Finding minor league coaches sucks!

[Déjà Bru]

Originally Posted by desertnomad

Is there anything more time consuming and frustrating to find inexperienced managers to fill your lower minors? The menus give no insight if they'll be any good. You can't scroll from one coach to another. Back to main menu. Click on next guy.

I would love it if the next patch could make this system more efficient.

Yes. At least the ability to scroll through multiple coaches with the same window (e.g, relationships) open.

Originally Posted by Hammercraft

Gonna be honest, I just plain cheat when it comes to coaches. I wait until the Hall of Fame voting is done and anyone who won't be on the ballot the following year is turned into a coach with my commissioner powers. I inspect them to see what they'd be good at, change their preference to match, and give them jobs in my system.

That's what I have decided to do now. I search through my former players, find those with high or very high leadership, loyalty, work ethic, and intelligence ratings, turn them into coaches, and hire them. Sure, I know that these personality traits probably have no bearing at all on their coaching prowess, but it makes me feel good. It's better than the system that coaching has devolved to in this game, in my opinion. Too nebulous and too tedious.

[ttaka808]

I always just sign the recognizable former player in the coaching pool and hope they're actually a good coach.

[Déjà Bru]

Originally Posted by ttaka808

I always just sign the recognizable former player in the coaching pool and hope they're actually a good coach.

Yes, something to "narrow down the search," you know?

By using an artificial segregation system like yours (famous former player) or mine (former teammate with good personality), and the player and staff shortlist features, I can "narrow down the search" and "interview" effectively by going to the player editor and taking snapshots.

For example, here are three former players of mine. When the game converted them into coaches, it seems to have awarded points based on their playing careers. You can tell which of these guys was a former star pitcher by his ability to teach pitching. This guy, I want for my pitching coach.

But he's also got a high mark in handling players? Maybe my future big-league manager instead.

The second new coach can teach hitting, for sure. So can the third fellow but he is also good with rookies. Well, perhaps he's the guy I want as my single-A hitting coach (if he will take the job).

By Jove, I think I have hit upon something here!

[BBGiovanni]

I turn it off, and I did so before the Venezuelan and Dominican summer leagues were added to the majors. I don't miss it at all, and as some have noted I appreciate not getting bombarded with departing coach messages at the end of the season.

I haven't seen versions with no ratings at all; that seems impossible to me. I hope those of you that enjoy the feature get some changes made.

[Déjà Bru]

Originally Posted by Déjà Bru

By using an artificial segregation system like yours (famous former player) or mine (former teammate with good personality), and the player and staff shortlist features, I can "narrow down the search" and "interview" effectively by going to the player editor and taking snapshots.

In only 17 years of history, I managed to compile a dozen ex-players who meet the following criteria (I pay close attention to personality ratings when I recruit):

• Must have significant playing experience with my franchise.
• Must have VERY HIGH or HIGH Leader Ability.
• Must have at least NORMAL in each of Loyalty, Work Ethic, and Intelligence.
• Must NOT have HIGH or VERY HIGH Greed.

Shortlist candidates as players. When they retire, convert them to coaches and place them on the staff shortlist. Edit them for apparent preference for manager, bench coach, hitting coach, or pitching coach.

My pool of "candidates" is as follows. Oh, I will end up hiring all of them but the "interviews" will determine what positions and at what levels.

My concerns: 1) Somebody else tries to hire these guys (does the AI look at personality when hiring staff?) and 2) They don't accept the jobs that I want them to take.

Well, that's why it's good to be commissioner, sometimes.

[Déjà Bru]

Here's that same view, reworked a bit to show more and better information.

I tell you, this is the first time that I have ever been excited over coach recruitment in this game. Sure, much of it may be based on conjecture or downright wishful thinking, but at least it gives some structure to the process.

Gotta go to bed now, so "interviews" will have to wait until morning. Can't wait!

