Starting Rotation_Pitch Counts

[mmarra82]

Currently in the mid-May of my real roster, 2014 season. I have a depleted starting rotation and no money to acquire veteran help. I have to ride this out.

It seems he lets them go to just over 100 pitches, and it is right around then that they get in trouble. I have a fairly strong bullpen, my thought is to implement pitch counts for my weaker starters so that the manager pulls them earlier, even if they are throwing decent, to get to the pen.

Any thoughts?

[RchW]

Originally Posted by mmarra82

Currently in the mid-May of my real roster, 2014 season. I have a depleted starting rotation and no money to acquire veteran help. I have to ride this out.

It seems he lets them go to just over 100 pitches, and it is right around then that they get in trouble. I have a fairly strong bullpen, my thought is to implement pitch counts for my weaker starters so that the manager pulls them earlier, even if they are throwing decent, to get to the pen.

Any thoughts?

Slightly confused; are you looking to set pitch counts below 100? You certainly can but it might be counter productive to waste the odd good performance from a starter and then have a tired bullpen when needed later. You could increase the hook setting for individual pitchers which is not tied to just pitch counts.

If you do go with lower pitch counts for starters consider setting pitch counts for your better relief pitchers. The AI tends to overuse them while ignoring lesser but still decent MR.

Since the rotation is depleted get more starts out of your better SP and let them go longer.

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by mmarra82

I have a fairly strong bullpen, my thought is to implement pitch counts for my weaker starters so that the manager pulls them earlier, even if they are throwing decent, to get to the pen.

Any thoughts?

You should check out this old thread.

I've used this strategy with pretty good results.

[Bluenoser]

You could also look at a couple of veteran FA's who are willing to accept MLC's to use as fill ins.

Look at your starting pitchers endurance as well, if it's low they'll tire quicker. If you can, grab FA's with good endurance and depending on your defense, good groundball pitchers.

[Charlie Hough]

Just change the manager's slider settings or the individual player settings so that your weak starters are yanked more quickly. This way, you don't have to use pitch counts, which might pull a pitcher even when he's doing really well. But you can force the AI manager to be a lot less patient and start warming up relievers and making pitching changes faster when they get into trouble.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by mmarra82

Currently in the mid-May of my real roster, 2014 season. I have a depleted starting rotation and no money to acquire veteran help. I have to ride this out.

It seems he lets them go to just over 100 pitches, and it is right around then that they get in trouble. I have a fairly strong bullpen, my thought is to implement pitch counts for my weaker starters so that the manager pulls them earlier, even if they are throwing decent, to get to the pen.

Any thoughts?

To me, the issue here, is the AI doesn't of this, so is it an exploit?

[USF]

Originally Posted by mmarra82

Currently in the mid-May of my real roster, 2014 season. I have a depleted starting rotation and no money to acquire veteran help. I have to ride this out.

It seems he lets them go to just over 100 pitches, and it is right around then that they get in trouble. I have a fairly strong bullpen, my thought is to implement pitch counts for my weaker starters so that the manager pulls them earlier, even if they are throwing decent, to get to the pen.

Any thoughts?

Yes always reduce pitch count to take advantage of your stronger pen BUT, over the course of a season this will fatigue your pen so you have to carefully manage this to make sure your pen is rested too in order to perform at the high level. I normally use 110 pitch count for ACES and 100 for excellent starters and then shorten the pitch count to as low as 60 for borderline starters. You can use the option to pull them quicker too if you wish. I usually adjust this setting with the # of pitches ie., the ACE with 110 pitches usually is 1 bar from max while the 80 pitch SP is average pull. I hope this helps. JG

[RchW]

Originally Posted by USF

Yes always reduce pitch count to take advantage of your stronger pen BUT, over the course of a season this will fatigue your pen so you have to carefully manage this to make sure your pen is rested too in order to perform at the high level. I normally use 110 pitch count for ACES and 100 for excellent starters and then shorten the pitch count to as low as 60 for borderline starters. You can use the option to pull them quicker too if you wish. I usually adjust this setting with the # of pitches ie., the ACE with 110 pitches usually is 1 bar from max while the 80 pitch SP is average pull. I hope this helps. JG

My only disagreement would be ignoring stamina.

It makes no sense to limit the number of pitches for a good pitcher with high stamina and to let a low stamina ace get tired. A high stamina pitcher can have his count at 120 or 0 and if you have game strategy properly set he will rarely get there. For a low stamina pitcher 105-115 is a good range. For those in the middle 115 pitches or no setting if they are reliable and the AI is not crazy. Rookies and pitchers coming off injuries will start at 95-100 and be adjusted depending on performance. Everybody has different ways but if I can't get 100 pitches from a starter of any stamina he's not going to start. Too damaging for the bullpen.

