Do Players Need Spring Training, Rehab Assignments?

[cwolfson]

In spring training, I typically have all my scrubs listed in the starting lineups and my regulars as backups/on the bench. They still get some PA, but this way I try to minimize their injury exposure.


Do players actually need spring training? If a guy gets little or no game play in spring training, will he be "underdone" for the start of the regular season?


And similarly, if a player is coming off an injury, do they need a rehab assignment to get up to speed, or can they be stuck right back in the lineup or rotation to full effect?

[Pelican]

Yes to both. ST is a way to stretch out starting pitchers, try guys at new positions, and of course to have a competition for roster spots. Also a great way to see if talented rookies are ready for the Show (MLB; not the video game). As IRL, early on I will play lots of young guys. The vets don’t travel to away games. Later in the Spring, the last couple of weeks. I like to have my regulars on the field together. I establish my rotation. Injuries are a risk as always; but that has not been a problem. And you may be identifying something that would be problem anyway. Pitchers with no ST may break down or lack stamina.

I like rehab assignments; but they are useless unless you make sure the rehabbing player is in the rotation or the starting lineup. That’s Step 2. Done properly, they are more likely to “hit the ground running” in the major leagues. Depends a bit on the type of injury. A player out for ten days with a hamstring pull or sore foot probably can go right back in the lineup. A pitcher out for several weeks with a sore arm needs time to crank back up in the minors.

[Sweed]

Players accumulate "rust" over the off season or anytime they are out of action for long periods of time.

ST "removes" the rust the same as rehab does in the regular season.

[snarls200]

As wesaw with other sports with limited preseason the last few years it also increases injuries early in the season

[oldfatbaldguy]

Originally Posted by Pelican

ST is a way to stretch out starting pitchers

I wish the AI stretched them out instead of just giving them four innings all spring. It would feel more realistic. I use a pitch count that increases as the preseason drones on.

[Pelican]

Originally Posted by oldfatbaldguy

I wish the AI stretched them out instead of just giving them four innings all spring. It would feel more realistic. I use a pitch count that increases as the preseason drones on.

You are correct on that. I’ve seen the same thing. Four innings is probably too many, right out of the box, and definitely too few, late in ST. So I normally will intervene, that last week, when I am also making cuts. But I suppose this “cheeses” the game, because the other 29 teams are not letting their starters go more than four innings?

[BirdWatcher]

Originally Posted by Pelican

You are correct on that. I’ve seen the same thing. Four innings is probably too many, right out of the box, and definitely too few, late in ST. So I normally will intervene, that last week, when I am also making cuts. But I suppose this “cheeses” the game, because the other 29 teams are not letting their starters go more than four innings?

I'm curious if this is strictly true.
I recently completed my first Spring Training in OOTP 23 and due to some of the comments in this thread I paid attention to the use of my starting pitchers late in the exhibition schedule.
I don't control anything in ST other than setting up the basic lineups and pitching roles and making cuts along the way to the roster- whittling down the roster so that by the last week or so we are down to near the regular season active roster, with a few cuts to be made prior to Opening Day.
What I saw was that my starting pitchers, in their final outings of SP, went at least 5 innings and some into the 6th. I wasn't paying close attention to pitch counts so I'm not sure how that correlates. And it was only in the final start that I saw them getting stretched out.
But I did indeed see them getting stretched out at the end of ST and it wasn't anything I did but all totally the AI.

So I'm not sure that our perceptions are entirely correct in terms of how the AI manages this. Unless what I saw was some sort of anomaly and unique to my save?

EDIT: Decided to open up the game again and take a quick look to verify what I saw. It looks like it was just the last calendar week of the pre-season, which consisted of 5 games, in which I saw this in my ST exhibition season. All of my starting pitchers, except one, worked at least 5 innings and the one who didn't was having a bad outing and threw 78 pitches over only 3 innings pitched. Of the 5 or 5-plus inning outings, in 2 of them my starting pitcher threw at least 80 pitches (83 being the high). In addition, in these games our opponent had their starting pitcher work at least into the 5th inning in the majority of the games and one super efficient pitcher actually was stretched out to 6 innings pitched against us (but only 69 pitches thrown). Granted, I would like this to be a more gradual process but from what I am seeing there is a ramp-up in innings pitched and/or pitches thrown the last week of ST.