[Déjà Bru]

This method is working. I like it a lot. Again, all I did was seek ex-players who had high marks in leadership and who had some success in their careers. Maybe it's a spoiler, but when I converted them to coaches, they had higher coach ratings to start with than most of the game-generated coaches "in the market" (i.e., still available). When I looked at coaches that I had previously hired, they did not measure up to these guys even though they had more experience.

Is this cheating? Perhaps. Let me tell you something, though. I have been finishing in the second division too long to worry about getting an edge which I think the AI knows and takes advantage of. I think the game is looking carefully at coach ratings and hiring accordingly, while human players are looking at dumb stuff like personality tags and whether a bunch of players will get along with a particular coach.

Case in point? The AI hired two of these fellows out from under me. It knows their true ratings, while I watch "GOOD" reputation go to "POOR" on the coaches that I hire because the team does not do well, primarily because they are lousy coaches to begin with.

I've had enough of that. Also, as I said before, this method gives me a reason to actually care about what coaches I employ now. It gives structure to the recruitment process. For me, it's a keeper.

I am tracking my guys with a spreadsheet, in case you wish to look at it. IIRC, coach ratings improve with experience. If so, I will be able to tell by having these baseline numbers:

[MrBojangles]

Originally Posted by desertnomad

Can coaches quit at the end of the MLB playoffs? It's so annoying to be in the playoffs and you get a message! Coaches leave. The awful thing is that it changes screens, kills game momentum, and kills a lot of fun for me in the playoffs.

What'd you do to piss him off?

[Déjà Bru]

Just one more update about my new method and then I will drop it. I just went from last place to first (I just clinched) with this new roster of hand-picked former players converted into coaches.

Of course, the minor league coaches have not had much effect on player development yet, but I bet my new manager, bench coach, hitting and pitching coach on the ML level had a beneficial impact on results. As I said earlier, I found that these guys, who came from high-leadership and good-performance backgrounds as players, came in with coach ratings higher than the experienced guys that I had on the staff who were recruited on the basis of reputation and personality.

My guys are all "inexperienced" and while they do generally have good personalities, it's the underlying coach ratings that are the most important, I believe.

[Anyone]

I "cheat" and look at coach ratings also. That isn't realistic-- I know too much-- but the default of basically knowing nothing isn't realistic either.

As I remember it, it used to provide almost as much info as one would get by looking at ratings-- which was unrealistically easy. Now, you have no idea how good someone is without looking at ratings, which is unrealistically hard.

They need to have a middle ground, maybe an "interview coach" function that provides a (definitely imperfect) estimate of the coach's abilities.

And if the AI knows exactly how good the coaches are, that should be changed so that AI teams are dealing with the same level of haze as human teams.

[Bub13]

Originally Posted by Déjà Bru

Here's that same view, reworked a bit to show more and better information.

I tell you, this is the first time that I have ever been excited over coach recruitment in this game. Sure, much of it may be based on conjecture or downright wishful thinking, but at least it gives some structure to the process.

Gotta go to bed now, so "interviews" will have to wait until morning. Can't wait!

I must be missing something obvious, but how do I generate a shortlist that shows personality ratings?

[Bub13]

Never mind. Found it a minute after I posted the question.

[Déjà Bru]

Originally Posted by Bub13

I must be missing something obvious, but how do I generate a shortlist that shows personality ratings?

I would LOVE to be able to FILTER for personality ratings, but no can do. However, you can display them on most if not all player lists by customizing your VIEW. Click View, then Customize. You can save a customized view as well, such as this one, which I labeled "Personality Eval." Basically, I started with the Default view and customized it to show personality ratings. I do the same with amateur drafts; very helpful in sorting out the trash beforehand. No low work ethics, whatsoever. Low marks in intelligence and leadership better come with lots of potential.

Originally Posted by Bub13

Never mind. Found it a minute after I posted the question.

Too late! But somebody may find this useful.

[Bub13]

Agreed, thanks for posting anyway.

(I do hate it when someone asks a question I too want answers to, and then follows up with "Never mind I found it." Like I just did.)