Developer Chat

Let's chat about HBD. The game saw a rather significant overhaul in late 2015,following a rather substantial change to the scouting logic for international prospects and the amateur draft. We've compiled the results from the recent survey,and want to open up a chat for more direct questions with you, our HBD owners.

For development of young players, is the playing time factor based on IP/AB, Games played, or a combination of the two? (joshkvt - Hall of Famer - 2:02 PM)

Games played.

The wait times between roll-overs is becoming unbearable. What is going to be done to fix this? (sylemark - Hall of Famer - 2:02 PM)

We are starting conversations with several targeted baseball sites and publications. We plan on reaching baseball fans such as yourselves on these sites. In addition, we will periodically run marketing campaigns on and with FOXSports.com. We are definitely aware of the up and down cycles of worlds filling quickly and worlds taking too long to fill.

How are DITR's determined, team need, random, league need? (joelshields - Hall of Famer - 2:10 PM)

Players that meet a certain criteria are eligible. We'd prefer not to share that criteria, although we can say the upper tier of players don't qualify.. The improvement rate is based on coaching staff, player age and a bit of randomness. Players may go through the process more than once.

Coaching: The help page says that "patience is important with younger players." Does that mean it is most important in rookie ball and less important at higher levels? (deroches - Hall of Famer - 2:11 PM)

It's important in all levels, but moreso with younger players.

I understand how a real life draft is a crap shoot, but these new results in early rounds seem strange. Please elaborate. (puddermouse - Hall of Famer - 2:13 PM)

We are evaluating the results of the mid 2015 "fuzzy" draft changes. Scouting budget for Int'l/High School/College dictate the fuzziness per player rating. the more you send, the more accurate the ratings. What we are contemplating changing is separating college from high school and international so that college scouting is more accurate. We are also looking at reducing the fuzziness factor for a few of the ratings. For example, stamina and durability may become more reliable.

would it be possible for you to make it mandatory for coaches to stay in same division for 5 years until they can move up to higher classification Example Rookie League to Low A League and so on (hrrng_dnn - All-Star - 2:15 PM)

Possible? Sure. 5 years seems a bit extreme, but this is an interesting idea that would make coach hiring (everyone 's favorite part of the game - NOT) a bit more tolerable.

Whats the purpose or value of having a pitcher have a Pitch 5 of >23.. Why not just drop the 5th pitch? (mikeschless - All-Star - 2:17 PM)

A pitcher's success is dictated, in part, by his pitch repertoire. Having an extra pitch is a good thing, unless it's terrible. In this case, a 23 is pretty awful. During a DITR process or the annual offseason ratings cycle a pitcher may drop a bad pitch. We may also be adding some logic for a pitcher to add or change an existing pitch to a stronger pitch during DITR process (such as an average pitcher learning a cutter and then becoming a much better pitcher).

How are projections so fuzzy with the new system? I have $15M in both adv and college scouting and the ratings maybe off 10 points after draft picks signs. If we're budgeting higher amounts, shouldn't they be closer to the same? (tk21775 - Hall of Famer - 2:18 PM)

Related to earlier question. On average, the more you spend on scouting the more accurate your ratings will be for a player. But that's not necessarily true for every player and definitely not consistent for each player you scout.

Regarding games played and young player's development, do the playoff games provided extra progression? If not, wouldn't it make sense to have this set-up to encourage competitive play in the minors? (nittany88 - Hall of Famer - 2:21 PM)

Yes - playoff game participation can positively impact development.

What are the components of the Franchise rating? Weightings of the components? How predictive of ML results? (playertdh100 - Pro - 2:22 PM)

The Franchise Ratings page aggregates the player ratings for each group - i.e. hitter & fielding ratings for position players, pitcher ratings for pitchers.

Will we be seeing any new cities or stadiums introduced into the game? For example, it would be great to see some vintage ballparks such as Brooklyn/Ebbets Field, Polo Grounds, Tiger Stadium, Crosley Field, etc. as options. (tecwrg - Hall of Famer - 2:22 PM)

Yes, we plan on introducing some new cities and stadiums to the game at some point in 2016.

Will there ever be an introduction of more advanced stats to go along with RC? Perhaps WAR, FIP or wRC+? (tjzuppe - Hall of Famer - 2:24 PM)

Yes - we plan on adding those that make the most sense to the game in 2016. We have not yet done a full evaluation on which ones we should include and that are efficient to calculate. Would love to see our users let us know which ones you'd like to see in a forum thread. Can you help with that?

When will you finally be updating HBD to the latest CBA? (kcatlantis - Hall of Famer - 2:26 PM)

As soon as one stabilizes without issues and is a clear cut improvement to HBD. Not sure when that will happen. Qualifying offers now part of current CBA.

