who prefers prospects. Have a pitching staff of hard-throwing power pitchers? Don't bother with a "finesse" specialist.

I'm not sure there's a good answer on bench coach vs pitching/hitting coach - for bench coaches, before signing one - I just view the development impact and sign accordingly (you can preview this prior to signing).

Above all, though - it pays to remember this is all aggregate... i.e., the impacts don't (seem to) spread evenly - so sometimes the luck of the draw is just luck of the drawn. Even a 23 yo power hitter will sometimes stagnate matched up against with a prospect-preferring power hitter specialist coach... while your backup catcher who you couldn't care less about thrives.

[NoOne]

First, know coaching is probably a very small poriton of the total pie.. since they basically made us blind to their ratings... development is mostly about your dev budget, probably. then a small portion by coach and their focus. so, don't fret too much over it.. when in doubt stick to neutral.

my guess on coaching:

head coach / bench influence all, but to a lesser degree than the hitting/pitching coaches to their respective targets. relationships could affect contract negotiations, but if you have a winnign team, probably not much.. not in my experience anway.. i love "controlling" coaches.

i mostly have power pitchers, so i like power pitching focus on head/bench coach as well as pitchign coaches.. i rarely have a pitcher that throws <95-97mph. if oyu aren't religious about this, you probably want neutral. (religious relative to any focus)

it's a bit tougher to be one-sided with batters. i don't want anything having a greater chance of dropping in MLB and i want them all to develop in MiL. if they are better at one focus, it is liekly a reduced effect in the other two relative to neutral focus.

i prefer neutral for batting coaches. i compromise at AAA and go for head coach that focuses on power, but still a neutral hitting coach.

sometimes i'll do contact focus hitting coach / patience focus head coach in all but AAA levels of MiL too.

power doesn't develop until much later in the process... so it's probably wasted as a focus from R-AA at least. a few less ticks when it barely moves probably doesn't hurt much. a contact focus at R-A is probably best if you want a specific focus. then maybe netural or power after that?

if you have multple A's or Rookie leagues, etc... diversify the focus of the hitting/pitching/head coahc's and send prospects you care about where they need the most help relative to current vs potential ability.. (ie a 20current / 30potential doesn't matter.. they aren't going anywhere above potential no matter what. but if they are lagging in a rating that has room for improvement, then send them where that particular coach works)

in the mlb they aren't developing a whole lot. i don't want anything to drift downward so i still stick to neutral on hitting coach or possibly power, because that can often develop first few years in MLB, but i almost always use a power focus head coach for lineup choices.. i typially stick to neutral or power pitchers for th epitchign coach.

in the MLB i am also worried about the head coach's strategies not being too odd or detrimental. i ignore that for the minor leagues, because i don't care about the record... just how they influence development. however, in the MLB if i don't like their lineup choices or their startegy, i won't hire them.

you can't se their ratings, so it's 100% a crap shoot.. i recently checkd all the top winPCT coaches from my league with more than 1000wins... most of them were junky coaches, lol.. sub 100/200 for handling players and this or that... just terrible. so reputation and success doesn't tell you anything about how good they are, unfortunately.

if it says "prefer this" over that... it jsut means it's slightly higher ratings, and does NOT mean it's a higher ratings... could be 30/200 handle rookies vs 50/200 handle vets for all you know and it will say "prefers to work with Vets." but still a crappy rating, nonetheless.

budget!!

after you are done spending on FA, make sure to maximize scouting and development as much as you can with available budget space... this includes budgeting for IAFA spending july 2nd... or any potential trade deadline deals...

spend as much as you can on development and scouting. you can easily dump unspent money into it..

anything over 10M of profit won't carry over... (and you don't want to change that setting or you have repercussions like extremely high extension demands that always exceed FA contracts 99% of the time.) So, spend it or you lose it... (not all on payroll! that needs to be smart spending with an eye to the future of course)