Off Topic
The Hidden Factor?
OOTP gives us GMs a lot of things to focus on, and one of those things is coaching and staff. If I can be so bold as to characterize the average OOTP GM, I’d say we all assume these things have some value someplace, but that (1) we can’t really see it, (2) it’s probably not too big, so (3) we just kind of look for guys who seem okay, then hire them to move onto other places.
This is how I did it for some time.
It’s not what I’m doing today. Today I’m spending a lot of time looking at coaches in some detail and trying to put guys into good places. Is that helping? Who knows. But it feels right, and once I get into a certain mindset, it’s kind of fun. So, whatever. Last year I pretty much revamped my coaching system. This season has seen us recruit over seven more guys, meaning Bikini paid a little over $1M to release seven coaches. Overall, my goal is to get coaches at every level who are very good at their specialties, who can teach other things as well as possible, and who can handle development and mechanics. I like to look at relationships, too, both within the staff and with individual players. I would like coaches to handle “aging” too, but (right or wrong) I figure that probably doesn’t matter much in the minors.
Regardless, that’s a lot to think about.
Let’s look at a few things that happened this season, starting with one that was pure “luck:”
Trainer: Izz Al din Rafi
I tend to hire a trainer at a moderately young age, then PPT them as high as I can. Al din Rafi is a pretty solid guy, so I’m not needing mega PPT expenditures going forward. Imaging my joy when he “bumped” his “prevent leg injuries” from Good to Excellent! Yay!
Rookie Ball
We had upgraded Rookie ball coaching last season, but the pickings were slim and we ended up with a “decent” pitching coach and a “good” hitting coach, both were not exciting when it came to development. So in the off-season, I recruited over both by adding Ernesto Ramos and Jim Hickman to the staff, and creating a TN storyline around. I also used a tiny dose of PPT to boost Ramos’s teach pitching up to “good.” Both are stronger with both development and mechanics. Hickman turned out to be LEGENDARY in teaching OF, assuming that helps anything in the depths of the organization.
The process cost Bikini $85K in buy outs (and me an hour or three of work).
As I’ll note in a second, I pruned a managerial role at SA in the off season, and promoted our R-ball manager to cover it. So I also had to hire a new guy. I found Jack Verhouk a willing taker. I liked that he could teach a few things pretty well, and was at least “good” at development and mechanics. Sold.
So, we had three new guys in Rookie Ball.
Was it worth it? Not a clue, but it was kind of fun, anyway. For what its worth here are the Ogden R-Ball coaches as the stand today:
Short A
We had a similar situation in Port au Prince as we did in Rookie ball. I’d kicked out truly horrible coaches last year and replaced them with guys who could mostly breathe and talk baseball at the same time. This year I kept Ray Cooper, the hitting coach because he’s listed as Excellent (and likewise good with development and mechanics and a couple other things), but paid $130K in buy-outs to replace the two others, promoting Duncan Gardner from R-ball to replace the manager, and hiring Palmer Perry to focus on pitchers.
With this group, we’ve got everything but “Teach Running” covered with someone Good of better. For whatever it’s worth, I wanted Cooper at SA specifically because he focuses on Power, and I had Stephen Schmidt at his level.
For completeness, here’s our current SA staff:
Short A
Murray Gillich was a pretty fair coach, but he didn’t handle development as well as another candidate. So I spent the $90K to by his contract out, and went with Gary Peters instead. Peters is an “Excellent” teach pitching guy (Gillich was “Good”). He can teach Catchers, Infield, and Outfield pretty well, and his Development/Mechanics is “Excellent/Outstanding” whereas Gillich’s was “Decent/Excellent.”
So this was a definite upgrade.
Again, does it matter? Not a clue. But it made me feel better, and that’s a value in itself, right?
BBA
Last season saw us upgrade the pitching coach role and the bench coach. This year we found a stronger hitting coach and 3rd base coach in Frank Thomas III and Alberto Lara. Lara upgraded both running categories, and also now serves to officially “teach outfield” at which he’s “Outstanding.” Thomas was attractive because his “Outstanding” teach hitting was a boost over Chris Workman’s “Excellent,” and because his focus in on Power rather than patience, and our guys tend to be Power hitters. Both Lara and Thomas were total improvements in the Development and Mechanics categories, too.
Overall, replacing those guys cost $790K this year.
Summary
Overall, 2058 saw another step function of improvement in the coaching staff. That said, we still have a lot of improvement that could be seen, and to be honest, getting this far has been a not inconsiderable amount of work. I admit it became more fun as I progressed, but that required me to do a bit of a mindset shift—OOTP does not make it easy to recruit over coaches, and I find myself complaining about the game’s mechanics as I go…and that makes Ron a very unhappy boy. But I digress.
Bikini still has holes in places where I’d rather not have holes. So I’m still looking at coaching staff changes pretty much every sim.
We’ll see what 2059 brings.
OOTP gives us GMs a lot of things to focus on, and one of those things is coaching and staff. If I can be so bold as to characterize the average OOTP GM, I’d say we all assume these things have some value someplace, but that (1) we can’t really see it, (2) it’s probably not too big, so (3) we just kind of look for guys who seem okay, then hire them to move onto other places.
This is how I did it for some time.
