Your opinion please. What's better, one pitcher who threw 60 innings or two who threw 30 each? The two pitchers would mean one more arm in the bullpen. Thoughts?

How's the rest of your pitching staff?

It's hard for me to say one of the other without knowing how everything else looks.

I have 8 teams built in my draft center right now, on 3 of them, the choice would have been an easy "take the 60ip guy and a 200k mop up". 3 others it'd be an easy "take the two arms!" And the other two I don't remember anything about them... Ha

I almost always draft the maximum number of pitchers. A few might be scrubs or marginal, but I get enough. At times my bullpen is almost exclusively 50IP or less, especially if I have adequate innings from my starters. My 2 cents is don't buy what you don't need. Much more than 1,300 innings in an open league is wasteful. You have AAA at your disposal. You should have enough.

If you draft starters that have enough innings, and actual innings per game, you shouldn't need an enormous bullpen.

Low inning relievers with higher IP/G have an additional value: spot starter. Big game starter, if you can stash them for such an event.

My opinion is relievers with 1 inning or less stamina are overvalued. They fatigue quickly, take longer to return to 100%, and are not great at pitching back to back games. There are exceptions.

Remember this is based on pitches thrown, not innings pitched, so results vary.

Whenever possible I draft low inning starters to use as relievers. I run into fewer fatigue issues doing this.

At higher caps there are some relievers with great numbers too good to pass up. At those caps you can generally afford what you need.

One part of the answer to your question is based on their IP/G.

DoctorKz said: "My opinion is relievers with 1 inning or less stamina are overvalued. They fatigue quickly, take longer to return to 100%, and are not great at pitching back to back games. There are exceptions."

This is such an important point to understand about this game. Modern relievers with low IP/G are very very hard to use.

Here's an interesting example. Compare 1992 Dennis Rasmussen (the Cubs version with 43 innings) with "Moneyball Made Me Famous" 2002 Ricardo Rincon (the Indians version with 56 innings).

Both are lefties. Similar stats: WHIP+ Rasmussen 137, Rincon 134. WHIP# Rasmussen 0.97, Rincon 1.03. OAV+ Rasmussen 116, Rincon 115. OAV# Rasmussen .223, Rincon .229. HR/9+ Rasmussen 154, Rincon 171. HR/9# Rasmussen 0.43, Rincon 0.47. Pretty comparable. Maybe Rasmussen is a touch better.

Now look at their performance histories: Rincon has a .304 OAV, 1.64 WHIP, 5.98 ERA. Rasmussen has a .271 OAV, 1.36 WHIP, 3.98 ERA. Rasmussen has also been used almost 1200 times, which tells you something about how much more highly he is valued.

Why? Look at their IP/G. Rincon's is 0.79. He's one of those modern-era lefty relievers that in real life was typically brought in to face 1 or 2 batters with the platoon advantage. Rasmussen's is 5.3. He was basically a starter who was used occasionally in relief. In SLB, if you draft Rincon you pretty much have to keep his pitch count under 15. Personally I would set him to 5/5 or 5/10. He's good for 1 batter, tops. Then he will get tired rapidly. At 20 pitches, SLB is going to treat him like a pitcher who has been worked twice as hard as he can handle; his in-game fatigue will decline rapidly and his performance will plummet. I guarantee you many owners have used Rincon with a pitch count of 15/15 or 15/20. Bad idea.

Rasmussen can be set to a much higher pitch count (probably as high as 70-75). I wouldn't actually set him that high, because if he pitches that much he will be tired and unusable for several subsequent games, but during the game itself he will not fatigue anything like Rincon. I am convinced that one of the biggest mistakes newbies make, and one of the major reasons why modern day closers often severely underperform, is that their pitch counts are set way too high.

I would even argue that it's owners who have used Rincon on a 15/20 (or higher PC) that are the reason why Rincon's performance history is so much worse on average. My guess is that, if to used him on a 5/10 specialist role, his stats would be much more comparable. Given the choice between those two players, I always pick Rincon (typo) Rasmussen due to his ip/g.

After a little more thought on the original question, I think I'd prefer one good 60 inning pitcher (depending on your cap space, 2011 Doug Fister's 70ip instance is one I draft on every team I can) over two 30ip guys.

