Spring Training and Rust

[fintach]

How exactly does rust work, when it comes to spring training? How many at-bats or innings-pitched do the veterans really need? I'd really like to evaluate more of my minor leaguers this season, but I don't want to risk my veterans' readiness.

[Miamikb2001]

I would love a definitive answer too.In my experience I usually get my starting pitchers 20-25 innings and reliever 6-10.For starting lineup anywhere from 50-60 Abs.I use to play prospects more but often got off to slow starts.Just my two cents nothing scientifically tested but I have played out an enormous amount of OOTP in the last few years literally thousands of games lol!


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[BirdWatcher]

I hear this, but I also remember discussions I heard while watching MLB games earlier this season about the variation from player to player and between position players and pitchers in terms of what it took to get ready for the regular season.
While I doubt that OOTP has as much variability built in (and maybe basically no variability, I don't know) since the idea is to give a gamer the feeling of running an actual baseball team, I think having clear cut answers to these sorts of questions actually is counter to that intention. For my money, that would be far too gamey.

The best way to learn is by doing, by playing the game, by monitoring the results, and adjusting accordingly. If someone is just giving you the answers, if you know exactly how the game is coded, where is the fun or challenge in that?

And let me please clarify that this isn't a criticism of the OP question. Always valid to ask for feedback from other OOTP'ers. I suppose mostly I am responding to Miamikb2001's first sentence: "I would love a definitive answer too." I read this sort of sentiment here all the time. And my reaction is, oh god, please no. So much of the charm of OOTP is that the answers aren't just given to you. You earn them by learning them. And you learn them by playing the game. And, as I often say, failing and trying again and failing better, etc.

[redranger]

I’m kinda with BirdWatcher on this one. The charm absolutely is the value of your experience in playing and learning the game. So many aspects are like this

I have always been one to really play my prospects a great deal and just keep my regulars spotted in. Particularly mostly at the start of spring. I use it to teach new positions to players that fit that mold in my system that maybe don’t have a rating or is low etc

I’ve never really noticed by playing so many that I know won’t end up on my opening day has made an impact on me starting slow persay. Seems to happen regardless if it does

I really value the AA and AAA competition amongst guys I’m trying to build fir the future and how it may affect them for me in those lineups or levels placement not even being the short term for my opening day

Just recently I signed an on the verge AAA/MLB RF with the thoughts he was going to be my bust through player to make the roster. His ratings looked very promising but only a past September call up for MLB experience. He had a god awful spring and a player that I didn’t have high in my sights blew him away in competition in spring (also while learning a new position). I had the latter make opening day roster

Needless to say by mid May he was hitting a buck eight two and was sent back down to AAA and the guy I signed (btw having good #’s in AAA) was called up. Only about another month in but the signee is batting .325 for me in a platoon role in RF/DH


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[fredbeene]

I would like to see all the SPRING TRAINING stats sortable and retained (or option to retain them). This will help me see who is hot for potential trade.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by BirdWatcher

I hear this, but I also remember discussions I heard while watching MLB games earlier this season about the variation from player to player and between position players and pitchers in terms of what it took to get ready for the regular season.
While I doubt that OOTP has as much variability built in (and maybe basically no variability, I don't know) since the idea is to give a gamer the feeling of running an actual baseball team, I think having clear cut answers to these sorts of questions actually is counter to that intention. For my money, that would be far too gamey.

The best way to learn is by doing, by playing the game, by monitoring the results, and adjusting accordingly. If someone is just giving you the answers, if you know exactly how the game is coded, where is the fun or challenge in that?

And let me please clarify that this isn't a criticism of the OP question. Always valid to ask for feedback from other OOTP'ers. I suppose mostly I am responding to Miamikb2001's first sentence: "I would love a definitive answer too." I read this sort of sentiment here all the time. And my reaction is, oh god, please no. So much of the charm of OOTP is that the answers aren't just given to you. You earn them by learning them. And you learn them by playing the game. And, as I often say, failing and trying again and failing better, etc.

Completely agree.

[NoOne]

it is relative to how much time they missed, which for most is the same in ST... injury shortened seasons are possible. so, maybe not the ceiling, though?

anyway, it woudl be so difficult to hammer this out... you'd need so much data to clearly see this impact except in extreme cases... but as it tailed off, it'd require those larger sample sizes to resolve beyond all the other factors at play.

plus, with any better player, it's still best to bring him back themoment they re better than the replacement, which is usually a low bar... as long as it doen't increase injury rate.

[Brad K]

Agree with the above. I don't want to know how everything works.

[fintach]

Ah, distracted posting. It can lead to the worst phrasing. Sorry about that.

Believe me. I hear you guys about not wanting hard and fast rules, or to know every detail of how the mechanics of it work behind the scenes. That's not actually my goal here, and I should've been clear about that from the outset.

