House Rules - Changing Relievers to Starters

[zjl630]

A few notable MLB relief pitchers made the switch to the rotation this season, Garrett Crochet, Jordan Hicks, A.J. Puk, and Reynaldo Lopez.

I know you can change a pitchers role at will and have them do what you'd like, but I'm wondering if any OOTP players ever change the stamina rating of a reliever that you'd like to start as a proxy for asking them to "stretch out" and become a starter.

How do you handle that? Do you have any house rules for changing them?

Would you decrease their internal ratings as well as a double hit? Or would the game take care of that on its own? (I know it does, but is that enough of a hit?)

[locuspc]

The Development Lab is a great way of simulating deliberate efforts to change a player around like that. Ask them to work on stamina and then you don't need to cheat with Commissioner Mode.

[uruguru]

Originally Posted by zjl630

A few notable MLB relief pitchers made the switch to the rotation this season, Garrett Crochet, Jordan Hicks, A.J. Puk, and Reynaldo Lopez.

How do you handle that? Do you have any house rules for changing them?

Just set their stamina to 100 (in the editor). That will allow the AI to start them without letting them go deep. Be sure to do it after the Opening Day recalc.

It's not cheating if these guys are actually starting in the real world and you're not acquiring them for your team before you fix their stamina. You're just making the sim more accurate.

[TheOtherCraig]

Pitcher Stamina is one thing that I think needs a lot of work to improve in OOTP.

It works fine for starters, but relievers evidently have a hidden penalty to their stamina. Bringing in a long-relief guy who has better stamina than your starter who can go 90+ but he fatigues after 40 pitches is not a good representation, nor is it clear to the user.

It would be better if it was split out into starter stamina and reliever stamina, if that reliever penalty is actually required under the hood to create more realistic sims.

[zjl630]

Originally Posted by uruguru

Just set their stamina to 100 (in the editor). That will allow the AI to start them without letting them go deep. Be sure to do it after the Opening Day recalc.

It's not cheating if these guys are actually starting in the real world and you're not acquiring them for your team before you fix their stamina. You're just making the sim more accurate.

I noticed that MLB the Show basically did this for those 4 guys in Diamond Dynasty. I'm thinking that would be the best move.

I generally do fictional players though - how would everyone else go about picking the right guys to try this with? What about doing it for other organizations too to be fair to them?

[uruguru]

Originally Posted by zjl630

I generally do fictional players though - how would everyone else go about picking the right guys to try this with? What about doing it for other organizations too to be fair to them?

I will do it for selected relievers on my team that I plan to start, but generally I usually start my saves with seriously-handicapped expansion teams so sometimes I have zero starters otherwise.

When I run historical sims (with recalc), on each Opening Day I will check the rotations of every team in the league to ensure that their starting rotation and spot starter (6 guys, total) have sufficient stamina to start. Every year, I maybe have to "convert" up to a dozen relievers that the AI is forced to start because their historical starters got traded, injured, or recalced into a reliever. If you let this get out of hand, I have seen teams lose 120 games because they traded themselves into a corner with only one starting-capable pitcher.

[snepp]

One of the things I plan to do in my next league when I get around to it is seeing what happens when every single pitcher in the league keeps at least the minimum starter stamina level, then let their repertoire alone dictate where they get used.

[uruguru]

Originally Posted by snepp

One of the things I plan to do in my next league when I get around to it is seeing what happens when every single pitcher in the league keeps at least the minimum starter stamina level, then let their repertoire alone dictate where they get used.

There is a ratings recalc on Opening Day (for historicals) that is affected by the number of starters you have in a league, so it's very important to do any large-scale stamina adjustments on Opening Day, after the recalc has occurred.

[Marinersfan51]

Originally Posted by TheOtherCraig

Pitcher Stamina is one thing that I think needs a lot of work to improve in OOTP.

It works fine for starters, but relievers evidently have a hidden penalty to their stamina. Bringing in a long-relief guy who has better stamina than your starter who can go 90+ but he fatigues after 40 pitches is not a good representation, nor is it clear to the user.

It would be better if it was split out into starter stamina and reliever stamina, if that reliever penalty is actually required under the hood to create more realistic sims.

Look at it as a result of messaging to the player. If he is being used as a starter (or follower) then he can throw more pitches because he knows he is expected to throw more and is pacing himself. If he is a reliever, then he is emptying the tank more on the expectation he is only going to throw an inning or two.

If it is an injury replacement situation, then there is a "follower" box you can check when you bring in the long reliever that will indicate that he is expected to pitch like a starter, then he will be able to throw more pitches before fatiguing.

[Pelican]

My house rule is to only increase Stamina (and not by too much) for RP who have started or are converting to SP in the present MLB season. And normally I don't change guys who are true short guys with Stamina under 20. Those guys will have to go to the dev lab in the off-season.

I wonder how the game engine looks at RP starting. In a past version, I think 23, I noticed lots of RP getting starts in September, as if they were under some innings total for the year, and the AI thought they had extra capacity. Small sample, but many of these guys would pitch well into games, and pitch effectively. I don't think that should happen, absent some prep like ramping up in the minors, or extensive long relief usage.

One thing I like is that a RP with only two or three effective pitches does not translate well, in terms of Stuff, to SP. He needs another pitch. That should be a task limited to the dev lab in the offseason.

Suddenly converting a RP to SP without prep should increase the risk of injury.

[szathkey]

My House Rule is that anytime I add 100 Stamina I take away 1 level of MPH to simulate the different max effort pacing pitchers have to do over 100 pitches vs 15.

[uruguru]

Originally Posted by szathkey

My House Rule is that anytime I add 100 Stamina I take away 1 level of MPH to simulate the different max effort pacing pitchers have to do over 100 pitches vs 15.

That's a good idea. 100 stamina is a LOT of stamina, though. Is a 1 mph reduction enough?

[szathkey]

Since studies show that the increase of MPH from starter to reliever is 2-3 MPH, and since the MPH of a pitcher in this game is given in a 3 MPH band, I find that it works and is realistic enough for me

Any more levels taken off and I'm not sure how it would affect things. I play historical so try and not make changes that are too drastic.

[uruguru]

I think that's a really good house rule!


edit: you know what be really cool? If we could have a player strategy option for pitchers to lower their pitch velocity by a notch in order to improve their injury rating.