Coaching in Historical Leagues.

[GrimmyDee]

I am guessing that those who are running historical leagues are doing so with the Scouting and Coaching systems off.

However, I am considering a What-if type historical league (the 1977 one that will hopefully be coming to a dynasty thread near you) with the Scouting system off, but with the Coaching system on and putting all of the actual coaches into the game. GM's are another matter, hard to find a listing for them in 1977.

Would there be any benefits or downfalls to doing this? I am currently inputting the coaches and I am hoping to get this dynasty on the board later this month.

Any comments would be appreciated and as always many thank you's in advance.

Grimm

[TribeFanInNC]

I've never used coaching or scouting in a historical sim.

If I were going to do that, I would probably still leave coaching off, but change every team's strategy page manually to try to emulate that manager with those players.

I haven't really given a lot of thought as to how turning the coaches would affect it, but it seems like it would just be a pain in the rear. You'd have to look up everybody's hitting coach and try to rate them. Too much work for me.

EDIT: I didn't give this much thought, I guess this wouldn't work.

[Bluenoser]

Originally Posted by TribeFanInNC

I've never used coaching or scouting in a historical sim.

If I were going to do that, I would probably still leave coaching off, but change every team's strategy page manually to try to emulate that manager with those players.

If you were going to do that, you'd have to control every team. If they're AI controlled, the AI will change it to the way it prefers.

[TribeFanInNC]

Yeah, I guess you're right. Like I said, I didn't think about it very long.

[GrimmyDee]

I see what you mean.

But what if, you weren't going for historical accuracy but rather an alternate universe type of thing?

For example, I don't plan on Thurman Munson dying or players retiring when they did in real life. I just plan on taking baseball from one point in history and see where it could have gone.

Maybe Bobby Cox doesn't become a great manager or Joe Torre never becomes a coach - that type of thing.

I also was curious (this probably needs another thread) about keeping the league totals equal to or close to these seasons to basically take out the steroid era of baseball, so while the "power hitters" of McGwire and Bonds may be ranked high in power, they would only amass 35-40 HR a year. (In theory.)

I appreciate the responses so quickly - thanks guys!

[TribeFanInNC]

You should just need to tone down the modifiers during those seasons to produce less offense. Admittedly, I don't tweak modifiers much, so maybe somebody else could provide a more detailed answer if necessary.

Short answer: yes, you could undo the steroid era

[SteveP]

Originally Posted by GrimmyDee

I am guessing that those who are running historical leagues are doing so with the Scouting and Coaching systems off.

All the historical leagues I've done have been with both Scouting and Coaching turned on. But I've also been playing with recalc turned off. With recalc turned on, there is no point to anything having to do with player development, which includes coaching.

There is some confusion, I think, about the team strategy pages, and how they interact with managers, GMs, and the AI generally. So let me give you my take on it:

You can modify the team strategy pages as the commissioner at any time. I do that for two purposes: 1) to help get the AI to make more realistic decisions about things like pinch hitting; and 2) to get the AI to "manage" each team in a way that looks to me like how the team played in that year(s). Those changes continue in effect indefinitely, as long as the AI does not fire the manager for that team. When it fires a manager and replaces him, the team strategy page for that team will change to match the "strategy preferences" of the new manager. Of course, you can go right back in as the commissioner and change the team strategy page back to what you want.

What I've done -- and it involves more effort -- is give the manager for a team the correct name, etc., for whoever was manager in that year(s), and to modify his strategy preferences according to what I think his preferences seemed to be. Then I go to the team strategy page for that team, and use the action menu to set the team strategies to the new strategy preferences that I created for the manager. I may or may not do some additional tweaking to the team strategy page (since it has more detailed options than the manager strategy preferences).

Of course, some of those managers that I've modified will be fired and replaced. They will also end up managing other teams in the league. In doing that they will carry their strategy preferences to the new team, and those preferences will modify the team strategy pages accordingly. That's something I like to see happen. If the replacement managers are "new" I can go in and modify their strategy preferences as I wish, etc. You can have some fun creating different personalities for your teams with this approach, and have those personalties change in realistic ways as managers come and go.

My approach to this has one small drawback, which is that the GMs become completely irrelevant. The way the game is designed, when you first create a league, the GM's strategy preferences are the ones that affect the roster-related strategies on the team strategy page. The manager strategy preferences only affect the in-game strategies. However, if you use the action menu to set the team strategy page to match the manager's strategy preferences, those preferences dictate everything on the page. The GM's roster-related strategies no longer apply. It's a defect in the game design, but it would only be noticed by someone doing what I've been doing.

Another point about the manager strategy preferences and team strategy pages is this: there is some randomization to how the sliders are set. But they always end up within 1-2 notches of the middle. In some cases, moving a slider 1-2 notches can have a big impact. In other cases, the impact is hardly noticeable. It's worthwhile doing a little experimenting with these sliders, with one team, so you can better judge where you want to set them for any given team in your league.

If you play with recalc turned off, and coaches turned on, you can choose to modify the player development ratings for the various coaches, and perhaps do other things like new names, etc. I've messed with that in the past, and ultimately decided it was more work than I cared for.

Hope this is helpful.

[GrimmyDee]

Your insight is much appreciated Steve! I am playing with recalc off and it seems you have done something similar to what I am working on.

Thank you for taking the time and writing such informative and useful information for me - it will defintely go to good use. Top notch man.

Thanks again!