Short staff strategy- Spirit of the game.
 

First off, starting with the obvious, the OOTP game is a fantastic product.

I'd like to invite gamers to provide their perspectives on a game strategy called "Short Staffing".

Essentially, here's how it goes. Start all lefthand pitchers at very low pitch counts (I have encountered short staffs that have the starter only pitch to one batter). Have the bullpen staffed with only righthanded pitchers (mostly starters, if one has made a substantial investment). The game uses your righthanded line up vs. the lefthand starter, only to have that pitcher intentionally pulled very early in the game and replaced by a righthanded bullpen pitcher. After that, your predominantly righthanded line up is facing only righthanded pitching, in a home ball park that is set to suppress the effectiveness of righthanded batters and boost the effectiveness of lefthanded batters, which are predominant in the home team's line ups.

I think it's fair to call OOTP a baseball SIM. I think that's what attracted many of us to purchase the game and make substantial investments after that purchase. The game is based on actual players, statistics, ratings, and history. Yet, in the midst of this, we have a strategy that flies in the face of reality. From my perspective, this strategy exploits a hole in the program, that is, once a game begins, you can't shift your strategy. The short staff strategy doesn't happen in real baseball games, since the opposing manager would simply alter his lineup accordingly. As an aside, in some cases, due to this strategy, it's not unusual to see pitchers with 40-50 wins. Neither seem to reflect anything remotely found in real baseball and as previously noted, since we were attracted to a product based on actual history and because it's a simulation of real baseball, I find the short staff strategy undermines the integrity, spirit and enjoyment of the game.

As a side note, this isn't sour grapes on my part, as I have won my fair share... 8 Perfect Team Championships (6 at Perfect League Level) and can change to this strategy within 20 minutes of posting these thoughts.

So, what do you all think?

Thanks for your thoughts.

Isn't this openers and followers? There is a box you can click to counteract that strstegy.

No, this isn't the same as openers/followers, because your opponent (usually) has things set to obey the handedness of the follower, not the opener.

This is a lefty-team strategy designed to fool the other team into starting their righties rather than their lefties. The Washington Senators tried this with "some" success for a few years in OL perfect. In their case, though, they had all the lefty starters set to a 40 pitch count.

Still, they encountered the real problem with this strategy which is that it tires out your bullpen, the way the game works. You have to have a lot of pitchers in the bullpen (most of them with starting stamina) in order to pull it off.

It isn't. It's a pseudo opener strategy. That box does nothing in this scenario since it isnt a true opener/follower designation.

It can also be countered by a team that doesn't platoon. In that case, an all LH line up would destroy those RHP in a park built for LHs.

I don't know if it's in the spirit of the game, but the game, just like in real life, is about getting any advantage you can get.

It's not "strategy", it's cheese that abuses the insufficiency of the depth chart interface and the fact that people can't be online 24/7

Does this strategy work in regards to a windfall of points earned?
Has anyone actually done it?

Would agree partially, but would say OOTP Go could address this too.

There are other aspects of virtual managing that aren't the same as real managing as well. You can adjust. You can set your lineup to your left-handed line-up, although they might get you once. Or twice.

Am I missing something? Is it a real problem where there is no possibility of adjusting to the opponent's strategy? From what I read you can just adjust to whatever they're trying to do.

This strategy causes the AI roster construction to screw up and use the wrong handedness, and the only way to stop it is being there and manually switching your platoon lineups just for that series. That's just not realistic to do during the regular season.

What you're missing is that this is mostly a hands-off game that plays while we go about our lives. Even still, when I'm in Perfect Team I'd never take the time to adjust lineups based on an opponent (and then adjust back). With the possible exception of the playoffs -- but Sunday is family time anyway.

Yep, this is a tactic (ok fine, a cheese ;)) that for FTP teams can be fairly competitive in many typical perfect leagues; not nearly as much in the OL tho as more teams have moved to all lefty.

But I'm not sure anything about the strategy violates the spirit of the game. Managers try all kinds of things. They tried openers. Maybe very few pitchers have ever faced just one batter extenuating circumstances aside but the sim allows players to try potentially try all different kinds of things as managers that may not yet have actually happened or don't typically happen.

