I created this page a little while ago and decided to finally update it.  If you want to look at my old page you can go here to find it.

This is a guide to answer the most confusing parts of SmallBall and the most frequently asked questions on the SmallBall forum.  If you have a question that isn't answered here - you should post on the SmallBall forum or visit the SmallBall Central Chatroom.  If you see something that you think is wrong or have a question you think needs to be added to the FAQ you can send me an e-mail at [email protected].  

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FAQ Summary

Good SmallBall Links
What do the skills mean?
How do I train to gain in a specific skill?
How do I train strategically to make my team better?
How long is the season?
What does the Star Rating mean?
How is the Honor Rating figured?
How do I get the Deluxe Trainer?
How is Training Potential (TP) generated?
Does continuing to train after a player uses all their TP make their skill better/worse?
What do the messages (i.e. - "Player x is not confident ...") on the scoreboard mean?
What does the +++ numbers on the scoreboard mean?
I tried to train after waiting 24 hours but my TP was gone.  Where did it go?
Why did my TP disappear all at once while I was training?
How do I get into the ProLeague?
I can't understand the ProLeague standings page.  How does it work?
How are unplayed pending games figured into the final ProLeague standings?
How do you get promoted to the next league in the ProLeague?
How are dead teams handled in ProLeague?
Closing Thoughts

Good SmallBall Links

SmallBall Home - Name says it all.
SmallBall Forum - Have a question or looking for a challenge - the forum is the place to go.
Forum Search - Look here before you post a question.  There's a good possibility your question has already been answered.
Top 100 Teams - This is a good place to find teams to challenge.
ProLeague Standings - 1st League through the Juniors.
Team Search - Look up a team's home page
Official SmallBall FAQ - A little dated but it gives the basics.
Official SmallBall Help - Good info on how to login, what alll the buttons mean, etc.
Official SmallBall Tutorial - A lot of old info but it gives you an idea of how to train.
SmallBall Community News - Updated at the beginning of each season.  Tips and general SmallBall info.
Past Season Archive - Post of last season's results.

What do each of the skills mean?
Some of these may seem obvious but this question has been asked.
Running (run-speed) - How fast your players run. 
Catching (catch-skill) - How well your players catch.
Throwing (pass-power) - How well your players throw.  Do not confuse this with pitch-skill.  Not the same thing.
Batting (swing-contact) - How well your player hits for average.
Batting (swing-power) - How well your player hit HR's.
Batting (swing-skill) - How well your player hits better pitching.
Pitching (pitch-skill) - How well your player pitches. Best on sortlist should be your starter.

How do I train to gain in a specific skill?
Your players accumulate “training signals” with each action. So if they run, hit, catch, throw, its all stored in a “cache” and it waits awhile before it sends it all to the SmallBall servers. This occurs every 3 minutes.  This is really basic but here's how I train each of the actions (note that this is only for the "classic" trainer and not the deluxe trainer):

Running (run-speed) - Short runs of only a few inches.  The cache stores a run signal for every time you drag the player.
Catching/Throwing (catch-skill, pass-power) - Put the player you want to train in left field (others also use centerfield and shortstop).  Highlight him by clicking on him.  Everyone must throw the ball to him.  Each time they catch/throw the ball, they train.
Batting (swing-contact, swing-power, swing-skill) - Drag the player to homeplate.  Everytime they make contact with the ball, they train.  As they get better, they will also train power.  BTW, I always use my best pitchers to train my batting although some say it doesn't matter.
Pitching (pitch-skill) - Put the player on the mound.  You train pitching with every throw.  Keep in mind that this also trains throwing as well.

BTW, at some point they are planning to make the time between training signals dynamic – so it will scale with the workload of the servers. Once that’s done, the star animation will happen more frequently.  Why is this important?  Well, then we can get training done that much quicker and actually get on the field to play games.

