Relief Pitcher Stamina - Historical League

[ALB123]

I've been getting very frustrated with relief pitcher stamina this in-game season, 1993. I auto-import modifiers and whatnot each season and for 1993, in League Settings > Stats & AI I noticed that for DH leagues the default setting is 6 relief pitchers...meaning AL teams have 11 team pitchers on the Active Roster. Pitcher Stamina, lower down on the same screen, defaults to Low for 1993.

I'm only 13 games into the season and things are not right, in my opinion. Each turn through the 5 man rotation, I practically need to throw 2 complete games otherwise my Bullpen will be totally shot. I use Mariano Rivera in a setup role. His Stamina is 35 (20-80 by 5 scale). If he throws 25-30 pitches, he will not be back to 100% full energy until 5 days later, like my Starting Pitchers. I refuse to use an RP unless their energy is at least 80% and usually won't use him unless he's 85%.or higher. Using Rivera as my example again, if I were to bring him in for 25-30 pitches and then use him two or three days later for even something like 5-7 pitches, he will now be at 0% and I'll be lucky if I have him back to 80-85% in five days.

I was afraid I accidentally changed something while perusing League Settings > Stats & AI. Like, maybe the default setting was to have seven relief pitchers for AL teams and somehow I accidentally change it to 6. Or maybe Pitcher Stamina was supposed to be on Normal and I inadvertently changed it to Low. So, I created a brand new testing Historic league beginning in 1993. I compared screenshots and was able to confirm I did not accidentally change a single setting in my normal, regular league.

I want to keep things as realistic as possible, so if the imported 1993 settings say only 6 relievers should be the default and Pitcher Stamina needs to be set to Low, that's what I want to use, but if my starting pitcher gets torched and lasts only 2-3 innings. My bullpen is going to explode. Normally, my SPs who recently pitched will be recovering at a regular pace. The day before they're finally back to 100% (the day they're due to pitch), they'll often be at 79%-85% meaning that the final day of rest gives them a 15% to 21% improvement in one day. Last week, I was keeping an eye on three RPs in particular. Again, Mariano Rivera was one of them. He was at 93% rest after pitching a few days ago and after one more full day of rest, he only improved to 98%. I've seen other small improvements with my other RPs that don't make sense, to me, at all.

Anyone?

[1991Twins]

In my historical games, I always edit the strategy to make both leagues be the same. Due to "low" stamina, I use 7 relievers for each league. I have been very happy with the results. Your bullpen does not burn out quite as fast. Plus, 4-5 hitters on the bench is more than enough for strategy.

[ALB123]

Originally Posted by 1991Twins

In my historical games, I always edit the strategy to make both leagues be the same. Due to "low" stamina, I use 7 relievers for each league. I have been very happy with the results. Your bullpen does not burn out quite as fast. Plus, 4-5 hitters on the bench is more than enough for strategy.

I made the executive decision to use 7 relief pitchers. I'm already seeing a bit of a difference. I think it's still going to be a bit rough on the less talented teams, but not quite as bad as with only 6 arms in the pen.

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by ALB123

I auto-import modifiers and whatnot each season and for 1993, in League Settings > Stats & AI I noticed that for DH leagues the default setting is 6 relief pitchers...meaning AL teams have 11 team pitchers on the Active Roster. Pitcher Stamina, lower down on the same screen, defaults to Low for 1993.

That sounds about right to me. That being said, I have no idea what the "Pitcher Stamina" values mean in the league settings. I get that it's a global modifier for fatigue, but does anyone know what "Low," for instance, actually equates to? I also assume that the default stamina value is factored into the individual ratings for pitchers, so that a pitcher in 1993 with a stamina of 35 would be a "low 35," in comparison to someone, say, with a 35 rating in a year where the default stamina value is "normal" or "high." Can anyone confirm that?

I'll also add that pitcher stamina ratings are, at times, completely baffling to me. I'd expect that pitchers who routinely started would get higher stamina ratings than pitchers who primarily relieved, if for no other reason than that starters are expected to last at least five innings per outing. Even if they didn't in real life, they should have the ability to last that long. But that's not what I see in practice. In my experience, OOTP penalizes starters who don't start many games or log many innings by giving them low stamina ratings. That's true even if those pitchers didn't start many games primarily because they weren't very good, not because they didn't have enough stamina. Those pitchers get penalized twice - bad pitching ratings and low stamina - for what is really just their bad pitching.

