Can You Increase Pitcher Stamina?

[mike7273]

Is it possible? I have some Relievers with good "Stuff" and 4-5 good pitches. I'd like to have them as Starters.

[Yarideki]

If you want, you can turn on commissioner mode and edit the player(s) stamina manually assuming that you just want to change these individual players and no others. If you don't wish to use commissioner mode, you may have to hope that it happens randomly. Also note that you can use these players as starters as is, or a position player if you really wanted to, but a player with low stamina likely won't last too deep into the game depending on their stamina rating.

[Reggie]

I've used relievers with a stamina of 6 ( scale 1-20 ) as starters before. They won't have any complete games but they usually can get me to innings 4-6.. which is about as far as some of my starters who aren't very good do anyway.

[NoOne]

you can't increase it, but overworking players does destory them. the ai does limit pitch count throughout minors -- refer to manual for #s. as long as they are a true ~1/2 scale stamina SP, those should be sufficient to avoid being sub-100% by next start in rotation. maybe AAA is a bit higher?

i set a locked pitch count for each level. think i have AAA/AA at 95, 90 a/s-a and 85 rookie. think that's below most of the ai's choices for the most part. they still lget 160-180ip a year. if i'm going to break them down, it's going to be when it counts at the ML-level..

stamina does fluctuate... seemingly randomly, and rarely a large amount at a time. age pulls it down, of course. some stay sturdy until 40's, nonetheless. TCR could make it do anything, if that's not the sole cause of change.

[mike7273]

Thanks for the help.

I figured Stamina was something you could build. I see teams move Relievers into the Starting rotation. Usually it's an off-season decision, so the pitcher can work on it.

[Rain King]

The stamina is what it is for the most part, although it is possible for a pitcher to get some random changes (more likely it will decrease due to injury though).

However, one thing to keep in mind is that it does not take a very high stamina to be an effective starting pitcher. That rating is more whether they are a guy you can use a workhorse or one that you need to keep an eye on the pitch count for.

[NoOne]

i would argue it's quite important -- devil's advocate here...

if you have 5 horses, you severely decrease the # of innings a bullpen is responsible for. example is going to ignore various things like always start rested etc, skipping guys to maximize top 3 sp or so. that only helps the argument, if i did. it makes math more difficult on SP innings /year etc... so just lumping as 5-man total, which is all that matters..

there are less than ~1458innings pitched per year. (not all games require 9ip, should outweight extra inning games?)

what's an average 1st, 2nd, .. . 5th starter ip/year? for this example we'll just lump them together, but obviously you are way more likely to get 250ip out of #1 and ~180-200 out of #5, with an average between.

3 250ip studs and 2 guys that are 180-200. that's a well above average staff, i bet. so, 1100ish innings out of ~1450?ish. 350 / 7 = 50, easily doable and can add ~30ip safely to your top 3 or 4 RP/CL and minimize your backend of bullpen use. i used #s that made my case worse to the eye, too. (fewer total ip, and ~1150 not 1100)

now, stamina is not the only factor that results in average ip expected out of any particular SP, of course. since those factors are a bit more difficult to distinguish, i let results dictate. even if the guy has a sub-1/2 scale stamina, does he easily reach 200ip/year? the really really good ones can with substantially lower stamina, but not many, if it's too low. (200 arbitrarily choosen, context dictates)

if your SP can't reach X ip, total, per year, it's a drag on your bullpen 100%. now, 1 guy can make up for another, since there are 5 SP. how deep is your bullpen based on how much you spend and draft picks invested etc etc? if you like to carry 5 competent guys and invest heavily, you can basically not care about SP stamina, i bet. you like to spend more elsewhere, and you probably want ~250ip for your top 3 guys to be the most meaningful possible. more wiggle room allows that. (more often rested for it, if fewer innings of responsibility for entire bullpen)

it's not a line i can draw in the sand without knowing preferences, and i'm trying to not say specifically how i do it, because that's irrelevant. it is a break-even dependent on various things. the only answer is 'depends'.

if you are trying to avoid 3rd time through lineup for SP, you better have 7 really good bullpen guys, because they will all be used often, and maybe 2 or 3 stashed in AAA, lol. but, doing it for your #5 or #4 guy might be doable. another side effect of high stamina guys in rotation...

there's lots of domino effects that can be taken advantage of.