I have a formula for evaluating pitchers.  It works pretty well for me, except when it comes to choosing relief pitchers in progressives.  As I guess like many my formula relies heavily on ERC#, hr/9#, and avoiding pitchers w/ obvious flaws like excessive walks or terrible fielding average.

But for several years now, my bullpens in progressives just suck.  For example, I have owned Clay Carroll for most or all of his seasons in 3 different progressives over the years, not because I particularly love him, but because he seemed the best guy available in 2nd or 3rd rounds of drafts.  His ERC#s are consistently range from middle 2s to low 3s.  Not a star, but a guy you would think would be more effective than most.  But he has consistently sucked for me, more likely to have an era over 4 or even 5, and almost never meeting my expectations.  My current massive underperformer is Tim Burke, who is consistently awful despite stellar statistics for most of his years.

Does anybody have a clue what I am doing wrong?

Just taking a cursory look at your most recent seasons of Carroll and Burke, the first thing that jumps out is their pitch counts.  Neither of these guys should ever be throwing more than 20-25 pitches in a game based on their IP/G, yet both have many many outings where they go over 30.  Relievers fatigue very very quickly once they pass their allotted number of pitches in a game.

You really abused Burke starting with his 1/26 PM2 game.  He had 7 straight outings, and 9 out of 10, where he had high pitch counts.  He went from a 2.94 ERA to 5.68 just across that stretch.

Beyond that, I don't know that there is much I can tell you.  Carroll's numbers in 1975 are nothing special...he's "league average" in OAV and WHIP so I wouldn't expect anything special from him.

And remember of course that relievers pitch such a comparatively small number of innings, that 1 or 2 bad outings can kill their stats for a long time.

Thanks contrarian.  btw, love that name. 

I did pitch Burke too many times in a row and tire him out.  Consecutive outings is something I used to monitor more closely, but have just failed to do recently. 

But I am not sure about pitch counts overall.  Burke has never shown up as below 100% on fatigue, nor did Carroll.  They are guys that often near or exceed 100 ip in actual statistics, so a higher pitch count than normal that the SIM spewed out seemed right.  I have reduced Burke's PC to 15-20 and am sure it will help him the rest of this season, although it will mean I have to use statistically inferior guys in his place. 

Thanks also for alerting me to IP/G stats.  I  have never paid to much attention to that, thinking the SIM would not assign a ptich count inconsistent w/ IP?G.

Dont EVER go with the pitch counts that are assigned by the SIM.

It has more to do with their real life IP/G numbers. The sim uses this number to determine when their "in-game" fatigue kicks in. I use 15 pitches/IP as a target PC and 16 pitches/IP as a max pitch count as a good ballpark figure for determining PCs and avoiding in-game fatigue. If you pitch beyond their IP/G x 16 pitches numbers, you will see a dramatic reduction in performance as they are essentially at 0% for their in-game fatigue.

Posted by grayfoxx on 2/2/2015 2:07:00 AM (view original):
Dont EVER go with the pitch counts that are assigned by the SIM.

That isn't good advice.....the SIM calculates PC based on projected appearances ..........in many cases they have PC's  way to low and to high.......Many times it'll take a low IP/162 pitcher put in setup A and have a max PC of 10 when these guys can pitch way more than that without any in game fatigue.

All of you hace given excellent advice on how I have misused mu bullpen, especially contrarian.  It will help me improve as a manager. 

However, my original question was about evaluating RPs in the draft.  Any advice there???

In the draft, I try to break down players into tiers of "Elite", "All-star", "Good", "Average", "OK" and "Really Bad/Not Usable/DL". For RPs, I use the following stat breakouts...

Elite is WHIP# < 1.00
All-Star is WHIP# < 1.10
Good is WHIP# < 1.25
Average is WHIP# < 1.35
OK is anything not covered above
"Really Bad/Not Usable/DL" is pretty self explanatory, but I usually consider it a WHIP# of 1.50 or higher.

I assign points for each of the categories and draft the highest point total for pitchers. Of course, you have to factor in OAV#, BB/9# and especially HR/9#, so those can move a RP up or down the tiers. Hope that helps.

THe problem on relying of WHIP# is that it is negatively correlated with HR/9# when deterining salaries.  Pitchers w/ good WHIP#S for their salaries often have high HR/9#s and vice versa.  I'd rather havve a pitcher who gives up a few extra singles than a bunch of HRs.  OF course salaries don't matter directly in progressives but the principle remains.  Your elite and all-star ptichers probably score well in both categories, but your Good and Average guyswill probably require you to choose between a lot of singles and a ton of HRs

For progressive's I use the + stats mostly.

In an indeal world the guys who pitch my last 3 innings are all going to gave WHIPS+ over 110 and ERCS+ over 150.   Depending on the era and ball park, I facture in HR/9+ as well.   

Trentonjoe, greetings my soon to be sort of neighbor because I am moving back to South Jersey after a quarter century living in Northeast Asia.

Why do you use + stats for progressives?  Most of the progressives I have been in have players from two very different eras, thus I rely on # stats. 

I understand if you have only 1 year in your progressive you only have 1 year to think about, but could you explain deeper why + stats are your choice?

Plus stats are useful in single-season progs because you see at a glance who's above or below average in that particular season.  Generally speaking, if you have a starting pitcher who's 100 or higher in HR/9+, OAV+, WHIP+ and (especially) ERC+, then you've got a pitcher you can plug into your rotation and don't have to worry about.  (For relief pitchers, you'd like a lot more than 100+ in each of those stats.)

Of course you have to make adjustments based on various factors.  If you're playing in a 24-team prog when there were 26 real life teams, a 200 inning pitcher with an ERC+ of 105 is going to be quite valuable; if you're playing in a 12-team prog when there were 16 real life teams, an ERC+ of 105 won't be so hot.  Likewise you have to consider your home park, and whether you're playing in the dead-ball or live-ball era.  For example, in a single-season prog 1914 Dutch Leonard's HR/9+ of 98 isn't going to hurt you much, considering no batter hit as many as 20 HR in 1914, and only a handful of batters reached double digits in HR; whereas with a pitcher like 1998 David Wells, with his ERC+ of 162 but a HR/9+ of 91, you might be a bit wary, especially if you play in park that favors HR hitters.

Granted the plus stats don't give you the whole story, but in a progressive they give you a decent quick and dirty evaluation of a pitcher's worth.

Posted by reddfoxx on 2/3/2015 11:35:00 PM (view original):
Trentonjoe, greetings my soon to be sort of neighbor because I am moving back to South Jersey after a quarter century living in Northeast Asia.

Why do you use + stats for progressives?  Most of the progressives I have been in have players from two very different eras, thus I rely on # stats. 

I understand if you have only 1 year in your progressive you only have 1 year to think about, but could you explain deeper why + stats are your choice?

More or less what Crazy said. &#160; In a one year progressive the raw #'s are less important in my opinion, all that is important is how the player did compared to everyone else.<br />
<br />
If a guy has 5 season's with an ERC+ over 120, I think he is pretty valuable. &#160;Obviously, I look at other things as well but this is a guy who is 20% better than the league average, he's got a spot on my team. &#160; IF one of those season's has a WHIP# &#160;of 1.42 sobeit. &#160; That means than the league average was higher than that.

stupid chromebook formatting.....does anyone know who to get rid of the &amp; and &lt;br/&gt;