I see that there was a thread on this topic back in 2014, but I had problems following it. I know that my pitchers consistently under perform and this is probably because I do not understand how the sim uses the pitching statistics. I look at Whip, oav and ERA in that order. By these standards Alexander 1.22, Johnson 1.14, and Mathewson 1.43 should be great picks in the big money leagues, however I have had bad results using them over the last year or so. I don't neglect hitting and I make sure that I have well above the minimum 1500 innings each pick. (I consistently pick 2,200 innings + for higher salary cap teams. Iam sure others would like some insight into how these statistics are used.

That's too many IP, first of all. At $255M I almost exclusively use Coors Field and rarely draft more than 1850 IP. You can always draft extra to be safe, but I've rarely ever had pitching fatigue issues with those kinds of IP totals. You could use even less IP at pitcher's parks.

Second, WHIP and ERA are not used in the SIM to determine the outcome of any actual game event. I wouldn't even bother to look at ERA at all as it means nothing in the SIM. WHIP is useful as a comparison tool as it's a good measure of a pitcher's overall effectiveness in terms of OAV and BB, but WHIP itself is not used in SIM calculations. I focus on OAV (weighted by OAV+ when comparing similar pitchers), BB/9, and of course HR/9. At any cap, you're basically trying to assemble a pitching staff with the best combination of OAV, BB/9, and HR/9 within league parameters. Those are the "Big 3" that primarily affect the outcome of an AB in the SIM.

Another thing to keep in mind is that even the best pitcher seasons of all time will likely produce ugly-looking numbers at high caps. As long as your staff's numbers are less ugly than your opponents' though, you'll be fine on the pitching side.

All of skunk's info is great and correct, but I'd like to add not to overlook defense and range for your hitters at high caps. Guys like Ty Cobb 1911 are beneficial in preventing hits and keeping your pitchers' stats down as well. 1923 Ruth instead of 1921 unless you're putting him at DH, etc. the impact of great range is probably lessened at 255M as opposed to 80M, but don't ignore it.

Hugh Duffy at SS is killing you in one of your leagues.

Also, look at your pitcher's ip/g........This is a real basic way to look at it, but, each pitcher has in-game stamina, and it is based on pitches thrown instead of actual IP. You can safely assume a pitcher is worth 15.5. pitches per inning. So, if you SP is good for 7 ip/g, having him throw 120+ pitches is hurting him.

Another hint, at high cap's you don't need a mop-up guy. Get some better quailty arm's in there instead.

How much emphasis do you put ok k/9?

Very little unless it's a league with all modern hitters and my team defense won't be very good.

I'm newer to things but I almost look at K/9 as somewhat of a negative unless my defense is filled with Ds, bc it means my pitcher is likely using a higher number of pitches to get the out-if I understand the process correctly if the result of each sim play is determined to be an out it then checks to see if it's a K and at that point I presume it determines the number of pitches used in that ab.