Pitching Stragegy: closer vs stopper

[Charlatan]

Hey everyone. Hope you're enjoying the virtual baseball season so far.

I've got a question about the relief pitcher roles stopper and closer. Here's the difference in the roles, according to the OOTP 21 manual:

• Closer: The closer is used primarily in the 9th inning of games that your team is winning.
• Stopper: Stoppers will be used to finish games when your team is winning or the score is close, and can be set to come in a little sooner than a closer does.

I am not sure Perfect Team modifies the roles at all, but it appears you can only bring your closer in from the 8th onward (and I have no idea what "8+ or later" means vs. "8th or later").

My situation is this: I just purchased a reliever who's head and shoulders above the rest of the bullpen, and I was thinking "why not make him a stopper? That way he'll get used as much as the closer, and in more important situations."

But I'm wondering if the two roles are designed to be exclusive: that is, if you use a stopper, you shouldn't use a closer, and vice versa. Plus, I wonder if having a stopper means your closer would get half as much work... so he'd be better in a different role. So the questions are:

1. Can you (should you?) use a stopper with a closer? Or just one of those roles?
2. Does a stopper cannibalize closer or setup opportunities?

Thanks in advance for any replies!

[TheNamelessPoet]

Stoppers are often used in more than 1 inning so it's better to have a guy with more stamina.

[neugey]

For me, I found things got really weird whenever I've tried to incorporate a stopper and a closer. But maybe I wasn't doing it right.

If I have a reliever that is quite good in addition to the closer, sometimes I will give him the Use More Often setting in a middle relief slot and I end up being fairly happy with his usage.

[TheNamelessPoet]

last season in PT, I used a SP as a closer. I THINK it was deGrom, that I set as the Stopper and he was a BEAST

[chazzycat]

Last year stoppers were basically a cheat code. Throw in a couple SP as stoppers and watch them soak up all the bullpen innings, save roster spots for more bats.

This year they have changed how stamina works for SP in RP roles. Basically they can still throw more pitchers than a normal reliever, but, they need more rest in between appearances. They won't pitch back to back days anymore. They may end up with 100 IP by the end of the season, but not 140+ like last year. As a result the strategy is not nearly as strong.

[TheNamelessPoet]

Originally Posted by chazzycat

Last year stoppers were basically a cheat code. Throw in a couple SP as stoppers and watch them soak up all the bullpen innings, save roster spots for more bats.

This year they have changed how stamina works for SP in RP roles. Basically they can still throw more pitchers than a normal reliever, but, they need more rest in between appearances. They won't pitch back to back days anymore. They may end up with 100 IP by the end of the season, but not 140+ like last year. As a result the strategy is not nearly as strong.

I can't believe it never dawned on me to use more than one lol. And now that I think about it it was actually in 18 not 19 but wow I really could have built a good team then with 3 stoppers lol