How do I train to make my team better?
Training is an art not a science.  In the long run you need to watch your team to figure out what to train.  The commish has stated that every player on the team has a position for which they are best suited.  The trick is to find that position.  For beginners I recommend you start by finding your pitcher - finding your best pitcher is the most important thing to winning.  If you have the wrong guy on the mound, you won't go very far. Use 3 to 4 consecutive full TP on pitching for every player. Then use the sort feature to find the top 2 or 3 players in pitching.  Play some games with each to find out who is the best on the mound.  After you've found your pitcher, train the other players in the other skills and find out their strengths and weaknesses.  For example, in a weeks training you get 7 TP pies. Initially, I would recommend using 2.5 for hiting and 1.5 each for running, fielding, and throwing. Of course since you've already found your pitcher you need to train him at least 5pitch/1hit/1run. Use the sort lists to find out who is best at each skill. Put your fastest players in the outfield (left and center - not as many hits to right and make sure all outfielders can catch), of your best remaining players you need your best arm/catch combo at third/shortstop, next best at second, your remaining best hitting who can catch at first, and then the best hitter of who's remaining at catcher. Make sure you watch at least some of your games and after a while positioning your players will become apparent.  After you've found your position players then it's time to spend a bigger ratio (4:1:1:1) of your TP pie on hitting since that's the most important skill (after pitching) to winning at SmallBall. After that it's just a matter of knowing each of your players strengths and weaknesses to create a personalized training schedule to fit your players.  And above all, make sure you keep training.

How long is the season?
The season is two weeks long - starting on Monday and ending two weeks later on Sunday.  If you are just starting and don't know when the season ends you can go to the SmallBall Home page to find out.  Look in the upper left hand corner to see when the season will end.

What does the Star Rating mean?
Post from the commish - The Star Ratings are a simplified skills ranking system that allows you to roughly judge your team's collective skills compared to other teams. This rating only judges the skills of the team, not how intelligently the team has been trained or managed. Thus, two teams may have identical Star Ratings, one team may consistently beat the other -- the better team's players may be assigned to field positions that better match their abilities, or they may have a smarter batting line-up.  We calculate your star rating based on your 9 man roster - and don't consider your players on the bench.  this system is not a perfect way to predict the out come of a game. The reason a 5* team can beat a 7* team is because the person who has the 5* team has maximized the skills of his players by positioning them better. So its not how much you got, but where you put it :)  Here is an example: your pitcher will probably use all his TP pitching.  So over time, his running and batting skill go down but he's the pitcher and you don't care about that. You would rather spend TP on pitching.  But that will lower your star rating.  What else can lower it?

•  if you swap into your roster one or more of your extra guys who are not trained up - that will lower your star rating.
•  Sometimes your are just BARELY 7*, so a tiny amount of skill forgetting will cause you to lose a whole star. But then a tiny amount of training will get it back.
• The team forgets over time. So if you never train and you never play games with passive on (or no one ever plays you) eventually your team will lose their skills - at least until you train them again.
• Take for example your first baseman. Would you spend TP on his throwing skills? Or would your rather spend that TP on his hitting skills. Since the first baseman's arm is not nearly as important - you would be better off spending the extra TP on his hitting, or even running. This sort of thinking will help you win games, but not get a better star rating.

How is my Honor Ranking figured?

Honor Rating = S/G
G = Big League games that you inititated and won
S = the sum of all the stars from the teams you inititated and won.

Keep in mind that a 7* team is really ranked anywhere from 6.1 to 7.0.

How do I get the Deluxe Trainer?
The program is currently in closed beta testing and no additional teams will be given access.  Don't worry if you don't have it.  You can do anything in the standard trainer now that you can do in the Deluxe Trainer.  Actually, I use the standard trainer for most of my training since the DT is a little buggy.  It should be available in the next few seasons for purchase and the last time I heard it was going to cost $19.95.

How is Training Potential (TP) generated?

• Full TP regeneration takes 24 hours
• If "passive training" is on then your team will train, and therefore use some TP
• TP regenerates when your team is resting (not training) If you leave your trainer open, then TP will not regenerate.
• TP Regeneration does not stop during the games! Only for a few seconds when a game is inititated.
• There is no TP bonus for playing games.

Keep in mind:
If TP is burned its because your players got some training. The only thing that uses TP is training.

Does continuing to train after a player uses all their TP make their skill better/worse?
Per the commissioner, it doesn't help or hinder.  You will see ++++'s on the scoreboard and the rankings increase / decrease.  However, if you logoff and log back on every thing will return to normal.

What do the messages (i.e. - "Player x is not confident ...") on the scoreboard mean?

