Does anyone have any experience using tandem pitchers? I am playing my first season in awhile, and I have some pretty good pitchers with staminas in the 50/60 range and was considering it.

I would consider using these guys either in long relief or on a shortened pitch count as setup/closer. tandem pitching doesnt really get you anywhere at the big league level. I will use guys with mid-60s stamina as a starter if their stuff is good enough, but never moe than one such guy per team and always making sure I have a deep bullpen. He will rarely give you more than 5 innings, so if you have more than one of these guys starting regularly you will overtax your relievers.

On the other hand, if your opponent has an unbalanced right-handed batters / -handed batters lineup, there could be some small advantage to being sure to bring in a y following a righty or vice versa. That second pitcher could have a good advantage the first time through the lineup.

Quote: Originally Posted By unclevic on 11/12/2009On the other hand, if your opponent has an unbalanced right-handed batters / -handed batters lineup, there could be some small advantage to being sure to bring in a y following a righty or vice versa. That second pitcher could have a good advantage the first time through the lineup

Well for that you can just use the tandem with the A pitcher on a 5/5 pitch count trick.

I actually won a WS one season using four tandems. But I was promptly bounced from the divisional series the next season, using the same method. So take all of this with a grain of salt.

I had a great group of batters, and they all stayed relatively healthy, so I only kept maybe 11 or 12 position guys. I then had a number of pitchers with staminas in the 50-70 range, and a decent group over for the bullpen. I put the 8 guys with the best staminas (and general ability) as my starting tandems, then I had another two LR guys, plus two setup guys and closer. My LR guys were pretty close to being good enough to be my last tandem (or was my last tandem bad enough that they could have been LR pitchers?), so if I was in a pinch, I could swap guys around from relief to starter.

The WS was not a product of my pitching, by any stretch of the imagination. All of my pitchers were average, or even below-average, but running the tandem system helped me spread out the crappy pitching so that everyone got a fair number of innings. It worked one season, it didn't work the next season, and now I'm back to running a regular rotation.

I ran 3MT with all my teams at one time when WifS cowed down to the fatigue whiners. They've since changed it and tandems aren't really an effective way to run a team. I have no problem using 2-3 50/60ish guys in a rotation. Just know you'll need an extra arm in the pen. And be prepared to adjust your staff from time to time to give the lost stamina guys an extra day.

Quote: Originally Posted By csherwood on 11/12/2009

Quote: Originally Posted By unclevic on 11/12/2009
On the other hand, if your opponent has an unbalanced right-handed batters / -handed batters lineup, there could be some small advantage to being sure to bring in a y following a righty or vice versa. That second pitcher could have a good advantage the first time through the lineup.

Well for that you can just use the tandem with the A pitcher on a 5/5 pitch count trick

... if you want to waste the appearance by the guy who started. I understood the OP to want innings out of both of the tandem starters.

I have had some success with a 56 stamina SP. He's pretty good, which helps him go deeper into games on lower pitch counts. He usually gives me 5 or 6 quality IP. In the rotation, he follows a pair of very good, high-70s stamina guys who I push hard from an IP perspective. As a result, my pen is very fresh when his turn rolls through. He's my #3 SP. My #4 also has low stamina, but my #5 has high stamina, so I flip-flop them to seperate the low-stamina guys. By the end of a turn through the rotation, my pen is usually pretty gassed. But then they recover when my #1 and 2 guys go to the bump and give me 7+ strong IP on back-to-back days. Also, I have a high scoring team, and keep 3 high stamina guys in the pen, and set them to low TPC but high MPC. I get a pretty high number of 3+ inning saves and my Mop gets a fair amount of work cleaning up 8-2 score lines. That helps preserve the 4 true low-stamina RPs.

