changes to stamina and pitching roles

jaa36 · 11-30-2018, 10:48 PM

I wrote this as reply to a thread on the main forum a month ago about how OOTP might handle "openers" next year, but wanted to make sure I put it in the suggestions forum as well.

I think that it could be worthwhile to break down what is currently "stamina" a little bit more. As it stands, it's sort of an all-in-one rating that serves as something of a cut point for who can be a starter and who can be a reliever, and gives you an approximate sense of how many pitches you can get out of someone in either role. But there are several things (in real life) that are sort of in the "realm" of stamina:
-how many pitches a pitcher can throw in a single outing before tiring
-how many pitches a pitcher can throw in a single inning before tiring
-how often a pitcher can pitch
-whether or not a pitcher can "stretch out" from a short outing to a long outing

Now, I'm not sure whether it makes sense to break all of these out from a simple "stamina" rating. But possibly there could be value in having a "stamina" and an "adaptability" rating. Someone who has high stamina but low adaptability might be able to pitch every fifth game, but not give you in an inning in relief in between starts, or if he did, it might knock him back a few days from making his next start. (This is essentially how the stamina rating works now.). Someone who has low stamina but high adaptability could come in and give you an inning every day or two as a reliever, or as an "opener", or as a spot starter, you name it, I'll do it coach kind of thing, but wouldn't be expected to go more than a turn through the lineup. Someone who has low stamina and low adaptability would be your standard late-inning reliever who can give you just an inning at a time. And someone with high stamina and high adaptability is Nate Eovaldi.

Another approach (and one that could be used in conjunction with the above) could be to assign a "focus" to a pitcher ahead of time. In other words, the team would determine whether a pitcher is going to be prepared to go hard for an inning (thus getting the "stuff" bonus) or try to get through the order 2-3 times. Conventionally (until this year) this has been the difference between a reliever and a starter. But the same concept applies to an opener- that guy is expecting to just get three or four outs and should be treated as a reliever. So when OOTP calculates how it affects his fatigue, it would be different depending on what his "focus" was going into the game. This would enable the "opener" to come right back and open or relieve in the next game, which currently OOTP doesn't really allow for. You could potentially have a few levels of granularity to this- a "short outing" focus, a "medium" focus (prepared to go 2-3 innings), or a "long outing" focus (traditional starter). An adaptable pitcher would be able to go between roles quickly (maybe even immediately) while a non-adaptable pitcher would not.

If you went with this kind of approach, you could also then abstract the "percent rested" concept more than what it is now. While considering someone "90% rested" is a useful concept for a video game, I'm not sure if it's necessarily an accurate way to think about it in real life. (This issue applies to the position players as well.) It might be better to have it more like the personality rating where you get a statement about their status. "I'm ready to go nine today." "My arm's a bit sore, but I could give you six innings." "I'll be ready to go for my next start." "I can give you all I've got for an inning or two." Or the Rich Hill: "You might want to keep an eye on me next inning."

I also think it would be good to be able to develop stamina over time. One thing that has bugged me about OOTP over the years is that stamina is relatively static- that you can't stretch a pitcher out over time. I think that stamina could be something where you have a "current" and a "potential" rating- where the current stamina rating could move a lot more rapidly than other ratings, based on the pitcher's usage pattern. So if I use a guy with 30 current stamina and 60 potential stamina as a short reliever, he would stay at 30, but if I used him as a long reliever he would inch up to 40 or 50 over the course of a month. Or maybe not even based on his usage pattern, maybe instead I just set his focus to "long reliever" and the stamina change happens automatically over the next month.

11-30-2018, 10:48 PM	#1
jaa36 Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2011 Posts: 3,123	changes to stamina and pitching roles I wrote this as reply to a thread on the main forum a month ago about how OOTP might handle "openers" next year, but wanted to make sure I put it in the suggestions forum as well. I think that it could be worthwhile to break down what is currently "stamina" a little bit more. As it stands, it's sort of an all-in-one rating that serves as something of a cut point for who can be a starter and who can be a reliever, and gives you an approximate sense of how many pitches you can get out of someone in either role. But there are several things (in real life) that are sort of in the "realm" of stamina: -how many pitches a pitcher can throw in a single outing before tiring -how many pitches a pitcher can throw in a single inning before tiring -how often a pitcher can pitch -whether or not a pitcher can "stretch out" from a short outing to a long outing Now, I'm not sure whether it makes sense to break all of these out from a simple "stamina" rating. But possibly there could be value in having a "stamina" and an "adaptability" rating. Someone who has high stamina but low adaptability might be able to pitch every fifth game, but not give you in an inning in relief in between starts, or if he did, it might knock him back a few days from making his next start. (This is essentially how the stamina rating works now.). Someone who has low stamina but high adaptability could come in and give you an inning every day or two as a reliever, or as an "opener", or as a spot starter, you name it, I'll do it coach kind of thing, but wouldn't be expected to go more than a turn through the lineup. Someone who has low stamina and low adaptability would be your standard late-inning reliever who can give you just an inning at a time. And someone with high stamina and high adaptability is Nate Eovaldi. Another approach (and one that could be used in conjunction with the above) could be to assign a "focus" to a pitcher ahead of time. In other words, the team would determine whether a pitcher is going to be prepared to go hard for an inning (thus getting the "stuff" bonus) or try to get through the order 2-3 times. Conventionally (until this year) this has been the difference between a reliever and a starter. But the same concept applies to an opener- that guy is expecting to just get three or four outs and should be treated as a reliever. So when OOTP calculates how it affects his fatigue, it would be different depending on what his "focus" was going into the game. This would enable the "opener" to come right back and open or relieve in the next game, which currently OOTP doesn't really allow for. You could potentially have a few levels of granularity to this- a "short outing" focus, a "medium" focus (prepared to go 2-3 innings), or a "long outing" focus (traditional starter). An adaptable pitcher would be able to go between roles quickly (maybe even immediately) while a non-adaptable pitcher would not. If you went with this kind of approach, you could also then abstract the "percent rested" concept more than what it is now. While considering someone "90% rested" is a useful concept for a video game, I'm not sure if it's necessarily an accurate way to think about it in real life. (This issue applies to the position players as well.) It might be better to have it more like the personality rating where you get a statement about their status. "I'm ready to go nine today." "My arm's a bit sore, but I could give you six innings." "I'll be ready to go for my next start." "I can give you all I've got for an inning or two." Or the Rich Hill: "You might want to keep an eye on me next inning." I also think it would be good to be able to develop stamina over time. One thing that has bugged me about OOTP over the years is that stamina is relatively static- that you can't stretch a pitcher out over time. I think that stamina could be something where you have a "current" and a "potential" rating- where the current stamina rating could move a lot more rapidly than other ratings, based on the pitcher's usage pattern. So if I use a guy with 30 current stamina and 60 potential stamina as a short reliever, he would stay at 30, but if I used him as a long reliever he would inch up to 40 or 50 over the course of a month. Or maybe not even based on his usage pattern, maybe instead I just set his focus to "long reliever" and the stamina change happens automatically over the next month.