Any thoughts of normalizing HBD statistics to a different era so we see something resembling eras of baseball besides the Roid Decade? Getting tired of so many homers; it would be cool if users could pick any era of baseball and have our teams play according to the norms of that era. (davis - Hall of Famer - 2:26 PM)

This has been considered. It's not a small effort, but it's a straightforward plan to achieve. I believe we'd need to dictate at a world level so all teams were on level terms in that regard. Theme worlds anyone?

Why can't strategy be implemented on an individual player basis? For instance, if I have one or two guys on the team who are good base stealers, why not be able to just set their steal frequency high while not adjusting the entire team? (MrCub - Hall of Famer - 2:29 PM)

The idea behind not having these individual settings is we want to avoid all managers cranking up SB setting to highest value for best basestealers and 0 to worst resulting in only the obvious outcomes. By maintaining at Managerial level, we can see outcomes more consistent with MLB. In current system, you should see best basestealers attempt the most steals, your average runners go 3 / 7 or something like that and your worst only attempt 3 all season.

When will you do away with budgets having to start at a default level. Why can they not be set to a users choice from day one? (brianp87 - Hall of Famer - 2:30 PM)

Idea is that a franchise cannot move that quickly from season to season in real life. Teams can't pivot entire scouting departments or medical departments from season to season each season. So, that rule is in place for realism purposes. It should take time to be able to mold your franchise to desired levels.

Are pitch names purely aesthetic or do they influence gameplay logic in any manner (ie do fastball-curveball pitchers have higher home run rates than sinker-split fb pitchers in a vacuum with all other ratings the same)? Also, are P1-P5 read "from left to right" or is pitch effectiveness based on average pitch value (ie is 80-70-60-50-40 the same as 80-60-40-70-50 or are they different and if so which is better)? (pjfoster13 - Hall of Famer - 2:31 PM)

When a player is generated the groundball/flyball rating is tied to their pitch offerings.

New cities will be an awesome addition. How about the ability to change logos or even add our own? (ghutton9 - Hall of Famer - 2:32 PM)

Custom logos/colors were not possible prior to the redesign. Now, additions / suggestions like these can be done at some point in the future.

How are the changes to amatuer draft fuzziness being received? I don't like it. Any chance it will be modified or changed back to the old way? (jimmystick - Hall of Famer - 2:34 PM)

Related to earlier question. Based on recent survey results, it is a pretty even split. But that's enough people to not like it for us to make adjustments.

To add another layer of decision making that also replicates MLB, could we get all players not on the ML roster and out of options automatically placed on waviers sometime between the end of Spring Training and Opening Day? Currently you can keep a player indefinitely on your 40 man in the minors - would be great to add this layer of decision making. (broadwayevns - Hall of Famer - 2:34 PM)

This is one of those rules we intentionally did not adhere to for game play reasons. If we ever introduced, we'd add it as a custom setting for a theme world. For those really, really into the game they could use it but, on average, we don't believe it'd be well received.

Not an HBD question, but has there been any thought of an NFL Dynasty game similar to HBD? That would be awesome. (tecwrg - Hall of Famer - 2:35 PM)

Yes and we agree

For incentive to keep minors stock, why not an award ($5 credit) for winning the WS at a minor league level? (jpplasco - Pro - 2:38 PM)

Not sure that would help. A penalty for those that don't would probably be more effective, but I don't think that would be well received. Private worlds with custom rules exist to help enforce. We are close to finishing a "Optimize" button on Edit Rosters page to optimize your entire minor league system (with settings, of course) with a click of a button. This should greatly assist owners in keeping their minors in a decent shape. It'll have option to auto-hire minor league free-agents and/or try out camp players, too.

What is the number #1 priority to be successful at this game? (jbeavon - Hall of Famer - 2:39 PM)

Blending strategy for both long-term and short-term success. Many strategies beyond that to win.

Are there any discussion of a mobile app/ mobile notifications for the future? (tjzuppe - Hall of Famer - 2:40 PM)

A mobile app for WIS game notifications is a shorter-term possibility.

Can you give us some general ideas of how you might organize the Arizona Fall league? I am guessing you might do 8 teams pulling from 4 franchises each. But I am hoping the AFL is developed eventually and just hungry for any details you might be able to provide. (deandg - Hall of Famer - 2:43 PM)

Early ideas would be to have a fixed number of teams (8 is a good number). Each owner would submit a short list of players to send with each position represented. AI would distribute teams. Players would receive additional development. Results would be available to all. Managerial control to users in the world is still up-in-the-air. Would need to limit potential settings so an owner couldn't try to destroy a pitcher by having him throw 255 pitches each game, for example.

