AI Use and Spot Starts

[Syd Thrift]

I've noticed now that the AI will flat out not use spot starters, like, ever. Even if you set a guy to be the "emergency starter" it appears that player will only be used if someone in the rotation is actually injured and has to miss that time through the rotation. Needless to say, this is far from ideal when it comes to historical play and is even a really bad thing in the modern game. Spot starters do get used even now. Teams very rarely play doubleheaders anymore, which I think wind up being the biggest place where you/the AI might have to go to them in actual game situations, but nevertheless there are going to be situations even in 2021 where you have no available rested starters and you should instead go to someone in the bullpen.

One big, big thing here to me: at no point should the AI *ever* try to start an exhausted pitcher, period, unless there are literally no other pitchers on the team who could start. Here's a general flowchart that I think would work OK:

1. Use the original choice for the starter unless they're below 90%.
2. Scan the rotation and if there's another player above 90%, start them instead, regardless of whether or not this breaks the "use strict rotation" logic.
3. If nobody in the rotation is at 90%+, use the designated emergency starter or long reliever.
4. If the LR/emergency starter is not a 90%+ as a starter, go back through steps 1-3 but lower the threshold to 60%. (alternatively since computers are good at iteration, repeat these steps over and over at 5% stamina increments, so once at 85%, then at 80%, etc.)
5. If you still get this far, use any reliever available, so long as they are rated as a starter (i.e. they have 3 or more decent pitches and a high enough Stamina).
6. If you're this far and you still can't come up with a starter, go through steps 1-5 and this time use a threshold of 50%.
7. At this point, the AI should be in desperation mode: use any rested pitcher, regardless of stamina or number of pitches. Yeah, they'll probably only get you like 4 or 5 innings before they get slammed but at this point it's better than any other alternative.
8. Still nobody? Yikes! Call someone up from the minor leagues. Use the DFA list if you have to.
9. If you literally have nobody you can even call up from the minor leagues or your reserve roster, okay, at this point you can start cycling through the above steps for an available starter at 45% or lower.

Once the spot starter is used, the AI should go back to the spot in the rotation for the next game and proceed normally (of course). What I mean by this is, if the AI has to go down this checklist because the #2 starter is too tired to start and it has to use some rando miiddle reliever on a Tuesday, on Wednesday it should try to use the #2 starter again and, if that player is still too tired to pitch, go through the workflow above again.

Hope that makes sense! Like I said, this is a thing that will likely have bigger play for historical leagues but it has lots and lots of application to modern leagues, not to mention multiplayer leagues.

[BBGiovanni]

I am on board with this, although I couldn't have articulated it so well. It can be a real irritant in the playoffs and especially spring training, even when I manage every game. It's not immediately obvious in the pregame screen (in v.21 anyway) that the pitcher is gassed or will be after an inning.

IIRC High Heat used to let you set a flat percentage chance that the spot/emergency guy started. I think that would be fun/useful to have available assuming per your algorithm the AI isn't picking to start a guy that's fatigued.

[Syd Thrift]

Yeah... correct me if I'm wrong but didn't previous versions of OOTP have this too? I don't think the percentages ever worked right but the idea was there at least.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

Yeah... correct me if I'm wrong but didn't previous versions of OOTP have this too? I don't think the percentages ever worked right but the idea was there at least.

Yes, it was…I always assumed it worked because I know it did at one time.

[micropterus58]

It worked well for me. I would get the spot starter a half dozen starts this way.

[Leo_The_Lip]

The 'call a guy up from the minors' has been much utilized in the past. As someone who lives in a minor league city, I can tell you this used to happen a lot when Richmond was at the AAA level, not so much now that it is AA. Now a days, once you've used an option on a guy, you have an unlimited 'up and down' for a year, so why not?

This would require substantial AI code to implement however, so I'm not going to hold my breath.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by Leo_The_Lip

The 'call a guy up from the minors' has been much utilized in the past. As someone who lives in a minor league city, I can tell you this used to happen a lot when Richmond was at the AAA level, not so much now that it is AA. Now a days, once you've used an option on a guy, you have an unlimited 'up and down' for a year, so why not?

This would require substantial AI code to implement however, so I'm not going to hold my breath.

I am advocating for this...or at the very least, the 10 day send down rule. There is another thread about it somewhere around. I think it might be in the BETA forums however.

[itsmb8]

Originally Posted by Leo_The_Lip

The 'call a guy up from the minors' has been much utilized in the past. As someone who lives in a minor league city, I can tell you this used to happen a lot when Richmond was at the AAA level, not so much now that it is AA. Now a days, once you've used an option on a guy, you have an unlimited 'up and down' for a year, so why not?

This would require substantial AI code to implement however, so I'm not going to hold my breath.

I'm on-board with this as well, would be great to see. My Brewers have used Ashby and Bettinger in this situation.

Additionally, late in the season, if teams used this to so top starters would start in key games vs cupcake games, that would be a huge bonus.

[billyray1984]

Are we 100% sure that the AI will not use spot starters ? I'm playing as the Expos in the 70's and as you pointed out in the previous thread, the scedule in those days was grueling to say the least, with 25+ days without a day off and multiple double headers in 15 days being common.

After reading your post, I found myself in a situation yesterday where everyone in my rotation was exhausted and the only bullpen arm that wasn't exhausted was my long reliever, who is also listed as an emergency starter as a second role.

Usually, I would just plug in the long reliever by hand in the rotation and hope he could give me at least 5 innings, but I didn't. I just left him there, with the next starter in line being Dick Ruthven who was at something like 17%. I checked the boxscore after simming the game and the game actually put my long reliever in as a spot starter.

None of my starters were injured before the game or during the game, just to be clear. He also ended up pitching a shutout game allowing only 4 hits.

[Leo_The_Lip]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

I am advocating for this...or at the very least, the 10 day send down rule. There is another thread about it somewhere around. I think it might be in the BETA forums however.

The opposite used to be in effect in the early 1960's. That is, once you called a guy up, you could not send him back down until ten days had elapsed. I remember one time the Mets called up Ed Bouchee and he was horrible. Even Lindsey Nelson said on the air, "The Mets can't wait for the 10 days to be up so they can ship Bouchee back to Syracuse."