Developer Chat

Sorry for the very late start -- my Outlook reminder was setup incorrectly. I'll start firing away now...

Can you explain in detail the new ranking features for the Amateur Draft? An example of how it would work would be nice. (double-a - Hall of Famer - 12:37 PM)

We will be introducing an easy to use formula builder so that you can have even more control of you rankings. Each rating will have a weight, along with college/high school, age, etc.

So if a player is drafted in round say 20, theres a chance he could play in the bigs? (godsize - Hall of Famer - 12:37 PM)

That is the goal, yes. A 20th rounder making the bigs is pretty rare, of course.

In regaurds to "fuzzyness" on the draft candidates: Will we only see ratings be OVER-rated...or is it possible we will see some ratings be UNDER-rated? (wilhitec - Hall of Famer - 12:38 PM)

Over and under rated.

Why not extend the compensation picks for "A" and "B" Free agents to all signings prior to the Amateur draft as in MLB? (ttnorm - Hall of Famer - 12:38 PM)

We will be doing this, too. This will be part of the synching up to the recent CBA changes.

You said you'll be introducing fuzzy logic to the draft. Does this mean that spending $20 million will be less accurate? And will there be upside to the logic (can we expect some ratings to be actually higher than scouted)? (spit_ballerz - Hall of Famer - 12:41 PM)

In an nuthshell, the variance per individual rating will be expanded. So, yes, a $20M scouting budget will be less accurate but still way more accurate than a $5M budget, for example.

Since ratings and not scouts determine a player's recommended postion, why do even highly paid scouts still typecast a terrible fielder as a SS? It's likely that if we search for a LF that a 2b or RF could fit the bill just fine but might get passed by. Any thoughts about this? (Rails - Hall of Famer - 12:45 PM)

It has to do with the thresholds on positions. There's the recommended baseline for a position, but when evaluating whether a player can play it or not, there's some wiggle room. For instance, you may have a SS with 85 glove, 87 range, 88 arm accuracy and 77 arm strength. He can play SS, he would be below average. A player can fall a bit short in all 4 categories but still be considered a contender at that position. And, of course, everyone views how good a player has to be to play a position.

I'm very curious to hear more about "draft fuzziness." Will the fuzziness be specific to players or teams? More specifically, will certain players be 'hard to figure out' where we'll all have a hard time accurately projecting or will the fuzziness just be generalized to HS vs. college players? (jwendt - Hall of Famer - 12:47 PM)

The fuzziness has always been in place, we'll just be expanding it.

OK -- the rest of the questions are off topic, but I'll answer them now. ( Moderator - 12:48 PM)

In the coach hiring process. For example, if your AA hitting coach leaves and you have no other replacements, you should be able to offer your HI-A hitting coach or even your LO-A hitting coach the AA job. This would go for all coaching positions. (ACEROTHSTEIN - Hall of Famer - 12:49 PM)

This has been a common suggestion and one we'll consider.

Have you considered implementing a drag & drop UI? It would be great for draft rankings but also for things like setting lineups, pitching staffs, etc. (double-a - Hall of Famer - 12:51 PM)

We've considered it but in most instances, it just wouldn't be enough. For lineups, for example, you need a slot and a position. For pitchers, we'd have to blow the page out with role divisions which would make the page much longer. For the draft, the time consuming part is comparing players rather than moving them up or down (or dragging). We're not opposed to drag and drop, we just haven't found the right situation to use it where it'd be a better addition than other changes to the game.

How about making DL assignments retroactive? I know there might be a cycle or two I miss consecutively due to various reasons and someone gets hurt, seems like placing them on the DL a few days earlier would be logical, especially since MLB will do this very thing, albeit for different reasons (awaiting medical test results or seeing if it improves). (donaldkey - Hall of Famer - 12:53 PM)

DL moves are retroactive to the game in which they were injured. This has always been in place.

when using a mobile device it would be nice to have 1 page with a hierarchy of all the menus in link form instead of selecting from the dropdown menus. (12:54 PM)

This page exists: http://www.whatifsports.com/HBD/Pages/Main/SiteMap.aspx. You have to be in a world already for it to be fully functional, though.

