I have a pitcher in one of my leagues that is regularly a Long A, with the occasional spot start as needed. I had him slotted in as my next game's starter to give the staff a bit of a rest.

It's a close game in the 9th (I was up by a run). My available relievers had been used, with the exception of my mopup guy, at 100%. So the SIM instead brings in my next game's starter. I won the game, but now my next game, I have a pitcher at 59% starting.

Admin's response was simply that I need to check my settings because my starter was still checked as being available for use in relief. Are we really supposed to manually go in and change that and then change it back again every time a pitcher makes a spot start? Is the system really too stupid to recognize that "Starter" means "Starter"?

And even if a Starter is available in relief, would it not stand to reason that he'd only be an option after all other pitchers in the 'pen have been used? Admin told me the mopup guy wasn't brought in simply because the run differential was not big enough.

From the "Help" for the "Edit Player Settings" page:

Relief - Check this box for a player for whom it is ok to enter as a pitcher in relief. If this box is unchecked, the player will never come into the game in relief (unless assigned a relief role via the Pitching Staff page). In some cases, users will want to allow positional players who are rated relatively well in pitching to fill in for relief when necessary. By default and when clicking 'Show Recs', this box is checked for relief pitchers and not for any other player. Also, starters may pitch in relief for non-started games, but only if this box is checked. The game's AI will treat all players who are not set to a relief role, yet are available in relief, as the lowest priority Long Relief pitchers. Relief situations are determined by your edit pitching staff settings in respect to the game being simulated.

Read it.  Learn it.  Live it.

Still doesn't answer my second question. Why in the hell would a starting pitcher (especially the next day's starter) be an option before all relievers are used? Especially when there's a multi-inning reliever at 100% available? "Because it was only a one run game" is not a suitable response. No manager would ever bring in one of his starters in a regular season game with a relief pitcher rested and available.

Instead of having your mopup guy defined as mopup, define him as Long B.

Mopup has a specific connotation, they only pitch in blow-outs.  That was not the case here.

I have to side with Admin here.  Your settings and misunderstanding of how things work resulted in this happening.

Yes, me assuming a reliever will be used be for a starter is a total misunderstanding of how things work. I guess in order to play HBD, I need to forget everything I know about how actual baseball works.

I'll straddle the fence.



The help section is pretty goddam specific.   Play by the rules.

However, IMO, the last pitcher used in relief should be the next day's starter.   Nobody, not even Dusty Baker, would make a dumbass pitching move like that.

By checking the box you are giving permission for the sim to treat that SP as a reliever if needed.  As tecwrg mentioned, make your mop up a Long B and the sim will use the Long B before a starter. 
It would be nice if the sim didn't blow out the next days starter though so I understand the frustration.

It sucks, but I always check/uncheck the box when I move guys in and out of the rotation.

One trick you can do to make it a little better is to set him to rest before he makes his start. Then you can change his pitch count to 5/5. He'll still start the game, but the bullpen will be called when he hits his count. The next days starter will be whoever is set at 'Starter1' so you'll have to reorder the rest of the rotation top to bottom based on fatigue.

Assuming for a moment that your auto-rest setting for the guy is 60 or higher-- did he actually make the start?    Wouldn't the next guy in line actually get the start, anyway? 

In which case the sim would have made a decision that a fairly typical (albeit perhaps inept) manager would make; the game is "on the line," so you scrap your plan to give the rotation a break and win the game instead.

Concensus achieved.

What the sim did was stupid, but it did what you told it to do, at some level.

hey jt- did you notice that all your position players have a box you can check or uncheck for 'relief' too? meaning not only can starters and relievers be put in to pitch, but so can your ss, 2b, etc? it's kinda important to uncheck the boxes of guys you don't want to relieve.

I think the bigger issue is that a starter was used over a relief pitcher.  Had mopup guy also been tired, I'm not sure he's posting here when the starter went in the game.

i understand. but if the 'cause' of the 'problem' is that the starters had the relief box checked, he may want to be more diligent in the future about unchecking all relief boxes so something like this doesn't happen again.

and maybe wis will tweak the relief pitcher logic. but that's another issue.