Another example of how guys like Rasmussen or Fister are valuable, is they can spot starts with great success.

A 2011 Fister instance for me currently has the following stats as a starter:

59.7ip in 9 starts, 1.96era/ .171oav/ 0.72whip

I have him as my #4 starter and an auto rest of 90. So anytime he's below that he gets skipped in the rotation.

@chargingryno exactly.... Rincon has his uses, but he's much less versatile than Rasmussen, and if not used exactly right he will severely underperform for the money.

Rincon could probably pitch in 80-100 games (for ~60 innings) if used as an LH specialist with a 5/10 pitch count (and a pull rating of 5). Rasmussen could be a 40-50 game closer with an occasional spot start. Note also that if using Rincon as an LHS, you probably need all of your setup pitchers also set to LHS/RHS or in my experience Rincon will be the last reliever chosen by Sparky in most circumstances, and then you'll never get all those games out of him.

I miss mistyped and meant to say "I always pick Rasmussen"! Ha

Rarely will Sparky fully utilize Specialist LH or RH relievers. Probably better to avoid using that role entirely, unless you simply have an abundance of arms.

My answer to the original question is that either is fine. Draft enough pitchers, enough innings with enough stamina, and you'll be fine.

Posted by DoctorKz on 6/11/2020 11:16:00 AM (view original):
Rarely will Sparky fully utilize Specialist LH or RH relievers. Probably better to avoid using that role entirely, unless you simply have an abundance of arms.

So...I used to think that too. And I still believe that, IF you have LHS/RHS mixed with Setup A/B.

BUT - I have had really good success recently with setting all of my late inning relieves to LHS/RHS. They get used plenty, and you are more likely to have them used with the platoon advantage.

Here's a recent team that went to the world series. Every reliever except mopups were either LHS or RHS:

Regular Season Pitching SimStats (Totals)

Player	SN	T	G	GS	CG	SHO	W	L	SV	SVO	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	OAV	OBP	SLG	WHIP	ERA
Davenport, Dave	1915	R	69	68	1	1	34	11	0	0	415.7	430	196	174	10	134	285	.263	.320	.346	1.36	3.77
Morton, Guy	1915	R	46	39	0	0	27	3	1	1	264.0	242	103	88	9	73	157	.240	.295	.321	1.19	3.00
Leever, Sam	1907	R	39	35	0	0	20	6	0	0	236.7	253	104	89	8	61	59	.270	.321	.349	1.33	3.38
Hearn, Jim	1950	R	84	0	0	0	7	2	13	15	124.3	85	36	34	6	54	68	.190	.278	.259	1.12	2.46
Mathewson, Christy	1916	R	51	0	0	0	7	2	10	15	68.0	77	34	31	7	8	23	.277	.301	.396	1.25	4.10
Deller, Kyle (AAA/P)	2020	L	17	4	0	0	0	3	1	2	57.0	103	71	66	6	42	21	.398	.481	.552	2.54	10.42
Taylor, Jack	1898	R	50	0	0	0	3	2	7	8	48.3	34	9	7	0	12	14	.192	.251	.232	.95	1.30
Leder, Courtney (AAA/P)	2020	R	11	7	0	0	1	7	0	0	47.7	85	75	70	6	43	13	.390	.500	.596	2.69	13.22
Weilman, Carl	1912	L	30	1	0	0	5	1	3	3	40.0	35	10	9	0	6	18	.224	.255	.244	1.03	2.03
Hill, Rich	2016	L	40	0	0	0	3	1	6	7	33.7	23	4	3	0	7	33	.195	.238	.229	.89	.80
Milone, Tommy	2018	L	10	2	1	0	2	2	0	1	33.7	70	41	39	10	5	19	.414	.441	.669	2.23	10.43
Hill, Rich	2015	L	29	0	0	0	5	0	1	1	29.0	21	8	6	3	2	34	.194	.237	.287	.79	1.86
Rose, Chuck	1909	L	3	2	1	0	1	1	0	0	19.7	29	13	13	2	7	4	.345	.398	.500	1.83	5.95

Makes sense...

Posted by contrarian23 on 6/11/2020 7:47:00 AM (view original):
One part of the answer to your question is based on their IP/G.

