Once the baseball on the PItching Staff page identifies the starter who is up, is there a way to change who is going to start?  When you rest him and put somebody else in his rotation spot, the ball stays with him.

Not at the BL level.

For a ML pitcher you can put him on the inactive list and the ball will go to the next pitcher in line, then you can re activate him and place him where you want.

You have two choices at the major league level:

1)  Make the guy with the ball a Tandem A and reduce his pitch count to 40/40, and set the guy you want to pitch as Tandem B.  The starter will still get 40 pitches, but will be pulled after that and replaced by your preferred guy.

2)  Move the guy with the ball to the bullpen and set his pitch count to 5/5.  Set the guy you want to pitch as a reliever, but make him the ONLY reliever eligible to come in for ANY inning.  He should be the first reliever.

Option 1 is more transparent to your opponent.  Option 2 might be frowned upon by some opponents as gamesmanship, especially if you're changing the pitching hand between the starter and the reliever.

Weird situation.  I've got  FootsieWelch up....he's my ace and has been terrific this year.  It's game 162. I have 98 wins and have secured the Division flag.  I'm playing Tampa Bay who has a one game lead for the last WC spot.  So I want to honor the WC race but rest my guys, too.  Anaheim has 97 wins, so if I win I think I secure the home field advantage (if there is one). Anaheim won 6 of the 10 games in our season series, so if I lose and he wins, I think he gets it.  Anaheim plays Seattle.  Seattle is the guy who is one game back of TB for the last WC spot.  I think Seattle took the season series from TB.  Seattle is throwing a terrific tandom pair in the last game.  Weird doings.  I've ended up setting Welch on a 50/55 pitch limit (usually he's on a 110/130) for the last game.  I'm competitive and honoring the situation but looking to the playoffs, too.  I couldn't remove the ball from him a game ago, because I just secured the Division flag in game 161.  I might have needed him to ace it up in 162!

Posted by moethedog on 7/20/2012 1:15:00 PM (view original):
Weird situation.  I've got  FootsieWelch up....he's my ace and has been terrific this year.  It's game 162. I have 98 wins and have secured the Division flag.  I'm playing Tampa Bay who has a one game lead for the last WC spot.  So I want to honor the WC race but rest my guys, too.  Anaheim has 97 wins, so if I win I think I secure the home field advantage (if there is one). Anaheim won 6 of the 10 games in our season series, so if I lose and he wins, I think he gets it.  Anaheim plays Seattle.  Seattle is the guy who is one game back of TB for the last WC spot.  I think Seattle took the season series from TB.  Seattle is throwing a terrific tandom pair in the last game.  Weird doings.  I've ended up setting Welch on a 50/55 pitch limit (usually he's on a 110/130) for the last game.  I'm competitive and honoring the situation but looking to the playoffs, too.  I couldn't remove the ball from him a game ago, because I just secured the Division flag in game 161.  I might have needed him to ace it up in 162!

At this point of the season, seeing that you're heading into the playoffs, your first obligation is to your own team.  You've already secured the first round bye.  To me, there's not much difference between being the #1 seed or the #2 seed.

That said, seeing that you do have the first round bye, you can pitch your ace in game 162 and he should be at 100% for your first playoff game in the second round because you'll have 9 off-days (with fatigue recovery) between now and then.

That's the way I'm looking at it, tec.

Resting 5 starting position guys (two at 99%).  Called up two good AAA guys for a one-game Sept. cup of tea.  But they're players and both will play significant roles next year.  One will be a COF starter. 

So my  one-game line-up is pretty decent, but I'm using guys conservatively.  I'll go with a short stint for Welch......But I'm not going to punt on the last game with a WC spot still to be had by some team.