Any plans to cap the amount of salary you can move to the prospect budget? I've seen several people get all the good intl prospects because they have 60+ million in salary to move over to prospects. How about capping the amount to the amount you actually spent on players? so if you spent 30 million on player salaries you could transfer 30 million. (12:55 PM)

Based on the penalty for transferring budget and the fact the user is paying for a season, we've been hesitant to do this. In real life, there's nothing to prevent the Marlins from going gangbusters on international prospects this year or from drafting some of the signability picks in the draft. Tough call, I think.

Would it be possible to get some budget restrictions lifted if you've been in a league for x amount of seasons? This way, the more committed owners could have more control over their teams and can go from rebuilding to competitor or vice versa in just 1 season instead of several. The $4 million restriction makes this very difficult but by having a minimum service time it should reduce the # of people who would end up screwing up teams and leaving. (sportsboy010 - Hall of Famer - 12:58 PM)

The $4M change is in place by design and it's to implement realism. You just don't see franchises going from buyer to spender over the course of one season. It takes a few years go go in either direction because you have to fire/hire scouts and doctors and trainers, close/build academies, etc. We want HBD to be about long-term strategy and this is a part of it.

How can a pitcher have a high pitch 1 rating, where that pitch is a 4-seam fastball, and have a low velocity rating? Does that mean he has trouble changing speeds with his breaking stuff or something? Or does he really have a slow 4-seam fastball that's difficult to hit? (rtconnelly - All-Star - 12:58 PM)

It's all about movement. Some pitchers have incredibly straight fastballs with high velocity, while others have slower fastballs with movement. That's the difference.

My question refers to the change made in the last update referring to the increased chances of a player opting for free agency if he has been repeatably taken to arbitration. If that player was traded to another team, will the receiving team "inherit" the players demand for free agency? If so, is there any way that a players arbitration history can be displayed so that trading partners can be aware of the risks involved in the trade? (12:59 PM)

Arb history is only tied to a player and franchise, so if he changes teams then he doesn't care about his arb history. And a player's decision to opt for free-agency or sign long-term can change when he changes franchises. The chance is small, but it can definitely happen.

The Player of the Week award leaves the award page once we move to the next season, can we keep it there (as well as on the player's personal award list)? (slurie2001 - Hall of Famer - 1:01 PM)

We decided not to maintain this because, in real life, nobody really cares about who the Player of the Week for April was the season before. If enough of you really, really want this, we can make the change but that's the reasoning.

is it at all possible that we could change it so that we are able to edit all the players at once under the "edit player settings" page? i limit all my pitchers pitch counts in ST, and it's a real pain to go through each pitcher before ST to change their counts and inning available, and then do the same thing again after ST. especially since i usually have about 30-35 pitchers in ST. i even just use the recommendations for the minors after ST, because it's far too much work to change them all. (god_mike - Hall of Famer - 1:01 PM)

The original reason this was done was browser memory on some of the older browsers. It's been a few years and hardly anyone uses those older browsers, so we can look into this change.

With the opportunity for more elite players to hit the FA market - What is the tiebreaker if two teams both offer an equal max contract? I assume a no-trade clause is a positive for a player so say a 5-year $110 million deal to the same player with a no-trade clause (best you can offer). Is it previous year's record, random, original team, who offered first, or something else? (broadwayevns - Hall of Famer - 1:08 PM)

Each contract has value outside of the salary figures and bonus. There's the no-trade clause (which has a positive value), an option on the 5th season (players like player options but don't like team options as much) and position depth if it's a minor league contract. If a player wants to play for a contender, then he'll give more value to the better team.

After a trade, is there a way that a player's stats from his new team could appear beneath the stats from his old team instead of above?? It would make more sense sequentially. (similar with player transactions) (bourbonmoon - Hall of Famer - 1:11 PM)

We'll look into it -- I'm not sure what the secondary order is.

I offered 10+ million for a IFA. He was considering my team for a week then within a span of 6 hours he declared someone else was number one then signed with them. Is this how you want IFAs to work? (nfet - Hall of Famer - 1:13 PM)

The negotiation process is like real life. The further into the negotiation process, the higher the chance that the player will accept. On the flip side of that, if the disparity between the top offer and the second offer is wide enough, the player will sign the contract earlier. In the case you described, I'm assuming the two offers were similar which is why he was holding out. The offer that eventually won could have been much higher or it could have been higher and the player had just reached the point where he wanted to sign.

