What am I doing wrong?

[MasonHAsher]

I am simming as the Cubs in the 2019 season. Challenge mode and I play every game. I absolutely suck and after a 30-14 start I sit at 35-51 and a team ERA of 9.85 over the past two months.

Am I doing something wrong by hitting "pitch to" on every player besides when I "pitch to contact" to low contact/low power guys? My starters Q/Darvish/Lester/Alozay/Cease really struggle to get to the fifth inning and the BABIP across all pitchers over the past month is .373.

Is this an anomaly or am I doing something wrong? It is getting to the point where it just isn't fun anymore since my offense is averaging 6.3 runs a game over the past 25 games but I am 2-23. I have shuttled RP's around to stay fresh as much as possible but I'm kind of out of options now.

Kris Bryant has dropped to a 3.5/3.5 and Baez is a 3.0/3.0 and everyone's chemistry and morale is high. Help?

[Calvert98]

Mason,

I play-out all of my games as well, but when it comes to pitching, aside from pulling guys, subbing RPs, the only things I do per *At-Bat* is "pitch around" a guy every so often, or once in a great while "intentionally walk" a guy. In general, I let the catcher and pitcher decide how to go about it and they seem to do ok (even with my rotation). So, I do a lot of space-bar tapping when my guys are pitching.

Candidly my rotation for 2019 was so bad (Orioles 2019 MLB start), that it would have been hard to tell if something was going on that year, but I have seen improvements over the past two seasons since then, but it is still a bit rough. I even saw a break-out year by Branden Kline as an RP.

Note, there could be some adjustment to certain pitcher / batter combos factored into the game over the course of the season, but that should not result in the extreme numbers you are seeing.

How is your defense? (Are you not turning a lot of DPs?) How is your team chemistry and pitching coach and bench coach? What is the skill level of your starting catcher? Are a couple of your pitchers starting to regress as well? Not one of these factors would account for that extreme, but perhaps cumulatively, they are having an impact. Hard to tell.

I would be curious what others might suggest as well.

-Cal

[MasonHAsher]

Originally Posted by Calvert98

Mason,

I play-out all of my games as well, but when it comes to pitching, aside from pulling guys, subbing RPs, the only things I do per *At-Bat* is "pitch around" a guy every so often, or once in a great while "intentionally walk" a guy. In general, I let the catcher and pitcher decide how to go about it and they seem to do ok (even with my rotation). So, I do a lot of space-bar tapping when my guys are pitching.

Candidly my rotation for 2019 was so bad (Orioles 2019 MLB start), that it would have been hard to tell if something was going on that year, but I have seen improvements over the past two seasons since then, but it is still a bit rough. I even saw a break-out year by Branden Kline as an RP.

Note, there could be some adjustment to certain pitcher / batter combos factored into the game over the course of the season, but that should not result in the extreme numbers you are seeing.

How is your defense? (Are you not turning a lot of DPs?) How is your team chemistry and pitching coach and bench coach? What is the skill level of your starting catcher? Are a couple of your pitchers starting to regress as well? Not one of these factors would account for that extreme, but perhaps cumulatively, they are having an impact. Hard to tell.

I would be curious what others might suggest as well.

-Cal

Thanks for the reply! I think I just got really pissed off last night because the Cubs game and then I lost 8 in a row. But still, I would like to know if it is something that I am doing wrong or not. Does hitting the space bar allow your pitcher/catcher to decide what to do between "pitch-to", "pitch to contact", etc.?

Looking at my defense...it is not good, but that is strange. I have turned right at 150 DPs, I have 54 errors on the year with only Baez, Bryant, Heyward, Rizzo above 0.0 in ZR and 5 guys below -1.7. I would assume that that isn't very good.

Furthermore, two things really stand out to me. The lowest batter WAR on my team is Dan Robertson (picked him up by purchasing him from an independent team since he has a contact of 67 and Addy Russell was trash) he is at 0.1 WAR and is batting .305. He does have 8 errors (26 games) on the season though so Russell might get the call back lol.

All of my reliever OPS+ are above 100 with all 110 or higher and no one on the staff is higher than 98. I am 14th or lower in every pitching category (ERA BP and starters, FIP, walks, strikeouts, you name it). My catchers caught stealing percentage is 15%...they have allowed 94 stolen bases this season through half the season.

I did make one trade that was fairly big. I sent Hendricks, Schwarber, and three prospects to CWS for Cease, Eloy, Zach Burdi, Jose Ruiz, Carlos Rodon and 8.5 mil. I am not sure how that was accepted but it was.

I then flipped Rodon along with Chatwood and Gio Gonzalez to the Giants for MadBum (who's my best SP right now) and Will Smith.

Chemistry is content. I have three guys with small frowns but it's due to team record and/or performance.

[Calvert98]

Originally Posted by MasonHAsher

Thanks for the reply! I think I just got really pissed off last night because the Cubs game and then I lost 8 in a row. But still, I would like to know if it is something that I am doing wrong or not. Does hitting the space bar allow your pitcher/catcher to decide what to do between "pitch-to", "pitch to contact", etc.?

.

Hi Mason,

Sorry it took me a bit to reply. I think so; I think the catcher rating and pitcher sort are 100% at work when you hit the space bar, where if you pick what to do, then it adjusts those values to what you are going-with.

And I appreciate the detail on your club at the moment as well.

If you can, keep us updated on your year, and let us know how things progress. I am always interested in seeing how folks that play-out their games progress through-out their management careers.

-Cal