Anyone tried this? If so, what settings did you use and what were the results? I've got a rebuilding team that has an inordinate amount of RP prospects (like, literally ten guys who should wind up as big leaguers, at least six of whom are legit future SUAs) and no real SP prospects to speak of and I'm wondering if foregoing starters entirely (or almost entirely) might be a viable option.

Depends on the pitchers and if you are capable of meeting the innings demanded for the season. I doubt you will be able to but who knows link them. I have never understood why anyone would use any other setting for relief pitchers other then sa and mopup. What does rebuilding team mean? Like trying to load up on prospects before trying to win?

In Pine Tar, dwoolery has the best pitching staff in the league. 14 pitchers, with only 3 or 4 of them being what you would call legitimate starters. His best pitcher (used to be my pitcher) is a reliever who leads the league in wins by a wide margin. Two seasons ago that pitcher's record was 34-5. You might send him a sitemail to see if he would be willing to pass along any tips.

I rely heavily on my relievers. YOu need to make sure they are capable of the innings needed from game to game.Player Profile: Steve McCorley - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports

I have never had a team with all relievers, but I have had a few teams where I only had a couple of pitchers you could consider starters. As stated above, as long as they can cover 1450-1480 innings pitched per season, it should not matter.

My team in Dirt has three starters and the rest of the staff are effective relievers and it's a top five staff in the World.

I had three starters -- one of them has won the Cy Young the last two seasons; the next one has above-average ratings, but 50 stamina; the third guy has below-average to average ratings, but high stamina. I have the CY Young guy set to a pitch count that is 20 pitches above his stamina, the other two guys are set to a pull rating of 5 and set to 40 pitches. This way, my best starter pitches the most innings, my other two starters get pulled once there they get in trouble and my relief pitchers take the larger burden of the innings on the season by design.

One thing to consider though is the use of those pitchers that only give you 60 innings a season. If you have too many of those guys, you might want to consider trading some of them. I only say this because you don't want to limit your lineup's use of effective platoons because you need to have 14 pitchers to cover all the innings.

I took over the team last season and three of the four worthwhile prospects were relievers. I then drafted relievers with four of my top six draft picks (not intentionally, it just worked out that way), signed a few more relievers as IFAs, and then got two good DITR bumps on relievers as well.

Dante Nakajima
Larry Truman
DJ Baldoquin
Matty Rodriguez
Willie Estrada
Buck Masters
Michel Gil
Julio Castillo
Rusney Valdes
Jerry Blanton
Brian Restovich
Izzy Morris

The last two are very iffy on talent but would eat major innings if they wind up anything close to playable. Ideally I'd replace them with better pitchers with similar stam/dur, but those don't grow on trees.

Most of those guys are to far away from the ml level to really know how they will develop. As TL said you can only have so many guys pitching 60 innings or less. IF these are th guys you are trying to use you need 4-5 others whom can get you 150 + innings

Posted by dmalone01 on 8/3/2020 6:45:00 PM (view original):
I took over the team last season and three of the four worthwhile prospects were relievers. I then drafted relievers with four of my top six draft picks (not intentionally, it just worked out that way), signed a few more relievers as IFAs, and then got two good DITR bumps on relievers as well.

Dante Nakajima
Larry Truman
DJ Baldoquin
Matty Rodriguez
Willie Estrada
Buck Masters
Michel Gil
Julio Castillo
Rusney Valdes
Jerry Blanton
Brian Restovich
Izzy Morris

The last two are very iffy on talent but would eat major innings if they wind up anything close to playable. Ideally I'd replace them with better pitchers with similar stam/dur, but those don't grow on trees.

Have not done the math, but I don't this this crew will cover the required 1450+ innings. There are too many guys that will only pitch 60-80 innings a season and the guys being counted on for big innings probably won't have good enough ratings.

If you could take the best seven or eight guy of the above and add bigger innings guys like the below as your openers, the all relief pitching strategy will work out. So, it isn't a flawed idea, it is just a matter of whom you have in the staff.

This guy
This guy
This guy
This guy

These posts about the number of required innings should be clarified. It REALLY depends on the park you play in. I always play in pitchers parks. Tacoma is my favorite. 1200 innings in Tacoma is plenty, and usually 1100 is enough.

Thanks for the help. I think I'm going to try and go for it, or at least something close, maybe two or three legit SPs and then relievers for the rest of the innings. Would tandems be the best option for that? I'm in San Antonio, which is a pretty strong pitcher's park, if that makes a difference.

I would just go with starters or openers that are left handed. This way your righty relief pitchers are facing less left handed batters.

Woolery has a team in my league as well. From my view....he has some starter types on his team but they may be pitching in relief. I'm sure it takes quite a bit more day to day management of your pitching staff. If you aren't going to be able to log in for a day or two.....a traditional staff set up will keep on running. I think it would be difficult to set up that kind of staff for a couple of day absence.

Posted by bjschumacher on 8/3/2020 7:11:00 PM (view original):
These posts about the number of required innings should be clarified. It REALLY depends on the park you play in. I always play in pitchers parks. Tacoma is my favorite. 1200 innings in Tacoma is plenty, and usually 1100 is enough.

Do you mean 1100-1200 innings from your SPs or your whole staff? I have a team in Tacoma at the moment, and I'm guessing that my rotation is capable of giving me between 1000-1100 innings while my bullpen will easily put me over the magic number of 1450. So far results have been pretty good, but I just wanted to double check to make sure I'm on the right track.

bruins, 1458 is the magic number (9*162) that all teams will end up close to in game play. what the above is saying is that, if you have a formula to calculate the number of innings your team's pitchers would be able to throw in a neutral ballpark, assuming 15ish pitches per inning, you will be able to get to 1458 actual innings with 1100-1200 projected innings in Tacoma because you are playing more than half your games in extreme pitching parks. The park effects allow you to stretch innings further. You may need a start or 3 from a AAA type innings eater pitcher, but you can make it work with some diligent management. Similarly, if you are in an extreme hitters park, you would need to plan for 1600-1700 innings in a neutral park because so many of the outs will turn into hits. These are well known numbers and strategies from the SLB side of the site.

Posted by loudawg10 on 8/6/2020 4:20:00 PM (view original):
bruins, 1458 is the magic number (9*162) that all teams will end up close to in game play. what the above is saying is that, if you have a formula to calculate the number of innings your team's pitchers would be able to throw in a neutral ballpark, assuming 15ish pitches per inning, you will be able to get to 1458 actual innings with 1100-1200 projected innings in Tacoma because you are playing more than half your games in extreme pitching parks. The park effects allow you to stretch innings further. You may need a start or 3 from a AAA type innings eater pitcher, but you can make it work with some diligent management. Similarly, if you are in an extreme hitters park, you would need to plan for 1600-1700 innings in a neutral park because so many of the outs will turn into hits. These are well known numbers and strategies from the SLB side of the site.

Yea, I understood the basics...my formula is telling me that I should be able to expect 1036 IP from my starting pitchers and 664 IP from my bullpen for a total of 1700 IP. My question was whether that total should still be 1458 in Tacoma, or if I should aim to have the total closer to the 1100-1200 range versus aiming to get 1100-1200 IP out of my starters. Based on your comments, am I correct in understanding that I'd be OK with the total being in the 1100-1200 range?