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? I have delivered no ultimatums, nor have I called OOTP trash. Surely, however, you must appreciate that TangoTiger knows what he's talking about, and in fact probably knows more than you do about baseball from a sabermetrician's standpoint. I know he knows a lot more than I do, anyway.
Anyway, to add something more than infighting... others have been claiming that this is entirely or mostly due to the AI's poor use of bullpens. However, a look at starter v reliever stats throughout the years indicates that this is not the case. Here are the ERA differences between reliever and starter. A + before the number indicates that relief ERA is lower, and the number is a percentage:
2005: +6.1%
2000: +6.8%
1995: +5.6%
1990: +10.9%
1985: +6.2%
1980: +13.1%
1975: +10.8%
1970: +4.0%
1965: +8.2%
1960: +6.6%
1957: +1.1% (this is the earliest consecutive year Retrosheet has this data available)
A brief look shows that since 1960, at least, relievers have consistently outperformed starters by about 6% or so. Going all the way back to 1922, when relievers were generally only used to mop up for bad outings by starters, the split is 4.9% in favor of starters (4.30 ERA for relievers vs. a 4.10 ERA for starters) - which is *still* a smaller split than what OOTP metes out.
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