My pitching staff is underperforming, do I need to fire my pitching coach?

[mortmachine]

Attached are (1) my pitching stats after 63 games, (2) a snapshot of my staff, and (3) my coaching staff... I feel like my starters are underperforming -- they've been going through a stretch where they seem to get lit up early in games. (Although my bullpen has been performing better than I'd have expected...) And they're getting lit up by teams at the bottom of offensive categories. I'm only in my third season of playing OOTP, so I'm still figuring stuff out, but I'm wondering if my pitching coach is to blame. I hadn't paid much attention to the personalities of my staff, but now I notice that my pitching coach struggles with personable people, and my manager is personable. Is that enough of a problem to throw a monkey wrench into his coaching? Or am I expecting too much from my staff? What else should I be looking at? Any advice is appreciated, TIA!

[kq76]

How's your defense? You can't really evaluate your staff without looking at the defense behind them.

Do you play out and manage your games or let the game sim? It might take some learning, but I think I usually manage my staff (when to pull SPs, etc) better than the AI. When there's that much of a disparity between starter and bullpen rankings, I can't help but think the SPs maybe not being pulled fast enough (and that's with my disliking how few innings SPs typically pitch nowadays). If you don't play out your games, there is a hook SPs slider you can adjust.

I don't think the stats on those screenshots are really that telling of how good pitchers are. I'd prefer to see stats like SIERA (ERA can be misleading), FIP, WHIP, K% (K/9 can be misleading), BB%, HR% (but it's not in the game).

The Starters' ERA ranking of 13th in the AL is troubling (I think a staff's ERA is more telling than a single pitcher's ERA), but I'm not sure it's something to freak out about. I do like the main ratings of your SPs, regardless of their overalls.

Who was your previous 4th SP? Are they better than your current 4th and 5th, they're just injured?

As for the chemistry of your coaches, I would never replace an "outstanding" pitching coach simply because he might not get along the greatest with your manager. How well they coach is far more important in my mind.

[Brad K]

Don't do anything.

[mortmachine]

I have been letting my AI manager handle lineups, pitching changes, pinch hitters, etc... but I haven't been happy with his decisions. I should take over all of that -- I am playing out games. Here's more of the detailed stats... My top four starters have been Lopez, Rodriguez, Paddack, and Ryan, with Varland getting injured early on and Detmers being the fill-in 5th. My defense is generally good, but the AI makes poor decisions there too! Thanks for the advice!

[Brad K]

Oh, well don't let the computer manager do all that!

Check the box legacy mode where GMs control lineups. Set rotation to always start highest rested.

I edit the computer manager to reflect my preferences and then let the computer manage the games except for substitutions.

[Highlander]

Just based on stats, it looks like bad luck and bad defense are bigger culprits than your pitching coach. When your ERA, BABIP and defensive metrics are all ranked really low, but your Ks and BBs are ranked pretty high, that signals that the balls that are hit are either dropping in at a very unlucky rate or your defense is just poor or both. I'd work on seeing if you can improve defense in a few key spots and just hope for some better luck on your BABIP.

[mortmachine]

Makes sense! Thanks for all the responses, much appreciated!

[Pdubya64]

I'd agree with the others here. Having just watched Old School Sports capture the World Series in his 5th season as GM of the Oakland A's, I can definitely say that his top-ranked in the AL defense made it possible while utilizing 3-3.5 star pitchers.
Things came together once he traded for Colt Keith in the 4th year off-season and Keith and Soderstrom enabled the team to score enough to get them into the playoffs.

[md40022]

Regarding your original question about the pitching coach; its been my experience that changing a coach can help a little bit but I've never seen a coaching change turn something bad into something good. So to your original question, you might see a little improvement but that won't be a problem fixer.

Like others have said, make sure your defense is up to par. Not just with the obvious defensive stats, but also the player ratings defensively as well. Great defensive CF, SS, and 2B can make huge differences. Also though, 63 games is just a third of a season. It's not out of the question that you could just be dealing with a little bad luck here that will correct itself as the season progresses. I wouldn't make any drastic overreactions yet if I were in your shoes.

[Vezna31]

I recently watched a Youtube video on coaching and it totally changed my approach to how i pick a coach. The first thing I did was shortlist my entire organization. Then i looked at they performed the job duties rather than the reputation. I place a lot of emphasis on mechanics, development, and aging. Attached is a screenshot of my coaches.

[Syd Thrift]

To pile on here, you’re spending all this time worrying about your coach and meanwhile you’ve got the 4th worst DR and 2nd worst ZR in the league. Your defense sucks and it’s making your pitching look worse than it really is. You can change your pitching coach if you want to, I guess, but this strikes me as rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic.

