Saturday, May 10, 2008

Coach Hiring and Rehiring

Hiring and Rehiring coaches is probably the easiest step in building your team for the season (ok, so the Hiring process is probably the toughest thing you will encounter), or so it seems. I am sometimes miffed because some coaches want to leave that I thought would stay, some coaches want new positions they are not qualified for and some want to advance into positions that you do not want because another returning coach is better. I wish you could take the coaches that want to return and you desire to keep and offer them the same position or a better position and let them decide whether to take it or not. And of course have the ability to hire and fire coaches during the season. There I go dreaming again. But anyway, back to the hiring process. More or less, the object to coaching is to have a graduated effect from the RL team to the ML so that if you advance a player he can get better. Some GMs do it a little differently, they pidgeon-hole players at a certain level, most generally AAA and AA. That allows them to only go after good coaches for that level and not worry too much about the other levels. One very very very important thing to remember, if you advance a player, do not demote him unless it is absolutely necessary! Now for the coaches themselves. Pretty straight forward really, they have stats in each category just like the players. However some are actually better than others even with basically the same stats. Pitching coaches should have high Pitching, the higher the better teacher for example. But what else to look for, high Loyalty gives you a chance that coach will return for following seasons and want advancement also. I tend to lean more toward Discipline than Loyalty, and of coarse the higher the other stats the better. Some of the other stats help better teach in certain situations. The Bench coach is probably the most vicarious position, he is suppose to be the one that carries out your intentions. For example, if you put together a running team, you might want his Base running IQ to be higher. One thing I have noticed is the other coaches tend to learn from the Bench coach also. One last thing, if you are rebuilding, you may not want to spend a fortune for ML coaches but if you have a lot of young players, don't get the worst of the lot either. You can find good minor league coaches that will jump at the chance to coach at the ML level also.

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