Hi all, happy July!

Many of you are probably busy assembling amazing WIS Championship rosters. I was wondering if I could beg for a bit of noob advise? I'm having a devil of a time figuring out how to fill out the back end of all my rotations. I'm lost as far as how much to spend on those last 100-300 ip and just how poor a pitcher I can get away with there. There's nothing worse than an under-staffed IP team, one where every day the pitching dips farther and farther on fatigue and you can't do anything about it. Did that once, it was horrible.

In the normal open league, WIS solves this problem for you by gifting you a couple decent AAA guys to serve as passable mop-up options. In theme leagues, I usually play higher caps where it's easier to scrounge a couple million for those same guys if AAA is turned off.

But at $70-$90 mil, every $1 million is critical. It's amazing how $4 million can improve your roster (for example, turning Harry Covaleski into Addie Joss). Maybe for some this is part of the fun of the game, but I find it displeasing to gamble between the safety net of $5 million worth of scrub IP or risking pitcher burnout for a better roster.

So, how do you veterans handle this risk-reward situation? Are there some really cheap scrub cookie relievers that can be relied upon? Do you just budget a certain salary and IP amount from the onset and fill it out as best you can? I do already know the Safeco/Petco trick to partially mitigate this problem. Are there other simple tricks like that I should be using?

Quick put together....

	Starter	SP	1906 Doc White	L	18-6-0	236	1.52	.207	0.90	3.90	1.56	0.08	95-38	$7,901,159
	Starter	SP/RP	1992 Bob Tewksbury	R	16-5-0	233	2.16	.248	1.02	3.52	0.77	0.58	91-20	$6,132,428
	Starter	SP/RP	1926 Pete Alexander	R	12-10-2	211	3.05	.250	1.11	2.11	1.39	0.36	47-31	$5,797,321
	Starter	SP/RP	1927 Jack Quinn	R	15-10-1	212	3.26	.278	1.23	1.92	1.65	0.36	43-37	$4,776,198
	long a	SP/RP	1904 Frank Corridon	R	6-5-0	101	2.19	.250	1.23	4.20	2.67	0.19	44-28	$1,933,711
	long a	SP/RP	1972 Dave Hamilton	L	6-6-0	106	2.93	.249	1.23	4.89	2.75	0.62	55-31	$2,187,334
	su a	SP/RP	1916 Christy Mathewson	R	3-4-2	70	2.33	.243	1.01	2.19	0.96	0.41	16-7	$1,572,862
	su a	SP/RP	1913 Hooks Wiltse	L	0-0-3	62	1.56	.237	1.06	3.90	1.25	0.16	25-8	$1,651,995
	cl	SP/RP	1981 Andy Rincon	R	3-1-0	57	1.77	.214	0.90	3.28	1.26	0.00	13-5	$2,020,615
		SP/RP	optional
		SP/RP	optional
		SP/RP	optional
		SP/RP	optional
Pitching Totals					79-47-8	1,288	2.41	.245	1.08	3.19	1.53	0.34	429-205	$33,973,623

I'd then tweak this list to improve players a bit... Maybe put another $3m towards better starters, and $500k for one better long A man...and another $500k towards a few extra innings somewhere...And that would giv eme a competitive staff for under $40m.

I don't draft with as specific of a breakdown as biglenr does, but I do take my budget that I want to spend on pitching and figure out how many total IP I want to have for that budget. Then, depending on the league specific rules I'll decide up front how I want to structure my rotation 1.5 man, 2, 3, 4, 5, A/B, tandems, etc... then look for pitchers that fit that IP range for the starters under the rough salary guidelines by dividing my budget by IP. I also try to target 900 IP for my starters, but I'll settle with as low as 600 and as high as 1200 depending on what I'm trying to do and what pitchers are available. Then, once I hit my bullpen, I recalculate based on how much of my budget is left and how many IP I still need for my team target and look for pitchers in that range. If I've found bargains at SP, I'll have more $$$ for my bullpen on a $/IP basis, if I had a hard time with my starters I'll have less, but generally, they're pretty consistent. If I do go with a 3,4, or 5 man rotation, or use A/B or tandem settings, I will draft pitchers of tiered quality for the starter roles. with at least one low salaried innings eater of sorts and at least one relatively high priced star for that cap that will get virtually any hitter out.

