There is a franchise in one of my leagues that does not use SPs on his staff. The staff consists of about 12 relief pitchers. I believe their set-up is something like this: There are two relievers alternating starts, a SP1 and SP2, if you will. These pitchers will come in to start the game but will be removed after an inning or two. I believe at that point everyone else is listed as LongA, LongB, SetupA, and SetupB, each with individual settings for what inning they are available. Only 3 players on the staff have a stamina over 45 and its not unusual for 7-10 pitchers to see the mound in one game.

This pitching staff has dominated the league the last two seasons and the team itself has won over 110 games both times. It seems that some of the other owners in the world think its cheap, cheating, or unrealistic. One owner was upset come playoff time that he couldn't set up a proper platoon lineup against this team. While I agree that in comparison to the MLB, it's unrealistic, I think it's a perfectly legit and creative strategy.

What does the rest of the HBD community think about a staff managed this way? If someone in your world ran a team this way, would you be upset?

I have strongly considered something similar with one of my teams, using RP's only.

I am a traditionalist and I hate it but there is nothing you can do about it. Just beat them.

This is just a variation on a theme. An attempt to fool or make it hard to adjust to RH or LH pitching. Starters would be one side and rest were the other.

It has two advantages:

• Firstly, the obvious forcing your RH line up play against a mainly LH pitching etc
• Secondly and most likely more important is COST!!!! SPs demand more $$$, bullpen guys ask for less. Having an effective pitching staff on the cheap. Spend the $$ on your batters instead!! The cost of pitching can very high cause of FAs. Let's face it a stud starter will command a high price (bidding war). Therefore the market for starters will ALWAYS be higher for those than bullpen boys.

Now is it ethical??? Questionable, the system allows it so...... Doesn't stop others from doing it. Now as for own Personal Opinion... I'd get out of world with that kind of owner(s). What other 'questionable' stuff are they doing???

I have no problem with it, and in fact I did it a couple years back in Season 1 in Clemens* when I was dealt a team stacked with great relievers and almost void of starters. It is a difficult system to manage because you do have to adjust pitchers in between every single game, but I won 100 games doing it. It is perfectly ethical in my book and in fact a very good strategy if you have the right pieces for it. I know that Season 2 in Clemens the owner that took over my team dropped the strategy and went with a standard pitchging staff because he simply didnt have the time to deal with this type of system.



P.S. given that it has been done before, it is not "unique".

I haven't seen any other 'questionable' activity going on with that particular franchise. There were a few semi-lopsided deals with inexperienced owners attempted last season, but all of the proper vetoes were made. As far as I can tell, the pitching staff is the only 'issue.'

I believe Tony La Russa did this at one point because he was ****** off with all his pitchers. He had 3 guys, who would pitch 3 innings each, assigned to every game.

Even Eck, IIRC.....

Quote: Originally posted by csherwood on 12/11/2009P.S. given that it has been done before, it is not "unique".

Fair enough, I hadn't seen it done before. I'll change the thread title.

It's difficult to do mainly because of the 1450 or so innings you need to get from them. I would think you would need at least a couple of 40/70 STA/DUR pitchers.

I don't understand why anyone would have a problem with this. I see no ethical issue here whatsoever. This is a "moneyball" strategy. He found something undervalued and exploited it.

Quote: Originally Posted By EasyE7273 on 12/11/2009I am a traditionalist and I hate it but there is nothing you can do about it. Just beat them

I agree with this. As with many issues, this comes down to whether owners view this as (1) a simulation of MLB baseball, or (2) a sports game on the Internet. Those who don't have a problem with it are in the second category; those who do and consider it crap or cheating (as I would) are in the first.

WIS is in the second camp.

but those 40/70 guys are a dime a dozen in HBD.

much less extreme but i played with a 4 man rotation in GAP last season- my starters all had stamina in the 55-70 range and i had a bunch of 30/70 relievers so it only made sense. my team won 96 games but it was mostly cause of the offense.

of course, the only reason why this strategy is possible is because of a major flaw in HBD- the abundance of RPs who can toss 150+ IP in a season.

so to me this is less a user disrespecting the sanctity of the game and more WIS generating players with unrealistic capabilities. if they're there, why not use 'em?

I wasn't considering it due to the platoon advantages (I only have 1 y on the entire staff), I just have insanely good RP's with great Dur/Sta combos and mediocre-to-good SP. I keep telling myself to Tandem my RP in the playoffs, but I have not yet truly given it a shot.

It ain't cheating.

Those of you who are calling it "cheating" apparently don't know what the word means.

If he wins with it, more power to him. All it takes is one 14-inning game to completely blow up his staff though.