It's just that, in all the time I've played this game, I've never really used spring training the way actual Major League teams do. And I wanted to give it a shot. Let a few of my top AAA pitchers start a few games instead of maybe seeing a few relief innings here and there. Have a real competition for my starting left fielder. That kind of thing.

But doing these things means risking opening-day readiness. In real life, I'd have meetings with my coaching staff for their opinions about who needs more work and so on.

But I can't do that. So I thought I'd check here, where I know there are players who make me look like a rookie. Figured maybe someone could give me ballpark numbers from their own experience, or maybe a sense of how much difference -- if any -- age or work ethic make.

[BirdWatcher]

Originally Posted by fintach

Ah, distracted posting. It can lead to the worst phrasing. Sorry about that.

Believe me. I hear you guys about not wanting hard and fast rules, or to know every detail of how the mechanics of it work behind the scenes. That's not actually my goal here, and I should've been clear about that from the outset.

It's just that, in all the time I've played this game, I've never really used spring training the way actual Major League teams do. And I wanted to give it a shot. Let a few of my top AAA pitchers start a few games instead of maybe seeing a few relief innings here and there. Have a real competition for my starting left fielder. That kind of thing.

But doing these things means risking opening-day readiness. In real life, I'd have meetings with my coaching staff for their opinions about who needs more work and so on.

But I can't do that. So I thought I'd check here, where I know there are players who make me look like a rookie. Figured maybe someone could give me ballpark numbers from their own experience, or maybe a sense of how much difference -- if any -- age or work ethic make.

I guess my take is that it makes a big difference how you play the game. What I mean is, someone like me, who takes things very slowly, moving day by day through the calendar year of my league, even in the off-season, can treat the pre-season exhibition games at least somewhat like they are treated in real life. Meaning that at the beginning of the schedule I make sure that guys who are very unlikely to make the big league roster on Opening Day get plenty of playing time while my veteran big league starting players still get innings but not as many as they will later in the Spring.

I'll admit that I don't have hard and fast rules. About, well, pretty much anything in life. I'm definitely a more right-brained dominant person so with OOTP, like most things, I go by intuition mostly. But I do have fairly regular spots along the way during the exhibition schedule where I adjust my lineups and start to demote guys who are definitely going to be minor leaguers come OD. Usually I have maybe one or two guys who are destined to start the season in AA but are quite good prospects who I will "invite" to the big league camp for a time and these guys are usually the ones to get a demotion soonest, unless one of them is just tearing things up (which has been known to happen for me.) So with the 30 game preseason schedule, I make my first cuts usually after about the first 10 games, then some more at the half-way point, again at game 20, and then gradually from there I whittle things down to the point where I am at about 26-27 players by the last few games in the exhibition season.
That way, as I am whittling down I also adjust my lineups and frequency that a backup will start to get my sure big leaguers more and more playing time as we approach OD.
Same thing with starting rotation but with fewer tweaks needed. I mostly just set my 6 guys and let it go by strict rotation but down the stretch run of the pre-season schedule I'll narrow that down to 5. With the bullpen it is just a matter of monitoring how many innings the guys are getting and making sure I don't have so many guys in the 'pen the second half of the pre-season that my main guys don't get their innings.

But, although I do play out every regular or post-season game for my team, I should note that I rarely ever play out pre-season games these days. I find that if I have set things up with care and make adjustments along the way the AI does a pretty good job of evening things out.
And, like in real life, sometimes a guy has a tremendous exhibition season and seems to be in mid-season form only to get off to a horrible start once the regular season swings into action and vice versa. I do, again, go day by day and look over the box scores of every pre-season game my team plays, monitoring performance and playing-time trends.

I have certainly had seasons where I felt in hindsight that I had let young players take too much of the playing time (particularly while trying to teach them new or mostly unfamiliar positions) and the big league club got off to a slow start. But maybe it had nothing to do with pre-season at all. Who knows?

This season, having done pretty much exactly what I described to you above, my team has been red-hot to start the season and now lead the league on May 10th with a 23-8 record. So, is it proof that I managed the pre-season right? Again, who knows. But I'll take it, whatever the cause.

[fintach]

Thank you for that. Seeing a different perspective -- especially going youth-heavy early and moving to veterans later -- helps.

I play out all my games, even spring training. I just like the hands-on feel of it.

[RchW]

I play as many ST invitees as possible and actually bench vets/regular players up to 5 days to prevent too many AB. My SP get 16-20 innings over 4-5 starts and good RP are benched 1-3 days at a time to force the AI into using the whole staff and keep innings around 15 max. Been doing this for decades, 60++ seasons x two saves. I rarely have problems at the start of the season. The few bad regular season starts I've had are talent/injury based not rust IMO. I also use players in their alternate positions a lot to increase the flexibility of the lineup.

