Relievers pitching too many innings
 

I'm on my third OOTP20 save (MLB Standard game), always playing as GM only, and have noticed that relievers seem to pitch a lot of innings.

It's not unusual for a single reliever to pitch at least 2 innings and I've often seen them pitch three innings.

This doesn't seem to match what I see in MLB, where you'll often get relievers only pitching 1 inning.

Is there any way to tone this down for MLB standard games?

Thanks.

If you go to the league settings, there's many options there for player fatigue/reliever usage/reliever hook settings to play with. Keep in mind some relievers will need to go multiple innings or bullpens will fatigue too quickly.

Thanks Matt.

The settings I have, which I assume are default, are:
Hook for starter = -2
Hook for Reliever = +1
Pitcher Stamina = very low

Starters stamina = 1.000
Reliever stamina = 1.000

Would you suggest any changed to that?

Thanks.

I've questioned this before. Is it really the case that in the modern game, the "hook" for relievers tends to be slower than the historic average as the default settings seem to indicate? I would guess that at least 50% of all relief outings* are three outs or less in the modern game. But I notice the same thing as the OP in OOTP, even on opening day when the entire bullpen is available, the AI will very often use a guy for more than three outs and sometimes run a reliever out there for 7 or 8 outs after the 5th inning, which seems very unrealistic.

*Not counting "followers"

I was actually going to start a thread this morning about this issue as well. I am now just diving in to this version of OOTP and have been running some test sims before starting my franchise (also Standard MLB setup). On the default settings previously mentioned, the numbers just look off. I simmed 5 seasons and also noticed that relievers seem to pitch longer per appearance. What also jumps out is that the starters innings totals are also off. In these simmed seasons, there were only 2 or 3 pitchers reaching 200 innings. In fact in 2 of the seasons I simmed, no pitcher reached 200 innings.

During the last three real MLB seasons, there have been between right around 15 pitchers reach 200 innings per year.

I only play out my games in the playoffs, but let my manager handle the game. I noticed he often brings in my closer in the 8th inning, and leaves him in for the 9th. In the 9th Treinen is pretty gassed which is risky.

Would prefer the manager have a setup guy in the 8th (which my pitching roster seems to indicate??). Especially in the playoffs where bullpen fatigue isn't as big of a deal given the extra rest days.

Might I suggest raising the STARTING pitcher stamina to 1.100? It seems way too low on the default 1.000.


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I play in challenge mode, and I don't believe that I am able to adjust the modifiers. It is unfortunate, because in OOTP19, the pitching innings and appearances were pretty realistic right out of the box.

I've played two complete seasons over that last two patches and have had multiple relievers on computer teams get into 100+ games. Several have done it in both seasons.
I'd bet their arms are barely hanging on!

I have never played challenge mode for that reason. I play stats-only, and some settings I need to change to make that happen can’t be changed in Challenge Mode.


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How many innings were pitched in the league?
MLB --> Statistics --> Team Statistics --> Team Pitching Statistics
Leave splits at Overall. Scroll to the bottom. My 2021 season had 43,588 innings.


How many of those innings were pitched by relievers?
MLB --> Statistics --> Team Statistics --> Team Pitching Statistics
Change splits to As Reliever / Substitution. Scroll to the bottom. My 2021 season had 15,700 innings.

These numbers compare to MLB 2016 which is my base year.

OOTP: 43,588 - 15,770
MLB: 43,306 - 15,893

So, in OOTP, 36.18% of my innings are relievers. In MLB, 36.70% of it's innings were relievers. The difference is 0.52%.

What is your base year or in what season did the league start? Recent seasons are slightly higher, probably due to the "opener" trend, but it's still only 40.9%.

It's not necessarily about home many innings relievers pitched in total, it's about how many innings each reliever pitches.

Is it one relievers pitching two innings or two relievers pitching an inning each?

It feel like in ootp you'd get one reliever pitching two innings and in MLB you'd get two relievers pitching an inning each.

Okay, if relievers are pitching longer on average (which is how I think you mean it), then we can deduce that with just a few numbers. Total relief games pitched and total relief innings pitched. The last post will get the second part. This post will get the first part.



1) Go to a team and choose Team History Index, History Index. Go to the most recent completed season, then examine team pitching statistics for that particular team. Check how many games pitchers pitched in (it's a subtotal.) Note this amount as "games pitched."

2) Randomly pick 5 more teams and repeat. That should now be 6 different team subtotals of games pitched.

3) Add all the "games pitched." Mine totaled 3,901. Deduct games started (teams X games per season.) In my case it was 162*6 = 972. 3,901 - 972 = 2,929 games in relief.

4) Multiply by 5. (This takes the 5 random teams get us the equivalent of 30 teams.) That's how many games I estimate (statistically) the relievers pitched. In my case, it was 14,645 games (5 x 2,929.)


In 2016, MLB actually had 15,308 reliever games. My league had 4.5 % fewer relief appearances. So it was very close to real life.


5) What are your numbers?

How many innings did relievers pitch? (see my prior post)
How many games did they relieve in? (this post)
What year was it?

I actually turned off the opener options because I thought that might skew the results. I am simming the standard 2019 MLB setup. My innings pitched is 43,669 totals and 18,716 out of the bullpen.

The league had 14,555 relief appearances between all teams. Total innings pitched by the relievers were 18,716.

If I'm looking at it correctly, your numbers do seem a bit off compared to MLB.

There is a difference. But it's not the sort of difference a person can eyeball, ime. I'd expect a much larger difference before it became noticeable.

Well in your example you got 1.0768 IP/rApp
In his example he got 1.2859 IP/rApp

That seems like a pretty large difference. Possibly explained by variance but that seems like a large discrepancy over a substantial sample size to just disregard assuming you were both simming using default settings.

I agree. We'd need more data. A small change in one default setting could drive this. Stamina, pitcher usage, what season (era) this was in, rotation size, etc.

Do we have any idea what the MLB average has been for IP per relief appearance over the past few years? I couldn't find any obvious answers in a quick search.