I'll play with pitch counts one rotation ahead of an important series to help my starters with recovery. Especially within a long run of games with no off days. Slotting in the occasional 6th starter works as well.

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

To me, the issue here, is the AI doesn't of this, so is it an exploit?

That's a valid point (for SP anyway - for MP, all bets are off). The AI surely wouldn't do it, so if there was an advantage to taking this approach, only the player could possibly benefit from it and it could be seen as an exploit.

As for fatigue and wearing your pitchers out, I guess it all depends on what your league settings are. We have rather forgiving ones in FOBL, so I have been able to run some pretty extreme pitch counts on starters in order to get my RP more innings. Basic theory: an inning is an inning - and if you can swap out an inning from a poor starter for one of a fantastic RP, that's a net gain so you might as well do it. If you have a guy with high stamina (granted - this might be due to legacy players from OOTP13; I haven't seen enough drafts in 15 to know if that has been adjusted) you can easily see 160+ IP.

[USF]

Originally Posted by RchW

My only disagreement would be ignoring stamina.

It makes no sense to limit the number of pitches for a good pitcher with high stamina and to let a low stamina ace get tired. A high stamina pitcher can have his count at 120 or 0 and if you have game strategy properly set he will rarely get there. For a low stamina pitcher 105-115 is a good range. For those in the middle 115 pitches or no setting if they are reliable and the AI is not crazy. Rookies and pitchers coming off injuries will start at 95-100 and be adjusted depending on performance. Everybody has different ways but if I can't get 100 pitches from a starter of any stamina he's not going to start. Too damaging for the bullpen.

I'll play with pitch counts one rotation ahead of an important series to help my starters with recovery. Especially within a long run of games with no off days. Slotting in the occasional 6th starter works as well.

I've never worried about stamina - I always use a 5 man rotation and rarely go to 4 man unless there is a day off in a 7 day sim (rare in my leagues). Most of my starters if not all are at least 10 or higher on stamina. I focus on getting the best SP score per start and I'm not worried about the fatigue. This is a great strategy for a team loaded in the pen and not so deep in the rotation ie., maybe only 2 decent starters out of 5. I'm sure every league will have its differences based on the league settings (fatigue rate) etc..

[PSUColonel]

Can anyone confirm or deny if the AI teams implement pitch counts? If not, is this something that should be changed?

[BIG17EASY]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

Can anyone confirm or deny if the AI teams implement pitch counts? If not, is this something that should be changed?

Not sure if anyone other than Markus & Co. can answer that. However, we as users have the ability to set the overall tendencies/strategies of the AI on the league settings page. I'm not sure there's an exploit here unless a league was set up for one extreme (use of relievers very rarely, for example) and the user employed the opposite strategy.

As it is, the 2014 quickstart "out of the box" plays similarly to what the OP suggests. The AI pulls most starters around or just over 100 pitches, except for top-line starters who are throwing well.

Obviously there are extreme strategies like the one cuervo links to that may work, but it seems to me that that's a deliberate exploit, not one found accidentally through trial and error of legitimate baseball strategy. If someone wants to play that way, so be it (as Wolf says, it's your game, play it your way), but I'm not going to be one to beg Markus to institute AI pitch counts to counter that strategy.

[PSUColonel]

I find that no matter the situation (late game) the AI will not pull the starter until he's "tired"...even if the bases are drunk, and he's thrown say 108 pitches or so....that is unrealistic to me.

[USF]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

I find that no matter the situation (late game) the AI will not pull the starter until he's "tired"...even if the bases are drunk, and he's thrown say 108 pitches or so....that is unrealistic to me.

You can change those "strategy" settings if you wish.

[PSUColonel]

how?

[BIG17EASY]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

how?

If you're simming and referring to your team, you have a very detailed manager strategy page that you can adjust. And you have the ability to set individual pitch counts for each pitcher.

If you're talking about the entire league, it's under league settings.

[PSUColonel]

I mean league wide

[r0nster]

I don't use pitch counts when I play each game. I keep going till they tired or if I am losing. I am more of a manager prior to the 80s-90s. I always get starters who can go the distance. I do not like starters who can only go 6 maybe 7 innings every time.

[USF]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

I mean league wide

You'd have to go into each of the teams strategy settings and adjust them. There is a global save for them so you can import them to other teams easily once one is done.

[TomVeal]

Originally Posted by r0nster

I always get starters who can go the distance. I do not like starters who can only go 6 maybe 7 innings every time.

Where do you find "starters who can go the distance" in a game set in the present? I, too, miss the era when pitchers weren't such fragile flowers.