What will happen if a free agent receives multiple max offers (i.e., $20M a year for five years, $10M bonus, no-trade clause) at the same time. Will he sign one right away since it's impossible for somebody to offer more? How will he decide which team to sign with? (benj13blue - Hall of Famer - 1:14 PM)

It's all about comparison. If he's got more than one offer, he'll hold out a bit (he really doesn't know it's the max).

Is there any possiblility that the combination of training + coaching can be used to influence the generation of DITR's, both in terms of number and quality? Maybe just a slight increase, but perceptible over time? (robocoach - Hall of Famer - 1:18 PM)

Right now, the decision of whether a player will see a jump is all about makeup rating. Coaching then plays a role in how much he'll improve. I'm not so sure training would play much of a role, as that's more about a player staying healthy than it is about a player learning to hit a curve ball, etc.

What is the state of selecting a R or L relief pitcher? I feel like, even though I have two Setup A RPs, the overall higher rated of the two is selected regardless of the upcoming match ups in the opponents lineup. I have one that has a high righty split and one that has a high lefty split, and my intention is to use the one that will match up best with the the opposing teams next three hitters. Thanks for the explanation. (1:21 PM)

We'll take a look here and see if there's any room for improvement.

Considering how IFAs sign independent of the bidding that takes place, is there any plan to change this process? Wouldn't it be better for HBD as a whole to have some strategy involved? (nfet - Hall of Famer - 1:22 PM)

I don't follow this question. Please send a support ticket and we'll answer.

Since the Adjustment of the logic for stolen base attempts. I have now notice player with 0 speed and under 25 Base running attempting to steal bases, when they never did attempt any SB before. Is this the attended result ? (oab2 - Hall of Famer - 1:23 PM)

The fact it could happen hasn't changed, but it's based on your team's basestealing setting. The more conservative you are, the less likely that situation we'll occur. Are you sure he wasn't picked off, which shows up as a CS?

We have heard in the past that all 100% for pitchers are treated the same as far as in game performance/stamina. We all know that if a pitcher throws the first game back to 100% his % will be lower after the game compared to if he sat at 100% for a few days (all other things being equal). The question is - If a pitcher starts the game at 100%, is the actual IN GAME PERFORMANCE affected in any way by how long the pitcher has been at 100%? Seems to be multiple interpretations out there. (broadwayevns - Hall of Famer - 1:24 PM)

There is definitely in-game fatigue. It's based on the pitcher's durability & stamina ratings. He may start at 100%, but he'll go down as the game wears on. That's why target and max pitch count are important.

Would it be possible to see "career stats" in the drop down menus in the Managers and/or GM's office? (bourbonmoon - Hall of Famer - 1:25 PM)

The issue here is real estate. Those pages are packed tightly and seeing the values grow 1 or 2 digits with a comma will really cause some issues.

There are obviously limits to how low position players DUR ratings can be, but there is no such limit to how low a Pitchers DUR can be. The 80 STA 0 DUR pitchers are unfathomable, I have no basis on how this is close to a real life player. 0 DUR should mean you are no longer alive, give them a 10 DUR floor. (TheJester74 - Hall of Famer - 1:29 PM)

It's all relative, but we get your point. 0 durability is pretty ridiculous.

Will you consider adding a "maximum" per position since the "ANY" option is virtually useless without maximums? (Rails - Hall of Famer - 1:29 PM)

I'm not sure I follow this -- could you follow up with a support ticket? Thanks

I have a two-part question about pitching fatigue: (1) is there such a thing in HBD as "in-game fatigue", in which a pitcher may start to tire and become less effective the deeper he pitches into the game; and (2) if there is, with all else being equal, would a pitcher who was "75 (100)" on the day before his start be more likely to experience in-game fatigue earlier in the game than would a similar pitcher who was "100 (100)" for one or more days before his start? (tecwrg - Hall of Famer - 1:30 PM)

Yes and no. It's all about the pitcher's fatigue at the start of the game, recent wear is not part of the in-game fatigue. It is for season fatigue, of course.

That's it guys. Thanks for the questions and sorry for the late start.