Deadball era pitcher usage question

[MannyTrillo]

If you're playing a deadball era league and have only 2 pitchers on your roster, how does the AI decide to use them (since both will be tired at the same time often)?

I've tried a few experiments, and it's not straightforward how this works... it seems that one of the pitchers will get 2/3 of the starts and the other will get 1/3, but I'm not sure how it decides which pitcher gets which. In my online league, the guy in the #2 slot got 2/3 of the starts in the last sim, despite worse ratings and results than the #1. But then in a solo league experiment, the AI seemed to give 2/3 of the starts to the guy with the better ratings, even when I took him out of the rotation. Anyone know how this works?

[NYJuggalo45]

why do have only 2 pitchers would be the bigger question i think

[Eckstein 4 Prez]

In my experience, the AI will put whatever pitcher it thinks is better into a "blank" slot in the rotation. Since you can't make a rotation of less than 3 guys, that third slot will be filled by pitcher #1, who of course also pitches in his own turn in the rotation.

Not sure about what happens when you take the guy out of the rotation entirely, but here's my guess: if you kept only player #2 (the worse of the two pitchers) in the rotation, he'd get his turn, but then for both of the other two turns in the rotation, the AI would put in player #1, who it thinks is the better pitcher. I hope this makes sense.....

[matskralc]

Would putting the better guy in both slots 1 and 3, and the lesser guy in both slots 2 and 4, and putting the rotation on strict order work?

[MannyTrillo]

Originally posted by matskralc
Would putting the better guy in both slots 1 and 3, and the lesser guy in both slots 2 and 4, and putting the rotation on strict order work?

That's a good idea, I bet it would work fine... but we're using v.4 for the rest of the season. I hadn't thought about putting one guy into 2 slots in the rotation, though, and after a little experiment it looks like if you put one of the pitchers in at both #1 and #3, and the other at #2, the #1/#3 will get 2/3 of the starts no matter what.

Eck, I think the problem is that the AI will start whoever it likes better if both pitchers are tired, regardless of how you have the rotation set... it picked Fisher ahead of Cummings on my APLB Giants team. It looks like you can override that by putting the guy you want to pitch more as the #1 and #3.

[darkhorse]

Originally posted by NYJuggalo45
why do have only 2 pitchers would be the bigger question i think

It's 1872 in the APLB and that's probably all the pitchers the team has.

[darkhorse]

Originally posted by MannyTrillo
it picked Fisher ahead of Cummings on my APLB Giants team.

I'll guess the Giants finished last in 1871 and Cummings was the first selection in the ammy draft overall and that the 1872 Giants are far from the cellar this go round.

A stud pitcher has a massive impact in this ancient era of base-ball.

Candy Cummings

[Le Grande Orange]

Don't forget that in that era (1871-1880 or so) teams would only play around 3 games per week ordinarily. Games were typically played on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, particularly during the early years of the NL (the NA was a bit more chaotic).

Having only 3 games per week should help the two pitchers be a little less tired. It would mean using a more era-appropriate schedule as opposed to one generated by OOTP.

I happen to have the real schedules if anyone wants to get an idea of what they looked like.

[darkhorse]

Originally posted by MannyTrillo
If you're playing a deadball era league

The 19th century was hardly a deadball era. Offense was rampant during the 1870's and 1890's.

[Gastric ReFlux]

The 19th century was hardly a deadball era. Offense was rampant during the 1870's and 1890's.

Cuz of the way pitchers threw and the fielders' gloves.

[darkhorse]

Originally posted by Le Grande Orange
Don't forget that in that era (1871-1880 or so) teams would only play around 3 games per week ordinarily.

Indeed. I use a hand made 30 game schedule for the 1871 season and a hand made 60 game schedule for 1872. Games are spaced out to cover the full April to September baseball schedule and this helps greatly to reduce pitcher fatigue and player injury in an era when rosters and pitching staffs are tiny. It also benefits player development.

[darkhorse]

Originally posted by Gastric ReFlux
and the fielders' gloves.

If you are referring to the lack thereof, then yes, it certainly adds a degree of difficulty to fielding when the bare hand is the weapon of choice.

[MannyTrillo]

Originally posted by darkhorse
I'll guess the Giants finished last in 1871 and Cummings was the first selection in the ammy draft overall and that the 1872 Giants are far from the cellar this go round.

A stud pitcher has a massive impact in this ancient era of base-ball.

Not exactly. The owner of the team in the 1871 season was run out of town, and the team was taken over by a true baseball genius whose shrewd manoueverings have turned the team completely around, taking them to first place a month into the season.

Oh, and incidentally, the team did take Cummings with the first pick in the '72 draft, he's 8-1, 1.11 so far.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally posted by darkhorse
I use a hand made 30 game schedule for the 1871 season and a hand made 60 game schedule for 1872. Games are spaced out to cover the full April to September baseball schedule...

First, congrats on making your own schedules. No easy feat that, especially then having to get the info into OOTP.

Here's a quick rundown on when some of the seasons actually started and ended or were scheduled to start and end:

1871: May 4 to October 30
1872: April 18 to October 31
1873: April 14 to November 1
1874: April 16 to October 30
1875: April 19 to October 30

1876: April 22 to October 21
1877: April 30 to October 6
1878: May 1 to September 30
1879: May 1 to September 30
1880: May 1 to September 30
1881: May 2 to September 30
1882: May 1 to September 30 (NL); May 2 to October 3 (AA)
1883: May 1 to September 29 (NL); May 1 to September 30 (AA)
1884: May 1 to October 11 (NL); May 1 to October 16 (AA); April 30 to October 15 (UA)
1885: May 1 to October 10 (NL); April 18 to October 1 (AA)

It's interesting to note that in the very early years, in spite of fairly short schedules in terms of games played, teams still had many days in which to play those games.

[darkhorse]

Originally posted by Le Grande Orange
It's interesting to note that in the very early years, in spite of fairly short schedules in terms of games played, teams still had many days in which to play those games.

I'd hazard a guess that modes of transportation available at the time were conducive to spread out schedules.

[darkhorse]

Originally posted by MannyTrillo
Oh, and incidentally, the team did take Cummings with the first pick in the '72 draft, he's 8-1, 1.11 so far.

Any other selection would have resulted in a lynch mob at the team headquarters.