DoctorKz said: "My opinion is relievers with 1 inning or less stamina are overvalued. They fatigue quickly, take longer to return to 100%, and are not great at pitching back to back games. There are exceptions."

This is such an important point to understand about this game. Modern relievers with low IP/G are very very hard to use.

Here's an interesting example. Compare 1992 Dennis Rasmussen (the Cubs version with 43 innings) with "Moneyball Made Me Famous" 2002 Ricardo Rincon (the Indians version with 56 innings).

Both are lefties. Similar stats: WHIP+ Rasmussen 137, Rincon 134. WHIP# Rasmussen 0.97, Rincon 1.03. OAV+ Rasmussen 116, Rincon 115. OAV# Rasmussen .223, Rincon .229. HR/9+ Rasmussen 154, Rincon 171. HR/9# Rasmussen 0.43, Rincon 0.47. Pretty comparable. Maybe Rasmussen is a touch better.

Now look at their performance histories: Rincon has a .304 OAV, 1.64 WHIP, 5.98 ERA. Rasmussen has a .271 OAV, 1.36 WHIP, 3.98 ERA. Rasmussen has also been used almost 1200 times, which tells you something about how much more highly he is valued.

Why? Look at their IP/G. Rincon's is 0.79. He's one of those modern-era lefty relievers that in real life was typically brought in to face 1 or 2 batters with the platoon advantage. Rasmussen's is 5.3. He was basically a starter who was used occasionally in relief. In SLB, if you draft Rincon you pretty much have to keep his pitch count under 15. Personally I would set him to 5/5 or 5/10. He's good for 1 batter, tops. Then he will get tired rapidly. At 20 pitches, SLB is going to treat him like a pitcher who has been worked twice as hard as he can handle; his in-game fatigue will decline rapidly and his performance will plummet. I guarantee you many owners have used Rincon with a pitch count of 15/15 or 15/20. Bad idea.

Rasmussen can be set to a much higher pitch count (probably as high as 70-75). I wouldn't actually set him that high, because if he pitches that much he will be tired and unusable for several subsequent games, but during the game itself he will not fatigue anything like Rincon. I am convinced that one of the biggest mistakes newbies make, and one of the major reasons why modern day closers often severely underperform, is that their pitch counts are set way too high.

This is gold, the IP/GM, not just innings. I've heard similar warnings, but haven't taken the deeper dive. A current team (my 2nd ever, actually) I got 3-300 inning SPs at reasonable quality value, and 10 on paper lites out pen guys and a total of 1300 IP, just in case. We'll, my pen is still fried on a daily basis. Just now finding out they'll even bring in a 26% fatigue guy if he's all you've got left.

Not discounting anything in this thread as the IP/G factor is VERY VERY IMPORTANT. That said, I rarely look at what the IP/G is of anyone in my bullpen. Obviously, if I'm looking for pitchers that will fill certain roles, or pitchers that can be flexible, etc... that's very important. But in most of my teams I draft such that all of my bullpen pitchers will play in 81-120 games. Their IP/G isn't going to matter because I'm going to be using them equal or less than they were in RL. This opens the doors to a wider variety of quality pitchers than you would normally look at if you were just looking for guys that can pitch in 40-80 games.

I also draft a number of teams where that IP/G is going to be very important and you won't see a guy with an IP/G less than 7 on those teams, even through the entire bullpen and rotation. It all depends on how you plan to set up your pitching staff. Ultimately, it's only their total pitches available that matters, the rest is just how you optimize their use.

Shoot, lately, I've even been drafting most of my starters to pitch 81-120 games... feel free to get creative with pitching setups, just don't forget to be aware of in-game and early-season fatigue for pitchers. Both of which can sink a team quickly.

new guy here, so others may have said this before me....

I recently took the big pitcher spreadsheet to assess if the salary for a 100 IP arm was about double the salary of an equivalent 50 IP, and half that of a 200 IP arm.
I used ERC+(norm) as my measure of pitcher quality. I picked "bins" of pitchers of similar quality and groups of innings.

What I found was that a 55 IP arm is priced half of a 100 IP arm, which is half of a 190 IP arm. So basically the first 10 innings are "free"
(55-10) is half of (100-10) is half of (190-10)