It’s not what I’m doing today. Today I’m spending a lot of time looking at coaches in some detail and trying to put guys into good places. Is that helping? Who knows. But it feels right, and once I get into a certain mindset, it’s kind of fun. So, whatever. Last year I pretty much revamped my coaching system. This season has seen us recruit over seven more guys, meaning Bikini paid a little over $1M to release seven coaches. Overall, my goal is to get coaches at every level who are very good at their specialties, who can teach other things as well as possible, and who can handle development and mechanics. I like to look at relationships, too, both within the staff and with individual players. I would like coaches to handle “aging” too, but (right or wrong) I figure that probably doesn’t matter much in the minors.
Regardless, that’s a lot to think about.
Let’s look at a few things that happened this season, starting with one that was pure “luck:”
Trainer: Izz Al din Rafi
I tend to hire a trainer at a moderately young age, then PPT them as high as I can. Al din Rafi is a pretty solid guy, so I’m not needing mega PPT expenditures going forward. Imaging my joy when he “bumped” his “prevent leg injuries” from Good to Excellent! Yay!
Rookie Ball
We had upgraded Rookie ball coaching last season, but the pickings were slim and we ended up with a “decent” pitching coach and a “good” hitting coach, both were not exciting when it came to development. So in the off-season, I recruited over both by adding Ernesto Ramos and Jim Hickman to the staff, and creating a TN storyline around. I also used a tiny dose of PPT to boost Ramos’s teach pitching up to “good.” Both are stronger with both development and mechanics. Hickman turned out to be LEGENDARY in teaching OF, assuming that helps anything in the depths of the organization.
The process cost Bikini $85K in buy outs (and me an hour or three of work).
As I’ll note in a second, I pruned a managerial role at SA in the off season, and promoted our R-ball manager to cover it. So I also had to hire a new guy. I found Jack Verhouk a willing taker. I liked that he could teach a few things pretty well, and was at least “good” at development and mechanics. Sold.
So, we had three new guys in Rookie Ball.
Was it worth it? Not a clue, but it was kind of fun, anyway. For what its worth here are the Ogden R-Ball coaches as the stand today:
| R - Ogden | Age | Rep | H Focus | P Focus | Hit | Pitch | Run | G-Run | C | IF | OF | Dev | Mech | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manager | Jack Verhouk | 46 | Inexp | PAT | Neu | Avg | Avg | Dec | Gd | Gd | Gd | Exc | Good | Good |
| Pitching Coach | Ernesto Ramos | 43 | Inexp | Neu | F | Gd | P | Exc | Dec | P | P | Good | Exc | |
| Hitting Coach | John Hickman | 47 | Inexp | Cont | Gd | Avg | Exc | Exc | P | F | LEG | Good | Exc |
Short A
We had a similar situation in Port au Prince as we did in Rookie ball. I’d kicked out truly horrible coaches last year and replaced them with guys who could mostly breathe and talk baseball at the same time. This year I kept Ray Cooper, the hitting coach because he’s listed as Excellent (and likewise good with development and mechanics and a couple other things), but paid $130K in buy-outs to replace the two others, promoting Duncan Gardner from R-ball to replace the manager, and hiring Palmer Perry to focus on pitchers.
With this group, we’ve got everything but “Teach Running” covered with someone Good of better. For whatever it’s worth, I wanted Cooper at SA specifically because he focuses on Power, and I had Stephen Schmidt at his level.
For completeness, here’s our current SA staff:
| SA - Port au Prince | Age | Rep | H Focus | P Focus | Hit | Pitch | Run | G-Run | C | IF | OF | Dev | Mech | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manager | Duncan Gardner | 56 | Avg | Neu | GB | Dec | Dec | Dec | Exc | Gd | Out | Exc | Good | Exc |
| Pitching Coach | Palmer Perry | 47 | Inexp | Fin | Gd | Gd | Dec | Dec | Out | Exc | Dec | Exc | Exc | |
| Hitting Coach | Ray Cooper | 48 | Fair | Pow | Exc | P | Avg | Avg | Dec | Gd | Gd | Good | Exc |
Short A
Murray Gillich was a pretty fair coach, but he didn’t handle development as well as another candidate. So I spent the $90K to by his contract out, and went with Gary Peters instead. Peters is an “Excellent” teach pitching guy (Gillich was “Good”). He can teach Catchers, Infield, and Outfield pretty well, and his Development/Mechanics is “Excellent/Outstanding” whereas Gillich’s was “Decent/Excellent.”
So this was a definite upgrade.
Again, does it matter? Not a clue. But it made me feel better, and that’s a value in itself, right?
BBA
Last season saw us upgrade the pitching coach role and the bench coach. This year we found a stronger hitting coach and 3rd base coach in Frank Thomas III and Alberto Lara. Lara upgraded both running categories, and also now serves to officially “teach outfield” at which he’s “Outstanding.” Thomas was attractive because his “Outstanding” teach hitting was a boost over Chris Workman’s “Excellent,” and because his focus in on Power rather than patience, and our guys tend to be Power hitters. Both Lara and Thomas were total improvements in the Development and Mechanics categories, too.
Overall, replacing those guys cost $790K this year.
Summary
Overall, 2058 saw another step function of improvement in the coaching staff. That said, we still have a lot of improvement that could be seen, and to be honest, getting this far has been a not inconsiderable amount of work. I admit it became more fun as I progressed, but that required me to do a bit of a mindset shift—OOTP does not make it easy to recruit over coaches, and I find myself complaining about the game’s mechanics as I go…and that makes Ron a very unhappy boy. But I digress.
Bikini still has holes in places where I’d rather not have holes. So I’m still looking at coaching staff changes pretty much every sim.
We’ll see what 2059 brings.