This hasn't been proven out by anyone but some people think it is another clue as to what skills to train.  Some of the messages are:

• "xxx is the slowest on the team" - should train in running?  Not sure.  He could just be slow.
• "xxx is not confident in ______"" - you should give him confidence by training in that skill.  
• "xxx is confident in _____" - This player has reached his max potential.
• "xxx has a weak arm" - Train in Throwing/Pitching
• "xxx fouls too much" - Train in contact hitting
• "xxx has a weak swing" - Train in Power hitting
• "xxx closes eyes during swing" - Train in swing skill
• "xxx is bad at throwing" - Train in Throwing/Pitching

The consensus is that the comments reflect when a player is in the extreme ranges of his performance.  If a player is performing in the high range of his talent on his skill, he is confident about it.  If a player is in the low range of his talent on a skill, he is not confident about it.  If there is no comment, they are performing "in the middle" of their potential.  Beware however - this is all popular opinion and only the Commish/Smallguy know the truth.  They haven't commented on this.

What does the +++ numbers on the scoreboard mean?
The number you see +whatever (running, fielding, throwing, pitching, contact hit, swing skill, power hit) is an addition to the skill that the player already has, it is not the actual skill number he possesses. New teams will start with increases of +15 but soon start dipping into the lower numbers like +6 etc... This is because the better a player gets, the more training it takes for them to get  better.  Each player's is rated to improve differently in each of the 7 skills.  This is combined with the fact that each player is also rated for each of those skills to degrade at a constant rate.  This means at some point that each player will max out depending on how much TP you use on each skill.  Some players may learn a skill slower but also forget slower so they will ultimately be the best at that skill while others may learn fast and forget fast so you will need to train them continuously to keep them in top form.  The trick to SmallBall is find out what each of your players do best and position them where it makes the most sense.

I tried to train after waiting 24 hours but my TP was gone.  Where did it go?
You have passive training on and your team trained while playing the other team.  If you didn't want this to happen you need to turn passive training off in the SmallBall training program.

Why did my TP disappear all at once while I was training?
While training - all your players suddenly get "training stars" floating over their heads and all your TP disappears even though you haven't trained any/all of your players.  This is because you were challenged to a game, had passive trainer on, and trained during that game.  If you don't want this to happen, you should turn your passive trainer off while training.

There have been reports of a bug and it has happened to me as well.  Usually when training running.  The commish is working to fix this.

How do I get into the ProLeague?
Go to the ProLeague Qualification website and see if you're on the list.  Make sure your honor is 5.0 or greater or you won't be listed.  If your team is there at the end of a season, your team will be promoted.  If it's not there, try to improve your winning percentage before the end of the season so you are on the list.  NOTE: at one point the commish said that only games played against teams currently in the ProLeague would be counted to qualify for the ProLeague.  I don't think that's true yet but it may be implemented at some future point.

I can't understand the ProLeague standings page.  How does it work?
It's just the way the standings page works.  No one likes the way it currently works but the true standings aren't too hard to figure out. The win column is each team's real wins.  The loss column is each teams losses plus any uninitiated games.  The pending column is games that still need to be played.  Teams are ranked by wins.  You can figure out the "real" standings by subtracting the pending games from losses.

How are unplayed pending games figured into the final ProLeague standings?
At the end of the season if you do not initiate a game it is counted as a loss.  If at the end of the season you still have games that someone didn't initiate against you, then you get an automatic win.

How do you get promoted to the next league in the ProLeague?
Teams ranked in blue at the end of a season are promoted.  Teams in red are demoted at the end of a season.  Teams in white stay in the same league.

How are dead teams handled in ProLeague?
If you ignore your team for the whole season, you are removed from the ProLeague.

In Closing
Over time you will find the training methods that best suits your team's players.  If you train every day and watch your players strengths/weaknesses, eventually your team will start to beating teams and advancing through the ProLeagues.  Keep in mind that the teams in the ProLeagues are the best of the best so be patient.  My team's moment of glory (below) took 5 months to achieve and I often thought about "quitting this infernal game".  If you are not willing to spend at least a half hour every day on training then you will never make it.  Good luck to all!

Oh and btw, don't get too cocky.  This could happen to you too.