Types of Bullpen Pitchers?

[waittilnextyear]

Originally Posted by chazzycat

Great summary. The more I think about it, the more enticed I am by option #2. With my park factors, tricking the AI into the wrong lineup could be pretty substantial. Furthermore burning multiple "starters" in a single game shouldn't be the end of the world, since as relievers they would be ready to pitch again in a day or two, not five days. Especially during playoffs with plenty of off days. I already use a starter as long reliever, and can easily see in his game logs, it's no problem pitching back to back days.

Another drawback to "Option 2" above is your reliever gets classified as a starting pitcher along with a stuff nerf because he's not technically classified as Opener. In the Opener/Follower setup, the opener probably maintains all of his RP qualities. So your man would be more vulnerable in the early going of the game.

If you are interested in that option, I should also mention that I've tried it in the past (when I had crappy SPs that couldn't hang at Perfect level) and it does really strain the stamina of your bullpen. I'd recommend having as many high-stamina guys back there as possible and probably 7 bodies in the bullpen would be a skeleton crew, with 8 or 9 being more ideal. So, making gains from tricking the opponent should be weighed against the opportunity cost of losing platoon options (short bench) and managing bullpen fatigue, which I found the most difficult part. I'd say I had mixed results, but I'd be interested to see other people try it and report back if they want to.

[quickstep76]

So I've tried something resembling option 1.

Background:
- 2040 Perfect League/All starters used in their typical role(starting from inning 1, 5 man rotation, no pitch counts)
- 2041 Perfect League/All starters used as followers and set as RP to get the perceived stuff bump while possibly keeping their stamina

Four pitchers who have been on both teams full time:

100 DeGrom:
2040: 7.5 K/9, 6.81 innings per start
2041: 9.3 K/9, 6.35 innings per 'start'

95 Gibson:
2040: 6.4 K/9, 6.29 innings per start
2041: 6.5 K/9, 6.39 innings per 'start'

89 Maddux:
2040: 4.3 K/9, 6.58 innings per start
2041: 5.9 K/9, 6.03 innings per 'start'

90 Pedro:
2040: 7.1 K/9, 5.5 innings per start
2041: 7.2 K/9, 6.07 innings per 'start'

Conclusion:
It seems that you do get a slight bump in stuff, at least in the case of DeGrom and Maddux. The other two differences are negligible, but it seems that if nothing else, the stamina doesn't suffer that much. One thing that skews the stamina is the fact that a follower is generally capped at 7 innings(inning 3-9) unless there's extra innings. Starters can start inning 1 and go through inning 8 or 9 if things go well.

Again, limited data sets, but I'd be curious if anyone else has tried this and seen the same. You also get the previously mentioned advantage in the first couple of innings with the lefty/righty matchup.