Rookie Handbook - A Beginner's Guide to BTH

Rookie Handbook - A Beginner's Guide to the BTH

Let me start off by introducing myself. I'm Astro Annie and I helped get the league set up. My goal here is to answer any questions you may have about how to play BTH. If you have a question that you can't find the answer to, post it, PM it or IM me at AstroJMag

Creating a Player

You are allowed to create up to four players. If you create two, you must have one pitcher and one hitter. A third player could be either, but if you choose to have four players, you must have two pitchers and two non-pitchers. To create your players, go to Create Your Player(s) Here. There's a post there from Martin entitled Player Creation Template. Go into that post and copy the blank player information form. Create a new post with your player's name and paste the form into your post. The form looks like this:

AIM Screenname: (So you can be invited to online sims)
First Name:
Last Name:
Nickname (optional):
Jersey Number:
Birth Place:
Birthday (month and day):
Height:
Weight:
Throws/Bats:
Position:
Pitches (maximum five for pitchers only):

You only get to choose pitches if your player is a pitcher. The choices for pitches are: fastball, change-up, curve ball, slider, screwball, sinker, split-finger and knuckleball.

Soon after you post the form, your players will be created and will be moved to the Created Players area. There will be a link to your players' pages. Don't fret if the link doesn't work right away--that means your players haven't made it to the server yet.

If you look on your player page, you'll see a bunch of different ratings. These will mostly be numbers on a scale of 1-10, where bigger is better. If you look at fielding percentage you'll see that it's in the traditional format. If you have a pitcher, his velocity will be a range of mph and his ground ball percentage will be a two-digit number between 1 and 100.

The ratings that you get and your age will be random. Some players will be better than others. You're not stuck with these numbers—later on I'll tell you how to raise them.

Contracts

When your player is created, s/he is a free agent and can sign with any team. However, you must wait a minimum of 24 hours before signing a contract. This is to allow as many GMs as possible to contact you about your player. Rookie salaries are capped. Also the length of rookie contracts. You may sign for no more than 3 years and for no more than a total of $9M.

When under contract, you are not allowed to contact any other team's GM or owner to assess that team's interest in your player or to negotiate terms for a future contract unless you have express written consent of your current team's GM.

Playing

Sims are run three times a week. What this is, is a chat room where league members gather. Major league scores and standings are posted along with Player of the Week/Month awards and injuries.

After the sim is run, the updated files, including your players' pages, will be uploaded to the server. This normally takes 20-30 minutes, but as each page goes up individually, some will be done before others.

If you are in the majors, there will be box scores of the games you're in that you can look at. There will be links to these on your player page.

If you are in the minors, you'll see your stats updated based on your minor league performance.

Money

When you play, you may be paid money. A minor league contract (MLC) has no monetary value. If you earn a salary, your money becomes available to you immediately upon signing a contract. You can use this money to buy upgrades (see below).

Improving your player

If you want to improve your player (and who wouldn't), you can do so in a number of ways. It all comes down to “upgrade points” that you can buy or earn.

Upgrade points are 1-100 points, or 1/10th of a rating point. So you may purchase an upgrade and not see a difference in your player's rating on the player page.

Buying Upgrade Points

There are three main ways to buy upgrade points. You can purchase equipment. You can buy academy training. Or you can contract for private lessons. Each of these will allow you to upgrade certain specific attributes.

Buying equipment:

There are five pieces of equipment available. You are only allowed to purchase one of any given type of equipment per season per player. Each one costs $500k and gives you upgrade points in a specific area.

Bat (for hitters only): A bat gives you +3 points to any LHP/RHP category. That is, you can improve contact, gap or power hitting or discipline/eye or avoid Ks against either RHP or LHP.

Ball (for pitchers only): A ball gives you +3 points to any LHB/RHB category. Which is to say you can improve your stuff, control or power against either RHB or LHB.

Glove (both hitters and pitchers): A glove will let you improve your fielding. You can add +1 to range or +1 to arm at any one position.

Shoes (both pitchers and hitters): With shoes you get +1 to either running speed or stealing ability.

Shades (both pitchers and hitters): With shades you can increase your fielding percentagle by .025 to any one position.

Attending an Academy

You can purchase upgrades in other areas at the appropriate academy. Pitchers may upgrade velocity, groundball percentage and so on; hitters can improve bunting and change their stroke. Through academy training you can also raise your native talent level.

Private Lessons

Private lessons will help you with the intangibles and with your overall ratings. You can also learn a new position.

Earning Upgrade Points

There are ways to earn upgrade points. The easiest for most people is attending live sims. You do this by being on AIM at sim time and joining the group chat at bthsim. If you need an invite, you can ask AstroJMag or DejaMort36 to invite you.

You can also earn points by referring someone. They need to identify that you referred them.

Another way to earn points is by writing articles about your players. These are posted in the League Articles forum.

You can also create a player website for your player.

In all of these cases, you get your upgrade points at the end of the season.

Forum activity is also rewarded with upgrade points. For every 25 forum posts you have, you earn one upgrade point for each of your players. These points are available immediately.

Conclusion

BTH can be a lot of fun. You get out of it what you put into it and the more active you are, the more your players will develop. If you have any questions, just ask someone. We're a friendly bunch here.