Originally Posted by ALB123

I'm only 13 games into the season and things are not right, in my opinion. Each turn through the 5 man rotation, I practically need to throw 2 complete games otherwise my Bullpen will be totally shot. I use Mariano Rivera in a setup role.

Well, that might be your problem right there. Rivera was a low-A minor-leaguer in 1993. And he was a starter who averaged less than four innings per start. He's a guy who really shouldn't have a high stamina, especially if he's on a major-league roster.

You don't say how you're playing your games. If you're only 13 games into your season, I'm assuming that you play out each of your games rather than simming them. If so, you might be managing your 1993 team like it's 2020. Starters tended to go deeper into games back then than they do today. In '93, each team probably carried a seventh-inning reliever, an eighth-inning reliever, and a closer, along with maybe a LOOGY. Each of those relievers (except the LOOGY) would be expected to throw at least an inning. If you're swapping out pitchers like Joe Madden on steroids, however, you're probably going to run into fatigue problems with your staff.

[ALB123]

Thanks for the response, joefromchicago!!

I do play my games out manually and I normally have starters going 7-8 with many lasting longer. I just checked my Pitching Stats. We've played 43 games so far and my starting rotation has 15 complete games. Some quick math says all of my pitchers have thrown a total of 381.0 innings thus far. 322.1 innings belong to my starting pitchers and 58.2 Innings belong to my bullpen. So, I'm going easy on my bullpen.

Unfortunately, since I made the original post, I went into the league settings and on the Stats & AI page, I changed "Pitcher Stamina" from Low to Normal. It's interesting. When you change that setting it updates your pitcher's Stamina percentage immediately. Check it out and you'll see how much of a difference it makes dropping down to Low. I couldn't fathom setting that you Very Low.

I am not trying to do a seasonal replay league. I started in 1981 and from the first pitch of the season, I was on my own parallel universe timeline using the OOTP development engine without yearly recalcs from the real-life stats. While I adhere to the broad overview of the MLB from year to year, you're right...I'm not using Mariano Rivera the way he was used in real life, but should it really matter? When he was drafted, he was designated a Closer, which we all know wasn't even close to being true. I probably rushed him a bit and I'm thinking of sending him back down to AAA to get more innings, but that's another topic...

Mariano's Stamina is a 35. So, I'm well aware of his Stamina limitations. Two innings from him is very dependent upon his pitch count which isn't normally in his favor because he's young and stupid.

Even with League Settings > Pitcher Stamina set to Normal, this seemed weird to me. Mariano entered a game and threw 11 pitches. His stamina the day after the game was 91%. We had that day off so everyone was able to rest. The following day Mo's stamina was 96%. I didn't use him that day either. The next day, his third day off since throwing 11 pitches finally got him back to 100%. That seems a little weird to me.

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by ALB123

Even with League Settings > Pitcher Stamina set to Normal, this seemed weird to me. Mariano entered a game and threw 11 pitches. His stamina the day after the game was 91%. We had that day off so everyone was able to rest. The following day Mo's stamina was 96%. I didn't use him that day either. The next day, his third day off since throwing 11 pitches finally got him back to 100%. That seems a little weird to me.

My focus lately has been on starting pitchers, so I haven't really paid any attention to relievers, but that does seem odd, especially given the overuse of relievers in recent years (we still need to see how the new 3-batter-minimum rule will affect reliever usage over a full season). Surely all of those lefty relievers who pitched to one or two batters in successive games weren't reduced to exhausted wrecks because they threw 25 pitches over the course of three or four days.

Just thinking off the top of my head here, but maybe the stamina/fatigue values that you're seeing are being used by the game for something else. Possibly they act as a break to prevent overusing relievers in an ahistorical manner and to spread out appearances among the bullpen staff. That, however, would seem to be better handled by strategy settings rather than by a global modifier.