Wow guys, thanks for the info. biglenr, thank you so much for going so in depth on a template. Very helpful to have something like to get one started. One key of your strategy that I have never employed is using those two "long A" types for good not great money saving innings. I usually in the past built 7-8 man pens and at some point they all wind up fatigued. Will play around with this guide and see how I do.

just4me, good tip on structuring by budget. I do something sort of similar, but like I said my main concern was sucking too much of the budget toward "mop-up" inning eaters. Another question, what's a 1.5 man rotation?

Why spend any budget on pitchers that won't help you win?  Unless you're trying to fatigue the other team.

Instead, get a few extra innings from your Long A guys...You'll be happier and you'll win a few games that you had given up on previously.

A 1.5 man is when you have a big inning pitcher (typically 650+ IP/162) who you want to start more than 81 games (usually 90-100), that you have as starter 1, and then you either use mop ups, spot start your long relievers, or have a crew of dedicated starters who will each start around 10-15 games each just to keep your only real starter at a manageable fatigue. 

Note:  Using a 1.5 man rotation is a pretty advanced strategy... You better be able to change your roster before every game, and you need to know how much fatigue you can be comfortable with. 

Personally, it's not something I do, as I don't see an advantage to doing it, so it's not worth the effort to me.  

But it can be done, and J4M is one of the best in doing it.

Certain draft leagues or limited-season franchise leagues have made it very challenging for me to turn down Silver King.  I've used the 1.5-man type rotation you described on such occasions, although in at least one case I had the opportunity to pair Silver King with the 400-inning Ed Walsh.

If opportunity presents itself, one of my favorite combos is King with '08 Joss. Perfect pairing with a solid bullpen to back up Joss. 

the basic answer to your question is to draft a slightly lower quality of players across the board.  If you're used to $80M with AAA then an $80M lg with no AAA will draft more like a $70M league.
How weak should your last 300 innings be? that's a famous unanswered question. unbalanced rosters with a crappy 300 innings are better playoff teams but they have a lesser chance of making it to the playoffs. If you anticpate a strong league it's probably better to build for the regular season by drafting more quality innings.

Is 1,320 innings really enough?

Is that amount of innings going to last an entire season without much fiddling? Not that I wouldn't monitor my teams, but I don't want to have to wheel and deal every single game in order to make it 162 games.

Especially if you'll be utilizing your AAA, 1,320 should be plenty. You may even be able to get with 1,320 without using your AAA depending on roles, ballpark, and the particulars of the league you're in. 

I consider 1200 the minimum for leagues with AAA and 1300 the minimum for leagues without, never throwing a tired pitcher.

Of course, that assumes a pitching friendly park, and good pitchers at $80m. 

The good pitchers part may need to be explained:

You buy pitchers by IP.  But, in the sim, they fatigue by pitches thrown.  The sim will take the number of IP/162 that a pitcher has, and then multiply that by a number based on his hit rate, walk rate, and K rate.  High BB/K pitchers get more pitches per inning than low bb/k pitchers.   

So let's say that you have 2 200 IP pitchers.  One with a 1.0 whip, one with a 1.30 whip.  And let's say that each has a Pitch to inning multiple of 12.  You set these guys in a 4 man rotation at 80 - 85 PC.  

The better pitcher will face about 4 hitters ber inning.  Say 3 pitches per batter, or about 12 pitches per inning.   At 12 pitches per inning, he's going to pitch about 7 innings for you.  

The worse pitcher will face about 4.3 batters per inning.  Same ratio, is about 13 pitches per inning.. Or about 6 innings in a game.  

Assuming he's starting every 4th game, that's 40 starts, or 40 extra innings required of your team for having a 1.30 WHIP 200IP starter instead of a 1.00 WHIP 200 IP starter.   Realistically, things don't work out that perfectly, so maybe it's only 20 extra IP required of your team for having the worse starter.  In any event, worse pitchers require more IP from your team.  Most of us don't notice this, because we have a fairly large IP cushion.

So while you bought the same amount of IP, you actually don't go as deep into a game with poorer pitchers.  So you need to buy more IP.  

Same impact with using a pitching friendly ballpark, or really good defense.  Fewer baserunners = fewer pitches thrown = fewer IP needed.  It works in reverse in higher cap leagues... The calculation of Pitches to IP is based on $80m leagues, which are nearly all-star level teams.  Once you go up to the all-time all-star level, your pitcher with a 1.0 real life WHIP starts throwing like he has a 1.4 WHIP, and he sees more hitters in a game, which means he doesn't last as long at a higher cap.   

 

Great, clear explanation biglenr.

Thanks.


I think that in your example of the better pitcher, you meant to write:    

"At 12PC per inning, he's going to pitch about 7 innings for you."