Pitching
Pitcher Ratings
R/L Splits are the most important ratings for a pitcher, with vRH being the most valuable. At the ML level it’s very difficult for a pitcher to be successful with Splits below 65. Control and individual Pitch ratings are important as well but the threshold can be lowered the higher the R/L Splits. Personally, I do not pay much attention to Velocity or Ground / Fly Ball ratings.
Here’s an example of a star pitcher with a low control rating.
Pitching Staff
No matter how you build and manage your staff, your goal should be to maximize innings from your best pitchers.
I have found building off a strong 4 man rotation is a great strategy as good starters are harder to come by and more expensive than relievers. A staff with a couple plus starters backed by two solid/good arms will get you through the regular season.
When setting up your bullpen my first rule is to never use a closer. The closer position will only guarantee you limit the number of innings your best reliever will throw. Put your best relievers in your Long A and Setup A slots and the rest of your bullpen in the B and Mop Up slots.
The four man rotation makes for some interesting outcomes. Often my Long A Reliever win 20-30 games a year as my Starters usually only pitch 4-5 innings.
Come playoff time, the same rule applies, throw your best guys as much as possible. In a 7 game series you should be able to throw your top 2 starters in 6 of the possible 7 games. The playoffs are also a great time to leverage tandem starters. This ensures your pitchers of choice will throw in a given game and gives you the ability to swap a righty starter for a left reliever and possibly gain a big advantage.
Defense
A good defense is key to success in HBD. Take a look at any World and the worst teams will very likely have the worst defenses. Pitching is expensive and hard to come by, but a great defense can make an average pitching staff great.
Catchers
A good defensive Catcher is the most valuable position player in the game. Specifically a Catcher with a 80+ Pitch Calling rating. This rating impacts which pitch the active Pitcher will throw to the batter. The higher the rating the more likely the pitcher is to throw one of their higher rated pitches. This provides a huge boost to your pitching staff. I know it's tempting to put that 80+ Power Catcher behind the plate, but stick that guy at 1B or RF and make room for a good pitch caller.
Fielders
A player's assigned position is meaningless and is initially set by simmy's projected ratings when the player is generated. Head over to the GM > Edit Rosters page and click on a player's position. This will open the Position Assignment popup. This page allows you to set a player's primary and secondary position, but the real value is in the "Big League Averages" table.
Review this table and ensure your fielders meet the Big League Average for all 5 defensive ratings for a given position. A good defense will result not only in fewer errors but "+" plays that take away an otherwise hit or limit extra bases. Again, it's all about helping your pitchers.
Hitting
Hitter Ratings
Power is everything in HBD and every World seems to have a ton of it. A player with 80+ Power can make up for a lack of Splits, Batting Eye, and Contact. You can find plenty of good hitters with lower Power ratings but even players with 80+ Splits will struggle to be effective with a Power rating below ~45.
I've also won championships with teams that stole 300+ bases in a season and hit for little power. It's not easy but it can be done.
Lineup
Years ago I read
The Book: Playing The Percentages in Baseball and decided to apply the suggested lineup order to my HBD teams. In short your two best hitters should bat 1-2 with the batter with the higher OBP hitting 1. Your 3rd best hitter should bat 4th and your 4th best hitter should bat 3rd (yes you read that correctly). 5-9 should be ordered accordingly.
I don't recall exactly how "best hitter" is determined in the book, but it's easier with HBD having player ratings.
Player Contracts
- Call prospects up after the 20th cycle in the ML Season to get an extra Season of the player at the league minimum
- Take good players to Arbitration the first two seasons and then extend heading into the 3rd Arb season. Players who are arbitration eligible are alway willing to sign a long term contract.
- Players will always sign for additional seasons so long as the average yearly salary meets their demands.
- Players with an 80+ overall ratings will always elect to head to FA when their contract is up.
- Sign players who are plus defenders and hitters at C, SS, CF, 2B. These are the hardest to come by and the most valuable.
Prospects
Amateur Draft
Play around with the sliders all you want but if you really want to draft prospects that fit your mold you will want to manually rank players. Yes this is incredibly tedious, but so is everything with this game! Generally speaking I rank the top 30-40 players on my board.
Development
A couple things here; first make sure you minor league coaches have a high Patience rating. This rating helps with prospect development more than anything else. Next, make sure you promote players at the right time. Generally I promote all my top prospects sometime after the All-Start break. Oh and make sure your prospects get lots of playing time in Spring Training!
Lastly ensure you have depth in your minors. Playing your top prospects too much can lead to injuries and negatively impact a prospect's development.
Tracking
If I think a prospect has any chance of becoming an ML player I first add them to my Watching List. Next I assign a color classification. Use whatever system you like, but I use a 4 color system to mark potential super stars (BLUE), starters (GREEN), backups (YELLOW), and fringe (RED) prospects. This really helps make managing my minors much easier when promoting players and setting Spring Training rosters.
Last, when signing a player write down the player's projected ratings in the Player Profile Notes section. Example: If I sign an international prospect, I open the player's prospect player profile and copy the projected ratings into the notes section of the player's player profile. This all but negates the need to spend money on Advanced Scouting.
Budgeting
Their is no right way to set your budget, I've won WS with a $130 Million Player Payroll and a $45 Million Player Payroll, but to compete season after season you need set your budget and stick to it! A common strategy for Owners is to go all in on prospects while rebuilding then slowly shifting money from prospects to player payroll to pay for contract extensions and big FA splashes. This strategy works in the short term and I've seen this strategy win the WS, however the fall is hard and Owners often leave the franchise full of aging vets on bloated contracts.
A small caveat to my "set it and stick to it" advice above, sometimes you need to zag when the world zigs. For a number of seasons I built my teams entirely through International Signings. My Amateur and College Scouting budgets were both 0 as I would move excess cash from my Player Payroll into my Prospect budget to sign more International prospects. This strategy worked great UNTIL several other teams took a similar approach and I was no longer the big fish in the sea. It took me a few years to realize this and I had some down seasons before I began to focus more on the Amateur Draft.
Bench Coaches
Do NOT spend money on Bench Coaches! Bench Coaches have ZERO impact on your ML team. You are the Manager of your ML team. You set the lineups, rotation, defensive replacements, and everything else. Bench Coaches can impact the game ONLY when you, the Manager, are ejected from the game. To avoid being ejected, navigate to MANAGER > EDIT MANAGER SETTINGS and set the "Argumentative" setting to "Never".
Advance Scouting
You may notice that I spend $0.00 on Advanced Scouting. Budgeting here can be helpful if you are new to the game and are planning on trading for low level prospects, otherwise I really do not see the benefit. Veteran owners should be able to identify good prospects by Draft Stock and current Ratings. For my own prospects, I simply write down the Prospect Scouting Ratings at the time of signing in the Player Profile Notes tab.
Medical
Injuries in HBD can be brutal and many players never fully recover from long term injuries. No matter how you build your Franchise you shouldn't dip lower than a $14 Million Medical budget. This budget does NOT prevent injuries but it does drastically reduce the impact of injuries on a player's ratings and helps with recovery.
Training
Training not only prevents injuries but also helps prospects reach their full potential. If you are a Franchise focused on signing and developing prospects, this is an area you should have no less than $16 budgeted for.
Other
Spring Training
Stop playing your ML players in spring training! At best you are draining energy from your ML players in meaningless games and, at worst, risking injury.
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Make sure you keep your players as close to 100% throughout the season. This will keep them playing at their max potential and increases the their trade value (I've turned down so many mid season trades after noticing a player is at < 80%).
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