Has anyone ever tried this:



Every once in a while, you come across a pitcher who profiles as a pretty good ML pitcher, but with the durability of a starter and the stamina of a middle reliever. Has anyone ever run a 5-man rotation with 4 regular starters, and a pair of these low dur/low sta guys as a tandem in the #5 spot at the ML level? Of course, you'd be one man short in the pen, but I would think that a pair of mid-40s stamina guys could give you 7-9 combined innings every 5th day pretty regularly (assuming they pitch well enough to not get pulled for effectiveness), thus saving your shorthanded bullpen for the other 4 days.

If you've tried it (or seen it tried), how did it work? I've got a pair of prospects in my system who profile this way, and have been kicking around the idea of using this setup in a few seasons when they're both ML-ready.

Here is one that has been tried:

Season 1 in Clemens* I was dealt a pitching staff with 8 or so very good/great relievers, at least 3 or 4 of which had 80+DUR/35-40STA. I only had one or two guys that were at best long relievers/4th-5th starters. Instead of going out and getting/trading for starters, I picked up one or two more of these guys and ran a pitching staff with no starting pitchers at all. I would have to make numerous bullpen moves between each game, but I would only have 2 guys ever listed as starters, the guy with the ball first for the current game, and normally a guy who was a bit fatigued but would be up to 100% as starter #2 for the next game. Everyone else on my 12 or 13 man staff was always available for any game from the 'pen.

I won 100 games this way, so it definitely did work, though it was a lot of effort to make sure I never missed updating myteam between games.

I've been running tandems on both my teams for the last couple of seasons

in both cases, I haven't been happy with my bullpen, and my good starters have low STA and my not as good starters are simply not as good

so I have a rotation of 7 to 8 guys that are in 3 tandems and two as long men ... I set the tandem guys pitch counts in the 40-60 range (depending on STA), and give them 3 or 4 pull settings

my thought is that I get two chances for my mediocre guys to have a good outing ... guys with good outings pitch their 3 to 4 innings ... if they are having a bad outing they get yanked ... plus, for my NL team, that exit of the TandemA guy often works well with having him pinch hit for

another thing is that those guys with 40-60 STA tend to get overlooked in FA because they are not "typical" starters, but are often to expensive to "waste" in the pen ... so I am able to get them a little cheaper

note that I have to check my staff after EVERY GAME ... I am constantly juggling guys around so that I have a 100% guy on the next A slot (I can snag a 100% guy for the B slot later) ... Long guys need to step in from time to time, and when a guy gets shelled he can move up and pitch sooner

I've had some luck with it this season with my #4 and #5 SPs.

My #4 has a 26/63 and my #5 has a 28/58, so rather than have them each throw 80-85 pitches, I have every third or so start put them in tandem, each with a 50 TPC/65 MPC and a 4 pull.

I won their first four tandem starts, but about .500 since.

Toying with this idea on one of my teams.  I actually have 8-9 starters who are all good enough to be above average to excellent MLB starters.  A couple are veterans whose DURs are 18 and 19.  Their staminas are 59 and 68.  Their other numbers are real good to excellent.  There are 5 other good starters on the team and one medicre guy whose splits are low, but CT/Vel/P1-P4 are all real good. 

If pitch counts are set properly, I may only need 2-3 relievers.  One is already a 86/41 DUR/ST and high quality, so he gets 150+ innings a year from the pen now (or as many as I can get him).

If I split up the low durability guys and keep their counts low, do you think this may work?

The trade option is fairly limited for most because of their age (most are 33+).  They are definitely worth more to me than what they would bring in trade.

I used Roger & Dwight as a Tandem last season in For Life to pretty good success.  I only had one other good starter, and I wanted to maximize what I got out of them (since they were my two best pitchers), so I pushed them to the top of the rotation every time they were going to be at 100%; every 2nd or 3rd game because both have really good durability.  They would have had more innings, but both were injured for a decent amount of the time last season (and I have both on the DL right now).

It is silly for anyone to say "it isn't an effective way to run a team."  I have run it many times and know other people who strictly run it to great success.  Like anything else in this game, it is a great tactic when used appropriately and poor when not.  More than anything, it gives the owner more control over who is going to come in the game, so it is especially effective in the playoffs when you want more bullpen control.