I kind of get the frustration but don't see anything wrong with it.

It is tricky as it is still kind of a new mode...this strategy is entirely limited to things that the controls or options in the game allow you to do.

You tell me the spirit it's violating.

The strategy alone doesn't bug me...teams being able to afford 4 rosters better than mine and use those players with the strategies, actively (hands-on), might.

This tactic, like all-lefty and all-righty teams, is made possible by the absurd way parks' factors can be designed, with hitters being favored or penalizied only for their handedness, with no regard for their swing type.

For those of us not living stateside the Sims take place overnight so unless we stay awake all night responding to strategies like this is impossible.

There is obviously a counter to the use of actual openers within strategy settings, and this tactic could easily be fixed by setting a minimum pitch count for starters. It's basically a cheesy exploitation tactic

The only reason it works is because people can't always be online to change up their depth charts when a series against a team like this comes up. I'm not saying it's illegal or cheating, but it exploits a flaw in the game which hopefully can be corrected. Starters with a pitch count under 30 could be treated as an "opener" for example so that your opener/follower settings would apply.

As one of the top "cheesers" in the game (at this point I've got nearly half the records in PeL, including the aforementioned 50-win pitcher, by figuring out strategies to specifically target them), I've got some thoughts on this.

- Asking us to conform to modern strategies in a game where indestructible Cy Young is pitching to indestructible Pete Alonso in a ballpark that can be rebuilt every season ignores that this game isn't a realism sim. It's a fantasy sim.

- If an MLB could afford to roster 10-12 elite starters and could get them agree to unique roles, why wouldn't an MLB team attempt some strategies that maximize the performance of that staff? Did the Tampa Bay Rays just cheese their way to the playoffs by using a non-traditional strategy that fits the makeup of their pitching staff?

- Cy Young pitched 453 innings in a season. This game won't let me get him over about 250. Why isn't there more outcry over realism there? If I've figured out a way to get Cy and Walter to pitch valuable innings more than every 4th or 5th game, why is that a problem?

- How is rostering a nearly perfect platoon lineup not also an issue? This strategy fights against the overplatooning that's made possible by PT and has no real advantage over a balanced lineup. If someone runs 7-8 LH in vR and 7-8 RH in vL, am I supposed to go "shucks, it's too bad I have to run a realistic pitching strategy?"

- I don't skew my park by handedness, but I agree with others that park factors are way too strong in this game. I've had the best offense in the history of PeL in a max hitters park and then a few seasons later in a max pitchers park I set the ERA mark. I hope the plan in future games is to add ballpark cards so that you have to select from some real stadiums at least. But, when you are able to tear down my stadium every season, there's no reason not to maximize its ability to enhance your roster.

This actually sounds like a fun and reasonable idea. Think about all the historical ballparks!

I also agree with you that park factors are a bit too powerful.

You are being intentionally obtuse. Non-traditional pitching staffs are fine. A unique "middle inning" role racking up wins is whatever. The topic specifically is about token starters used to fool the opposing depth chart settings that people would easily counter if they could by simply switching the vs L and vs R lineups, but the game doesn't let them without being online all day.

Not really, because this entire thread seems to be conflating the 1-inning SP (psuedo-opener) with the 4-5 inning SP (short start or middle inning role). The 40-50 win pitcher that the OP talks about isn't possible with the 1-inning SP and is just a byproduct of the effectiveness of the middle inning role.

Anyway, the 1-inning SP in a skewed ballpark isn't a very good strategy for a variety of reasons I won't get into, which is why many of us have moved on from that looking for a more optimal strategy.

By the way, regarding the realism of the psuedo-opener, the MLB doesn't require a team to declare a follower, yet this game essentially does that if you use the actual opener mechanic. Doing a psuedo-opener every game is taking advantage of the AI because they aren't smart enough to look through old box scores, but in the playoffs, using it strategically against over-platooned lineups is no different than Craig Counsell doing it to Dave Roberts a couple years back.