YMMV

[Sweed]

I think the best guide is to look at the AI teams and see how many IP and PA it gives it's players. I did this many versions ago and it had me making small tweaks to what I was doing.

My basic goals are 50-60 PA, 20 IP for starters, and 8-10 IP for relievers.

[Brad K]

Set a 6 man rotation strict and the pitchers get 20 IP.

Set a depth chart with subs for the start on 3rd and 5th games and everyone gets 40-50 PAs

Have 7ish RPs and they get innings in the high teens.

EDIT clarification. A sub is set to start the third game at one position and the fifth game at another.

[oldfatbaldguy]

This is an interesting thread -- so many approaches.

I use a six-man rotation (often because I'm not completely sure what five I'll settle on) and stretch them out as the spring goes on. First start, 50 pitches, then 60, and so on. I have a similar system for relievers who are capable of going long; the guys who don't go long are on a 20-pitch count all spring.

For position players, I avoid starting anybody two days in a row, and more or less rotate everybody. In the second half of spring training I have multiple cut-down dates to gradually cull the roster toward 25.

[brotherblues]

I do 6 man rotation using only spring invitees for 2 rounds (sometimes 3) of starts first. Then I change it to my probable 5 plus anyone I wanna keep looking at as the 6th.

As far as I can tell, there's no need for more than 12 to 15 spring innings for my guys to start strong.

[JerseyPirate]

I also use a 6 man rotation so I can have that battle for the 5th spot in the rotation. I have my expected starters in the starting lineup and then I have a 2nd squad of a mix of battling bench players and young prospects that I setup to play every 2nd game. I move those players around to different positions so I can boost those defensive numbers up and make them better utility players.

Every 2nd game gives everyone plenty of AB's and rest.

[Syd Thrift]

As far as the "rust" aspect goes, I'm pretty sure that as soon as a player gets a single appearance, the rust falls off, although of course it can accumulate between that point and their next outing. Rust also IME affects injury proneness much more than actual ability and so in turn the most dangerous appearance for a player in ST will always be their first. Generally speaking, I think that if you're doing something where all the players who figure to be on your Opening Day roster get some use, you should be OK here.

Personally I don't pay super duper hard attention to ST except that I tend to use it to make a final determination as to who gets a job - it's preferable to me to doing a coin flip, basically (although sometimes you get a situation where one guy hits .260 and the other one hits .255 and you're right back to where you started).

There's also the fact that ST is the best time to train a player at a new position - I think every appearance counts, and not only that but it counts something like 3x as much as it would if you started them at said position in the regular season. I don't use this enough but especially if you have, like, a longtime outfielder whom you want to drop down to first base because you've got rangier guys to play at their old position, start them at first every game of ST and see where they are by the end of it. And of course IME younger players often don't have a lot of versatility so sometimes if you have a SS-only guy, you might want to put them out at 2B every game just so that you can have the choice to use them there once the season starts.

[BBGiovanni]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

Personally I don't pay super duper hard attention to ST except that I tend to use it to make a final determination as to who gets a job - it's preferable to me to doing a coin flip, basically (although sometimes you get a situation where one guy hits .260 and the other one hits .255 and you're right back to where you started).

Maybe OOTP isn't like real life here, but one month is barely going to be enough sample size to conclude anything even if a guy plays every game. IRL teams make a lot of mistakes with AAAA guys that suddenly hit everything for a couple of weeks or look like they're Babe Ruth against lefties a few times. Although since you're comparing it to a coin flip I suppose I agree in the end

As a "something different" approach, I usually set my lineups with the players I want to get work, learn new positions, etc, then play out the starting pitcher's appearance. Once they've gone 4 innings or so, I make subs I want in and sim the rest, or just sim the rest and let the AI figure it out. Also, I shorten MLB ST to 4 weeks and in fictional leagues use 2-3. It seems to work fine.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by BBGiovanni

Maybe OOTP isn't like real life here, but one month is barely going to be enough sample size to conclude anything even if a guy plays every game. IRL teams make a lot of mistakes with AAAA guys that suddenly hit everything for a couple of weeks or look like they're Babe Ruth against lefties a few times. Although since you're comparing it to a coin flip I suppose I agree in the end

100%. It's for sure a sub-optimal exercise, which is part of why I do it. The particular enjoyment I get from OOTP is by putting myself in the shoes of GMs/managers/etc. in the era I'm playing and trying to experience the game the way they might have done so. To get there I do stuff like the above, focusing more on BA/HR/RBI for hitters in eras past, ERA and wins for pitchers, and so on. Totally understand that this is not how very many people play but, well, OOTP allows you to do a lot of things...