I'm the Dodgers and Im Struggling
 

is anyone else finding the game a tad more difficult even with the best teams in the league my pitching staff have struggled big time my batters have done as i expect them but the pitching staff have let me down I could easily be about 12-5 instead of 7-10 if my pitchers hadnt choked :/

It is almost certainly just an effect of small sample size. Kershaw has pitched in 4 games. While it is unusual for him to pitch that badly over 4 James, it is not beyond statistical possibility. Did he have one particularly bad game ? That can inflate an ERA over just 20 innings. Put the pitchers on pitch counts and see if that helps.

what do u mean by put the pitchers on pitch counts what do they do?

In most winning seasons, there is usually a 7-10 (or worse) cold streak in the schedule somewhere. Bad stats have nowhere to hide at the start of the season.

I've had worse starts with 100-win teams. Sometimes I tweak the strategies a bit, or do some little roster/lineup adjustment. Or I leave it alone and watch the pendulum swing.

Kershaw has been dominant in almost all of my test sims. He'll come around, like some of the guys have mentioned, it's just a small sample.

On one of my sims, Kershaw has 8 Cy Young awards, 4 MVPS, 4 rings and is closing in on 300 wins...

As a Giants fan this makes me smile, but as an OOTP fan...don't worry they will be fine in the long run. Assuming you're not doing something dumb like keeping them in games when they're tired.

Small sample size. All of your SPs have a FIP significantly lower than their ERA, which hints at bad luck. Keep simming, it ought to "correct" itself.

In one of mine he got three consecutive TJS and was out of the league by the time his extension was up in 2020.

Oh the wonders of OOTP.

As a Giants fan, I really don't see what the problem here is. :D

Looks like Kershaw may have given up a few key home runs in unlucky spots. His other underlying numbers seem fine. The other starters have high BABIP that will probably regress over time.

That said, having played about seven different seasons of baseball in OOTP with different teams, I get the feeling offense is inflated in the current version. I rarely, if ever, see a starting pitcher carry a sub 3.5 ERA over the course of a year. With the Tigers, Fulmer and Norris could not ever get under 4.0 over the course of a year; with both guys, their 2016 season was better than any year I saw in the five-plus years I GM'd the Tigers. And that's after building a much, much better infield and outfield defense behind them than they had in 2016.

Playing with Giants and am in last place

I enjoy rebuilding even if I didn't think. The young guys starting in 2018 might get some run

I play every game too

Pitching ...No problem
 

BUTTT....I do find many, many, many, seems like way too many two out no men on base rallies. My teams I think have given up more Home Runs with 2 outs to the weakest players on teams. Some have zero HR's & a very low rating for HR's. I wish I would have keep a written account. But it seems like my games (I play all out) opponents have at minimum 4-5 two out rally innings a game. Other team don't always score, but 2 hits then 3rd out. I'll have a pitcher 3 inns 6 hits 0 runs ? K's. it just wears my staff out. Now I play the White Sox but jeez....couple seasons ago I had a pitcher like 8-2, 65 inns 83 Hits 3.50 ERA WHIP 1.70 or so. I just learned how to F12 screen. I will post if happens. Anyway...Just saying...GEAUX SOX

4 times through the rotation... those numbers are so worthless to look at, if you know they are decent players from ratings.. in the cases where someone plays 100% stats, even they could ignore it for any non-aging player that they have a track record for.

some like pitch counts, some do not. i do.

with a very low pitcher stamina setting, you will run into slightly tired arms starting games in a 5-man rotation without an off-day in the schedule. the amount of pitches fewer that they can throw due to being tired over the course of the season is greater than the ~5 pitches you can miss out on using pitch counts. it can be empirically proven to be better or worse overall... i'd wager large sums of money it's a 'best' practice in the video game - regular season for sure.

If i simulate games, i set it a bit below when the become "slightly tired." this depends on stamina of the pitcher, of course. basically, i figure ~16-20 pitches for most innings.. i don't want htem going more than ~5-10 pitches above "slightly tired." The AI will run them out there as long as they are roughly ~10 pitches short of the pitch count.

the will also pitch them above the pitch count - it's not a hard line. in instances they are going for a no-no or perfect game, they will completely ignore it, in my experience.

if you play all games out, you just make sure to pull them when you see "slightly tired" - or within a handful of pitches, which is where the ai doesn't do it as well.. the ai will pull them less efficiently.

basically i pick a # where they stay above ~95-96% for the next start. if you play games out, you will easily know this # of pitches relative to 100% exactly for each pitcher's stamina - although stamina can shift, of course. even simming, when i see a sub-96% i reduce the PCnt a pitch or 2.

if you know you have an extra day off for that guy(s), you can set it to "0" for that stretch with no repercussions from fatigue.