Quote:
Originally Posted by uruguru
Pitcher stamina, as used in OOTP, is a usage stat masquerading as an ability rating. This is really the easiest way to describe the problem. The rating doesn't actually reflect the physical stamina of the pitcher but simply how the real-world manager used that pitcher.
As a result, OOTP managers are required to use pitchers exactly how they were used in real life. Want to keep Dennis Eckersley or John Smoltz in the rotation? Too bad. Their stamina gets recalculated to a low value because the real-world manager had different ideas and so you have to put him in the bullpen too (choosing the "career average" for stamina does not solve this problem, btw)
Then, if you have Eckersley in the pen and one of your starters gets injured, you can't put him back in the rotation when obviously the real manager always had that as an option.
This also creates havoc for expansions because players are recalculated based on their next season ratings before the draft. For example, the real 1962 Dodgers did not protect their reliever Turk Farrell. He was drafted by Houston moved into the starting rotation (this happens a LOT in historical sims). But in OOTP, the 1962 Dodgers suddenly see Farrell as a starter (based on his 1962 stamina) and decide to protect him and put him in the rotation. If you are playing without minor leagues, expansion teams in historical sims are basically screwed because there have no real options for drafting starting pitchers. This is why people will run historical sims and see expansion teams with 10-152 records.
I have played this game way too much.
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To the Eckersley question, if you’re running a game that started in, say, 1980… well, for one thing Eckersley might never make the transition to the bullpen if you don’t have recalc turned on. In fact, it’s more likely that he won’t than that he will. But if he did, you’d have the ability to switch him back to start. IRL, too, Eck didn’t start a game after 1987 and started only 2 that year. The theoretical starting of him is, well, only in theory, as Tony LaRussa et al never saw him as a potential spot starter for the last decade or so of his career. I’m not really sure what the game should do in these situations (that’s not a way of saying “hey, I guess it’s ok then”; I mean I don’t know what it should do).
All that said, the weirdness between starting and relieving is one reason I prefer fictional play. Even with fictional, there are guys who will never ever be effective as starters no matter what their stamina or whatever because they only throw 2 pitches. Conversely though there are a whole bunch of guys who can do both if needed and who might be better if you had them concentrate on their top 2-3 pitches in relief (which is sort of what Eckersley did IRL I guess). There’s one guy in particular in the league I’m doing who was a mediocre to bad starter who is now ranked as the 4th best closer in all of baseball. Maybe he’ll get another crack at the rotation eventually but I feel like this is his career now.
I feel like overall stamina isn’t perfect by any means. One issue I seem to see a lot, for another example, is low control / high stuff guys with low endurances but enough pitches to start. What are you really supposed to do with those guys? They aren’t the classic sinker/slider or fastball/splitter style relievers so they get starts but then they can’t really give you innings even when they are effective because 6 innings causes them to throw like 120 pitches. I wind up manually upping stamina but of course that’s a workaround. Maybe a better way of handling this is to not have stamina do a lot to ratings when pitchers get tired but massively increase injury chances instead. The Nolan Ryan example here is kind of telling; even though there may be studies indicating his K rate remained the same throughout games, he was also rather famously placed on strict pitch counts throughout his 30s to prevent injury.