[Lukas Berger]

As someone who's a bit fanatical about amateur baseball on the HS and college level, who spends more money than he can afford on an expensive subscription to Perfect Game, and has been adding a ton of HS and college players into OOTP both in my NCAA/HS roster project and other ways...

Very few of the HS pitchers on the Perfect Game website are listed as having only two pitches.

Just based on my impressions, I'd say about 75% are listed as having a fastball, change and a breaking pitch, 20% as having 4 pitches (Probably half of those including a slider and cb that have similar speeds. My take on that is that it's really only three pitches since the slider/cb combo is likely a poorly refined slurve that looks different in different viewings), and 5% are listed as having only 2 pitches. Most of those are viewed by PG as relief prospects.

That's something they almost never say about a pitcher since they're generally overwhelmingly positive. Essentially the only HS pitchers they actually specify are relief prospects are those they list as having only two pitches.

So I'd say that pitchers having only two pitches should be very much the exception, not the rule. Perhaps the third pitch could be very poor, but it should be there. Often PG will list two pitches for one viewing and three for another, thus the third pitch is likely so poor that the pitcher doesn't always have the confidence/ability to throw it.

If a pitcher truly has only two pitches he should probably be automatically classified as a RP. Perhaps those pitchers should still have the potential to develop a third pitch, if they do so it would allow them to have a shot at starting.

Which brings up another point that I won't elaborate on too much since it's already been mentioned somewhere on the forums. Stamina should probably be somewhat less deterministic than currently. A pitcher's stamina should be tied to the amount of pitches he has and the role his current team wishes to use him in. It shouldn't be an absolute value but one that changes with his assigned role. Perhaps there could even be a current and potential rating for stamina with the potential being absolute and the current being variable, based on role. So for most pitchers the potential would allow them to start. The current value might not, but would change gradually over time. The change would occur as they either get stretched out into an SP or used to a relief role, whenever they are assigned to a different role on the staff.

Most pitchers at the lower levels are capable of starting or relieving as the team wishes (HS, college, MiLB somewhat, and even MLB to a lesser extent). They're typically assigned to a RP role only if they aren't one of the top pitchers on the team and thus one of the best choices to start. That's generally only a temporary thing. Especially at the amateur levels, once one of the starters graduates usually a RP who has performed well in the role gets the chance to start. To me, that's how OOTP should model pitchers, with the stamina depending on the role, not vice-versa as it is now.

If needed, I can calculate the hard data from PG regarding how many pitches HS pitchers are listed as having. It'd be quite a job so I'd prefer to do so only if it's actually going to be useful in determining if the current model should be changed, i.e. if Markus requests it. Otherwise I'd really prefer to spend the time on my other projects.