I have entered this pitching staff into a no-DH 200M league. There are AAA in this league but I will not use them unless I am in death-spiral territory.

What will happen?

Player	SN	T	GP	GS	W	L	SV	IP	BFP	H	ER	HR	BB	SO	OAV	WHIP	ERA	HBP	WP	BK
Johnson, Walter	1913	R	50	38	38	7	2	364.0	1353	244	46	9	40	256	.187	.78	1.14	9	3	0
Martinez, Pedro	2000	R	29	29	18	6	0	217.0	817	128	42	17	32	284	.167	.74	1.74	14	1	0
Kershaw, Clayton	2016	L	21	21	12	4	0	149.0	544	97	27	8	11	172	.184	.72	1.63	2	5	0
Chamberlain, Elton	1888	R	17	17	13	2	0	135.0	514	73	24	1	32	68	.152	.79	1.61	0	0	0
Eckersley, Dennis	1990	R	63	0	4	2	48	74.0	262	41	5	2	4	73	.160	.62	.61	0	0	0
Miller, Andrew	2016	L	70	0	10	1	12	74.0	275	42	12	8	9	123	.160	.69	1.45	2	1	0
Uehara, Koji	2013	R	73	0	4	1	21	74.0	265	33	9	5	9	101	.130	.57	1.09	1	1	0
Kimbrel, Craig	2017	R	67	0	5	0	35	69.0	254	33	11	6	14	126	.140	.68	1.43	4	5	0
Jansen, Kenley	2016	R	71	0	3	2	47	68.7	251	35	14	4	11	104	.150	.67	1.83	2	1	0
Doolittle, Sean	2014	L	61	0	2	4	22	62.7	236	38	19	5	8	89	.169	.73	2.73	0	0	0
Kimbrel, Craig	2012	R	63	0	3	1	42	62.7	231	27	7	3	14	116	.126	.65	1.01	2	5	0
Adams, Mike	2009	R	37	0	0	0	0	37.0	136	14	3	1	8	45	.111	.59	.73	0	1	0
Hill, Rich	2015	L	4	4	2	1	0	29.0	106	14	5	2	5	36	.141	.66	1.55	2	0	0
Totals	--	--	626	109	114	31	229	1,416.0	5244	819	224	71	197	1593	.164	0.72	1.42	38	23	0

My goal for this team was to get the team WHIP as low as I could without going over 100M for pitching and having at least 1,400 IP. I also wanted as many strikeouts as possible to try to reduce the need for me to pay for extra IP, thereby keeping quality higher.

The lack of pitchers who can spot start would be my concern. A few blowouts and you are in trouble. Not the staff I would care to manage. You need to stay on top of this one. Personally I would replace one of your many high velocity relievers with another 100 ish inning guy that can go 5 or 6 innings. You are more capable than I am at micromanaging. Is out of my comfort zone. I would add 10-15 starts. You only need so many 7th and 8th inning guys.

Swap Eck for Toney perhaps?

I only see about 140 starts. Between Toney and AAA it would look more doable.

'01 Pedro?

What do you mean 140 starts? WJ will make 81 and so will Pedro. I guess I could do a three man rotation too, with Kershaw. Either way, nothing fancy

Ok, I didn't see Pete as an 81 start guy. I would certainly use AAA early on. Hey, go for it...

Wait, so Pedro is going to pitch 3 innings a start? He is at 217 IP and with the 10% "bonus" that give him 238. Divided by 81 that comes to about 3 innings or 45 pitches a start.

If you use a tandem for Kershaw and Chamberlain or a Starter 3A/3B system maybe. But at $200 mil?

I kind of think DoctorKz's first reaction still makes sense. But then, I am absolutely one of the most conservative people here in terms of experimenting with pitching innings, and rotation formats, so consider the source. Still, that looks a bit thin as a starting rotation at $200 mil.

Let us know how it goes. Just4me and chargingryno are always into experiments in pushing the boundaries of what you can do with pitchers, so you may start a cool and informative laboratory thread on that if nothing else.

best of luck, and of course there is a good chance I am dead wrong.

I think you could be in trouble, especially with no mop-up or obvious long relief type to clean up. If you're on the wrong end of a few blowouts early it could get ugly.

It is an aggressive approach. I can see it working, although the number of appearances might be right on the ragged edge. A bad couple of outings in a row from WJ and you are hurting...he has to be on his game.

I personally have never built something so unorthodox but find myself wanting to try...like Professor I tend to build more conservatively, but may be my shortcoming here.

The modern relievers won't want to pitch multiple consecutive days without getting at least a bit weary. I would still want Toney in the mix. I could give him 10 starts, and still get 50+ innings of relief duty from him. He would likely outpitch Eck anyway...cost is a wash...it might be the difference come playoff time to not have burned your guys out...my 2 cents.

You'll be pushing it, but it's doable. An early extra inning game or two would sink the whole thing fast. That said, if you're willing to pitch them down to 90% you shouldn't have to worry at all. But you have AAA to use in an emergency fatigue spot and Hill & Kimbrel can be used to stop the death spiral, as well. I'd go for it, if it works, you should be incredibly tough to beat.

I wouldn't want to waste Hill. I see him and Adams closing, or should be considered for the role.

I don't understand the sentiment around wanting someone for extra starts. I run 200-250 IP pitchers in 2-man rotations all the time at a 40-50 pitchcount. The number of starts / distribution of their innings across a different # of games has no impact on their effectiveness (unless it's over 110 which is unrealistic for a starting scenario). If anything, they are better off this way due to less in average in game fatigue per pitch thrown.

Can someone explain this perspective a bit more?

Same question for why a Kershaw/Chamberlain tandem would be any less effective at 200M than other caps?

There are better hitters, so pitchers use more pitches per outing against them, both because their OBP is higher and because they get more hits and score more runs compared with the lesser hitters at $80 mil and $100 mil. So you need more IP.

WIS uses pitches for fatigue, not IP. Basing decisions on IP or estimates using 15 pitches per inning does not work when you're trying to win at the margins and precision matters. Elbirdo gifted us with his formula for determining, relatively accurately, how many pitches somebody is allotted for a season. You don't even need the formula though as this can be calculated using the hover-over fatigue percentages.

Ozo's pitching staff is allotted about 20,672 pitches combined. That's an average of 127.6 pitches per game. If comfortable throwing pitchers out there at less than 100%, it's absolutely possible to get through a season at $200M with THOSE 1416 IP, though certainly not ANY 1416 IP. Inviting fatigue is a slippery slope, but with AAA as a cushion it's a worthy experiment. At one time I started to collect some data on teams' total pitches for SIM seasons. I kept forgetting though and only have very small samples. No $200M leagues, but at $220M I had a team average 133 pitches per game while the league average was 140. The margin for error is very thin with 127.6 pitches per game available on average. Any early season extra-inning games or a random game where Walter Johnson only gets through 2 IP with his 65 pitches could spell disaster as there's definitely luck involved to make it through a whole season efficiently. A home ballpark that favors pitchers and strong defense/range will help though.

My only conclusion is that the risk level is very high and the probability very low. Good luck.

EDIT: In our $225M Quick Start that just finished, ozo's team averaged 133.4 pitches per game which was fewest in the league. League average was 141.4. That team had 1430 non-Tommy Milone IP. Less cushion without a mop-up, but also facing less salary on offense. Of course, my team in that league had a totally unnecessary 1715 IP and only won one fewer game, ha.