Quote:
Originally Posted by joefromchicago
That's a fair point, but it's not the way most managers actually used their pitching staffs. Apart from the cascading fatigue that I mentioned earlier, the other reason managers didn't follow strict rotations is because they'd use off days to skip their worst pitchers in order to give their best pitchers extra starts.
Again, I'll use the 1995 Braves as an example. Bobby Cox was absolutely committed to a strict five-man rotation that year. Here's a rundown of the Braves' starts from opening day through the end of May:
1-Maddux
2-Glavine
3-Avery
4-Mercker
5-Smoltz
0-off day
1 2 3 4 5 0 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 0 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 0 3
A couple of interesting points about this: at least at the beginning of the season, there was no opportunity to move Greg Maddux up. The first two off days occurred on days when Maddux would have pitched. But when the Braves had an off day on May 30, which would have been Scott Avery's day to pitch, Cox stayed with the rotation and didn't skip Avery. And later in the season, when Cox could have skipped Mercker or Smoltz, he didn't do it.
That's dedication! Contrast that with the Astros. They also had a fairly stable rotation that year, but manager Terry Collins clearly had a different philosophy when it came to taking advantage of off days to move his top-end starters up in the order. Here's what Houston's starting assignments looked like at the beginning of 1995:
1-Drabeck
2-Reynolds
3-Kile
4-Hampton
5-Swindell
0-off day
1 2 3 4 5 0 1 3 2 4 5 1 3 2 0 5 1 3 4 0 2 5 1 3 2 5 1 3 2 0 5 1 3 2 0 5
Collins had a five-man rotation, just like Cox, but unlike Cox, Collins didn't adhere to the 1-2-3-4-5 strict rotation after the first week of the season. Shane Reynolds, it seems, was quickly demoted to the third spot after being shelled in his first start, and then Collins skipped Mike Hampton's spot when there was an off day on May 10. That meant that Doug Drabeck kept his regular spot when it came up on May 12 instead of being pushed back a day. And that would hold true for the rest of the season: Collins had Drabeck start on four days of rest (and occasionally on three days of rest) regardless of where he was in the rotation. The rest of the starting staff was then re-jiggered to accommodate Drabeck.
I think that, through history, there have been a lot more Terry Collinses than Bobby Coxes. Cox had the luxury of a strong pitching staff (when John Smoltz is your number-five starter, you're in pretty good shape), so he didn't need to skip anyone's turn. But that was really unusual, at least until around 2002. Much more common was the situation that Collins found himself in, with a couple of solid pitchers at the top of the rotation and some questionable ones at the bottom. When you're in that kind of situation, it makes sense to ditch the strict rotation in order to give as many starts as possible to your best guys.
In OOTP terms, then, Cox followed a "strict rotation," while Collins was more of a "strict rotation, occasionally highest rested" kind of manager, although I'd be more inclined to characterize him as following a "start highest rested" approach. So this might be the sort of thing that is best handled with manager strategies rather than a league-wide setting.
I don't know if this information is collected anywhere. The Sporting News would always publish the MLB opening-day rosters, but back issues are behind a pay wall and those only go to 2003.
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Yup. My rotation settings (Strict) have always been just like Bobby Cox, in your example. If we had a day off, whoever would have pitched that day if it weren't off will just start the next day. So, it'll be 1 2 3 4 5 all season long. Like I said because I'm a human and I don't sim a week or more at a time, as soon as I see my SP just injured himself and won't be ready by his next scheduled start, I manually move in one of my Long Relievers who can work as an Emergency SP here and there. Otherwise, I switch over to my AAA pitching staff screen and pick someone to come up and replace my injured pitcher...
If I simulated two weeks at a time and didn't have anyone in my bullpen listed as an emergency SP it would skip the spot of my recently injured pitcher and start the next guy...like they often do in real life!! But, I always worried about that because with Pitcher Stamina at Low, that meant every single day, until I manually stop it or we get a day off, every SP of mine would be taking the mound approximately 80% rested.
I changed Pitcher Stamina to High based on the recommendation of Garlon's chart he's been sharing in this thread and *PRESTO!* now things are working realistically. Using a 5-man rotation, pitchers will be 97-100% rested the day before they're scheduled to pitch. So, if my scheduled starter slipped at the strip club the night before and broke his big toe, the pitcher behind him could step in and pitch without burning out after 2.5 innings. So, thank you, Garlon! Making that change also made bullpen usage much more realistic, in my opinion, as well.
Now, if I bring in Mariano Rivera (he's my 1995 setup guy until next year) and he throws 18-27 pitches, hopefully, we win the game and we all get a good night's sleep. The very next day, if I need to call on Mariano again for the second straight night, he'll be entering the game at around 92% to 94% and have no problem at all giving you another 20-30 pitches. So, by taking the advice of both Garlon and Joe, I'm certain the AI is going to be a more formidable opponent throughout the season now that they're not locked into a Strict rotation running on Low Stamina.
I am so happy about this. I know readers are probably thinking, "Well, why didn't you just try this on your own?" I did make adjustments to the Relief Pitcher Stamina modifier previously, but I'd rather not mess with modifiers if I can help it. And then, honestly, I don't know why I didn't try setting the main Pitcher Stamina setting to High. I didn't want to give myself any additional help even though setting it to High is actually helping the AI even more than me and that's great! That's what I wanted, hence my change to allow the AI teams to carry 1 additional reliever and bench person, but not me.
I didn't mean to derail the original purpose and discussion of this thread. I sincerely appreciate the help of everyone.
And I really do appreciate people like you guys who are doing more research and testing than "playing" with OOTP which will ultimately lead to overall improvements in the sim, so newer players like myself can have a great time.
Oh, scurvycure...I was just curious what year you were playing just so I could try to visualize things from that point of view since we all know baseball changes significantly over the years.
By the way, I'll bet if you go pick up a couple of big cartons of orange juice, you'll take care of that scurvy right away.