[SalTnutZ1]

That defense seems like the issue to me. What’re your defenders ratings and stats at their positions? Seems like a lot high BABIP if it’s a pitching or pitching coach issue, more likely defenders with poor range for their position from my experience.

[md40022]

Yeah, the high BABIP would definitely go hand in hand with the really bad defensive zone rating.

I know it's tough if some of those bad defenders are big sticks, but shoring up the defense would be priority #1 to help fix the pitching. Especially the up the middle positions; C, SS, 2B, CF.

[mortmachine]

I'm up to 91 games, and with a little more focus on defense and controlling substitutions during games, BABIP has dropped from .306 to .291, defensive efficiency has increased from .682 to .698 and zone rating has improved from -6.6 to -4.0. In a nutshell, here's my defensive ratings for the bulk of the innings this season:

C: 65 blocking, 55 framing, 55 arm
CF: 75 range, 70 error, 70 arm
SS: 65 range, 70 arm, 60 turn DP, 65 error
2B: 65 range, 65 turn DP, 70 error, 55 arm
3B: 65 range, 55 arm, 60 error
RF: 45 range, 80 arm
LF: 60 range, 60 arm
1B: 35 range

My 2B started the season filling in at SS, and once my regular SS returned I moved him to 2B, where he hadn't played before. (Actually, my manager made that decision, and I rolled with it.). Looking at his zone rating stats for 2B (-3.9), I think that was a big mistake. I don't recall what his position rating started at for 2B, but it's up to 65/70 now, so I'm guessing that ZR will keep moving up. That RF'ers ZR is -4.1 -- I recently moved him to DH and threw my LF'er into RF and a guy with 50 range into LF. I suspect that might help a little bit... But I bet I learned a valuable lesson here -- don't have someone learn a new position at the major league level.

[Syd Thrift]

The first thing I see is that RF isn't really a dump position. It's easily the 2nd most important OF position and yes, range does matter. A 65 middle infield is really about average so maybe it was bad luck or a big park, I don't know. That doesn't look like a top 1 or even top 5 in a 15 team league defense but it should be league average if that's really the group that's playing together the entire season.

ETA: ah, the SS didn't have experience at the position, so probably he was effectively like a 40 or something for a while. Hopefully he's trained up to be decent overall now. The game does a decent job at grading guys and IME 60 overall for SS/2B defense is where you should start looking for guys if you want a team that doesn't give up a lot of runs in the field.

[jksander]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

The first thing I see is that RF isn't really a dump position. It's easily the 2nd most important OF position and yes, range does matter. A 65 middle infield is really about average so maybe it was bad luck or a big park, I don't know. That doesn't look like a top 1 or even top 5 in a 15 team league defense but it should be league average if that's really the group that's playing together the entire season.

ETA: ah, the SS didn't have experience at the position, so probably he was effectively like a 40 or something for a while. Hopefully he's trained up to be decent overall now. The game does a decent job at grading guys and IME 60 overall for SS/2B defense is where you should start looking for guys if you want a team that doesn't give up a lot of runs in the field.

Yeah with that 45 range and 80 arm, I'd say the guy has a howitzer when he can make a crazy throw in a crunch, but he doesn't necessarily have the ability to go after a play if the ball doesn't go straight at him ... if I'm understanding that rating correctly.

[Brad K]

I think the poor defense is a combination of OTJ training for the SS and bad luck.

BTW, if you put together a great defense you end up paying the pitchers more.

[Pelican]

Further piling on, going back to managing your staff. They look overused, based on today's low standard of durability. Depending on your strategy settings, the AI can keep SP in the game too long. That's doubly bad, when they don't pitch effectively and are worn out. Your bullpen looks good, and as manager you can use it more. That approach plays into the default settings for contemporary pitching, which reflect the pathetic durability of pitchers raised on a pitch count.

This may verge on micro-managing, but I use the pitch location/type/speed widget to monitor pitcher performance. As a SP tires, you may see his pitch speed diminish, location not as sharp, and as a result giving up hard hits (even if some are outs). And the pitch count mounts. No bueno. If your SP has thrown a hundred pitches in five innings, in 2024 it is time to go.

And finally, to be kind, your staff is not the 2011 Phillies. Some talent there, but no better than middle of the pack in MLB. All the more reason to use that bullpen, which looks deep.

[jksander]

Originally Posted by Pelican

This may verge on micro-managing, but I use the pitch location/type/speed widget to monitor pitcher performance. As a SP tires, you may see his pitch speed diminish, location not as sharp, and as a result giving up hard hits (even if some are outs). And the pitch count mounts. No bueno. If your SP has thrown a hundred pitches in five innings, in 2024 it is time to go.

Is this a scoreboard widget for in-game when coaching out a game? I've heard of those, but have never figured out how to customize that part of the game.

[mortmachine]

Thanks for all the responses everybody, definitely appreciated!