Why is the headline data on the main page still inaccurate to the actual world data? (In it does not list all possible data and often skips complete franchises and hundreds of players that are better when showing data it does.) Is it possible to finally fix this part of the game to show accurate data for the whole world? Thanks (oab2 - Hall of Famer - 2:44 PM)

Not sure about this one. When you see what you believe are inaccuracies, can you take a screenshot and then follow up with a CS ticket? These should always be accurate at the time they are generated.

It seems that the listing of Projected ratings that are unattainable (like 15 OVR ratings increase potential on a 26 year old) lends itself to trade abuse of new coaches by experienced coaches. Have you thought of addressing that issue or scaling remaining potential displayed by relative age, rather than just having a straight line cutoff at age 27? (q_tip00 - Veteran - 2:47 PM)

Because every player is unique and plateaus at a different age, it'd be difficult to do without giving things away. Some pitchers can continue to improve until age 32, for example. Another pitcher may peak at 28. That's why we stuck with a pure age 27 cut off. I think the older a player is and the further away he is from listed projected ratings should be used as a tell-tale sign, though. Not a guarantee, but a decent indicator he may not reach his potential he could have reached.

What are the real factors to long term/career killer injuries, does Medical (or lack there of) matter in preventing injuries? (dillontt - Hall of Famer - 2:49 PM)

The training rating allows a player to maintain a higher health rating for longer. From there, the health rating is the biggest factor for injuries to occur. Multiple injuries to same part of body plays a factor and will lead to more significant injury. Aside from that, a freak injury is just that. Very small chance of happening (dictated by health rating), but it can happen.

Is off-season development distinct from in-season development? That is, if a player is promoted late season and gets a promotion bump, would that bump have been received during the off-season anyway? (pajammies - Hall of Famer - 2:50 PM)

Distinct but related. If he has a very late season bump, it most likely means his offseason bump will not be as great.

Does the game algorithm include hot streaks, based upon recent performance? Or, is everything randomly generated from player rating, ballparks, etc (timb116 - Hall of Famer - 2:52 PM)

no built-in hot streak logic

Historical statistics are a large part of long standing leagues. Milestones are currently limited to top 5s. Historical player awards such as POW the week and all nominations disappear when the season rolls. Are there any plans to improve this functionally and to store more of this historical information? (anthonybenet - Veteran - 2:53 PM)

No plans. Have always considered player of the week as more of a transient award. If this is a big demand from owners, we could. Perhaps you can start a forum poll to determine interest?

Will there ever be a top 100 prospect list for HBD leagues? (Ccoon440 - Pro - 2:55 PM)

That would be pretty cool, something we considered awhile ago. Similar to Baseball America or MLBPipeline. We'll consider this one since it's a pretty straightforward addition.

Is there a hidden matrix for "par value" pitching ratings like how there is a published matrix for defensive ratings? (pjfoster13 - Hall of Famer - 2:56 PM)

Yes

Shouldn't trade vetoes be done my the majority not the minority? It only takes 10 to veto but that is no were near the majority? Majority vote is what it takes in almost everything else in life why not with this also. (brianp87 - Hall of Famer - 2:58 PM)

Vetoes should, in theory, only be used when the trade is lopsided. Getting majority to vote on anything within a short timeframe is problematic. 10 is a relatively high number all things considered. That's 1/3 of the league that thinks a trade is lopsided or unfair.

Leftover coach budget, why not allow that to be moved to another area after coach hiring is done? (69cubs - Hall of Famer - 2:59 PM)

It can be, via Budget Transfer page. But with a penalty.

Why are lefty specialists in the bullpen never used correctly? (majnun - Hall of Famer - 2:59 PM)

They should be used correctly if a full bullpen is available and the situation presents itself. If you see games where you feel a specialist is not used properly, can you submit the box score for review and detail why you think it was not? we can evaluate then.

Has there ever been consideration, or could there possibly even be a scenario where HBD could implement live play similar to that in simleague? (mohawkman - Hall of Famer - 3:00 PM)

Yes. But it'd always be limited to next game on the schedule for the very next/current date. And exhibition play that would not impact results.

Why are there are so many injuries and it does not seem to matter about health ratings or durability. If they do not matter why have them (bald - Rookie - 3:01 PM)

Health ratings definitely matter, as do the training and medical budgets. But keep the long-term in mind, and not the small sample size. The more you play a player while fatigued, the greater chance of injury as well.

All - the hour is up but there are still many questions in the queue. I will do my best to answer this weekend. ( Moderator - 3:04 PM)