5,6 or 7 Bullpen?

[Matt Arnold]

Always interesting to see what teams opt to go with. With lots of star power, certainly lots of options. No need to platoon if you have stars everywhere, but on the flipside, you can get a pretty strong bench going too. I'm sure I'll flip back and forth anywhere from 6 to 8 relievers, depending on the talents around. Just got Ohtani so that saves me one bench bat too, although given that he's gotta be out of the lineup a few days a week, we'll have to see what the AI does with the lineup when he has to sit out.

[chazzycat]

I've been using a 8 man bullpen. I think it was a big part of my ability to beat my pythag record substantially in the entry league. My run differential was close to zero but my team finished 12 games over .500 and that's mostly from 1-run games. My bullpen is set to heavily favor L/R matchups in close situations, and I have it stocked with 4 each good righties and good lefties. Solid bullpen arms seem pretty cheap compared to starters & hitters. Time will tell if this is an effective strategy.

edit - got home and realized it was 8, not 9. Forgot these leagues have the DH.

[mess]

I like 7.

No long man in the bullpen though. Don't have time to waste a spot on a mop up guy.

[Ashbury]

Originally Posted by Kushiel

\The mid 60's Dodgers were my favorite brand of baseball. Give us 3 runs and we win

In those days it was difficult to give the Dodgers 3 runs.

[nickwatic]

I use 7. I'd prefer 8 but that's only going to be something I do once I get 100000 PP to comfortably buy McKay

[thakfu]

I use 8. But I also have 2 starters (Ohtani and Hunter Greene) that are 2-way players, so I have them as extra bats.

[Zorro]

Originally Posted by One Post Wonder

Zorro, you might find that those 'one size fits all' utility guys are going to be overwhelmed when there's a long string of games and several regulars get tired at the same time. I had trouble with that during the early part of the Beta. It's good to have versatile backups but you still need that depth IMO.

Thank you for the info my friend.

[Fenway]

I have 7 right now, but I'm a newb, and I see a lot of fatigue in my bullpen. Is fatigue a significant factor for relievers?

[CrazyWR]

I much prefer 7, which is what I run on my free diamond league squad, but I'm only running 6 on my perfect league team and I feel way undermanned. Apparently platooning is important though.

[<Pion>]

Originally Posted by ike121212

Treat your utility player like a starter and play him often. Fatigue is never a problem if you do. Depth is useless when no one will ever get hurt.

Depends on the starters. Sometimes a defensive sub can help and sometimes a platoon situation is in order. To say that depth is useless is going to far given some situations.

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by <Pion>

Depends on the starters. Sometimes a defensive sub can help and sometimes a platoon situation is in order. To say that depth is useless is going to far given some situations.

It does depend a lot on your starting players how much depth is useful. If you go with the "standard" team of 1 backup IF and 1 backup OF, then each of those backups will play 50-60 games for you over the course of a season just on the "when tired" setting.

I've enjoyed having one of the defensive wiz players (Tulo, Crosby, Simmons, Aparicio, etc...) as my lone backup IF, who can be both a defensive sub at one of the positions, and maybe plays one of the spots against lefties in a platoon if I happen to have a guy like Collins who I would rather platoon.

But even with a couple platoons, I still rarely feel that I need more than 4 bench players, which lets me easily run 7 relievers. It could be tempting to throw a couple extra starters in the pen and try for 6 relievers, but even then, I think the marginal utility of an extra rested bullpen arm is more valuable than one more bench player. If I have to play Duke Snider against a lefty, it's not the end of the world.