I've been slowly looking at a trend in the past 10 seasons in the world I play in. Increasingly, pitchers that I used to consider as shut down closers are having years of bloated ERA's mixed in with what I would consider "normal" ERA's. For example, a pitcher with Stamina in the 30s to 40s and control in the 80s and 90s with splits in the 70s with strong 1 and 2 pitches in the 80s and 90s will have seasons where he's downright nasty, followed by seasons where he's got an ERA above 6, and sometimes even in the 8s.

Is anyone else seeing a late inning surge from offenses like this against good pitching?

Just my opinion - ERA against a late inning specialist or closer isn't important. Two or three bad innings, blowups, multiple HRs, and suddenly he's got an ERA over 5 or 6. Small sample size. Same with "nasty", maybe he has a season giving up the same number of HRs for example but with no baserunners.

Fair enough. Maybe, I'm more concerned with the number of outings in which I have seen late inning blowups in offense. I have no statistical data to back it up, but anecdotally it seems like there are more late inning rallies against quality relievers who should be more consistently effective.

One thing I've noticed is that high control pitchers seem to be walking more batters, and in bunches during one inning. I have a difficult time understanding an upper 80's control pitcher walking 3-4 batters in one inning.

Posted by jimt14120 on 2/28/2023 12:25:00 PM (view original):
One thing I've noticed is that high control pitchers seem to be walking more batters, and in bunches during one inning. I have a difficult time understanding an upper 80's control pitcher walking 3-4 batters in one inning.

Totally see that as well. I have a closer with control in the low 90's and he goes in streaks of walking 2, 3 or even 4 in an inning. Frustrating to say the least, I can see if his control was 40 or so but not low 90's. I have a set up guy with 42 control having 15 walks in about 50 innings and a set up guy with 88 control have 44 walks in just over 80 innings.

I have also noticed the BB's in bunches for pitchers with a high control rating. Reading the play by play as if happens I just figured a low control guy had a bad day, only to check the pitchers ratings and notice I was very lucky to win a game because the high control guy walked 3 or 4 batters in a row

I agree, you do see weird things like this type of pitcher completely lose his stuff all of a sudden. I think it's because we're playing a statistical game in which the results of the ratings are supposed to normalize over time. In real life a guy who walks ten batters in 100 innings is going to do just that, walk one about every seven to twelve innings. In this game that type of pitcher can go 50 innings in a row without walking anyone then walk five in one game.

Here's my best example from my current team:

https://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerRatings.aspx?pid=10628564

I've tried just about everything with this guy- reducing pitch count, limiting him to only the ninth inning, giving him the hook quickly (also setting him at 1 as well). I just can't figure out why he's had this 3 year run of suck.

Posted by mburgy on 3/6/2023 11:37:00 AM (view original):
Here's my best example from my current team:

https://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerRatings.aspx?pid=10628564

I've tried just about everything with this guy- reducing pitch count, limiting him to only the ninth inning, giving him the hook quickly (also setting him at 1 as well). I just can't figure out why he's had this 3 year run of suck.

Yeah, I've pretty much given up on guys with sub 20 stamina (except as DITR lotto's) because of stat lines like that. Just too inconsistent.

Posted by mburgy on 3/6/2023 11:37:00 AM (view original):
Here's my best example from my current team:

https://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerRatings.aspx?pid=10628564

I've tried just about everything with this guy- reducing pitch count, limiting him to only the ninth inning, giving him the hook quickly (also setting him at 1 as well). I just can't figure out why he's had this 3 year run of suck.

1) Guys with low ST get killed on in-game fatigue... I adjust their expected ERA some worse. Even used optimally, I'd expect your guy to have about an ERA around 4.00 in BOS (AL). So if you didn't take his pitch count all the way down to 5/10, try that.
2) He's got a large platoon split. Does anyone out there know if simmy is more likely to pinch-hit in the 9th inning than in the 7th and 8th? If he's facing an undue number of LHB in the 9th inning you could take him out of the 9th. That said, in general simmy does a garbage job of attacking the platoon advantage, so I'm kind of grasping at straws here.

Exhibit A:

https://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/Boxscore.aspx?gid=124525856&tab=box&mode=classic

Low stamina relievers are tough because of the limited innings they log. I used a 12 for a few seasons as a closer. I set his pull at 15 pitches. He would get about 40 innings and he had some really good season but also some 5.00+ seasons. A couple of bad outings would tank his season stats. Your guy had one game where he pitched at 37%.....3 runs with no innings pitched. That one appearance raised his ERA by over .6.