I am in a progressive league where I have a pretty weak pitching staff.  I am considering using 1946 Dizzy Trout as a poor man's John Clarkson.  I don't know if that is a dated reference around here these days, but I am saying that I would like to use him for about 2 to 3 innings in relief per game.  Will that work or will he die a terrible death due to being used in almost every game?

Looks like the Elton Chamberlain 2 inning closer thread has been bumped for your perusal.

Wow.  That strategy hasn't worked in what, like, 5 or 6 years now?  At least.  You can't use him anything close to every game.  It's tough to get a guy into more than 50% of your team's games.  If he's way below being on pace for his RL IP, you might be able to get him into 100-110 games.  But then you're wasting a bunch of innings from a guy who is presumably your best pitcher.  To get a guy 300ish innings you'll either need to start him or use him as a long reliever for 3-4 innings per game in roughly 80 games.

It's not tough to get a guy in  more the 80 games.   I do it all the time without trying,

Tex Clevenger '59 (R)		100	102	8-4	8	111.2	3.39	.239	1.49	6.45	5.16	2.51M

This guy had 102 appearances.   Less than 10 were below 100% and none below 96%.

Most teams have 53-62 save opportunities in a season. If you're using a one-inning closer, then investing in more than 60 IP seems a waste for that role.

But why couldn't someone run an 8th-9th closer at 120 IP a season? I suspect that Sparky's judgment may not be clear on when an 8th inning score is a save situation. If you have the manager's strategy checked so that the closer comes in only in save situations, then he's not coming in for a 2-2 tie in the 8th or a 6-1 lead in the 8th, although he'd likely come in when it became 6-4 in the 9th. If you uncheck the saves-only option, then he's going to get used in any old 8th inning when the game is close and wind up with fewer save opportunities.

I don't play live, but I suspect that live play would be the optimal situation for drafting a two-inning closer with more than 100 IP.

I wasn't saying that I would use him as a closer.  The term "poor man's John Clarkson" was meant to indicate that I would use him often as a long reliever type.  I have a couple of decent starters that can go 6 innings or so, I probably wouldn't need him in those games.  A good portion of the rest of my games will probably be started by a turd.  My thinking is that I should have the turd go for as long as he can, and if I am winning, tied, or only down by a run or so, bring Trout in for a few innings (duration of use depending on season usage) and then turn it over to the bullpen.

If you're willing to pitch him slightly fatigued (>90%)  I would guess you can get 110 or so games out of him.

TJ, we're not dealing with a 100-inning closer.  We're dealing with a 300-IP long reliever.  He's basically talking about a superman strategy, and killing that strategy led to a major overhaul of the fatigue system for relievers years ago.  I'm sure you remember.  It's designed now specifically to make it difficult to use a big-inning starter exclusively in relief.  Do you honestly believe he's likely to succeed in using up 300 innings in a relief role?

I was answering the question, "How many games can a guy appear in?"

If you want to get 300 innings out of him, I think you'll fall a little short.   I think you can probably be able to get 250-280 ip if you set the PC to 50, pull 1 and don't let him be pinch hit for.   You can certainly get 90 appearances, you might be able to get more without to big a fatigue penalty.

The main part of appearance fatigue doesn't kick in until you a player has pitched in  70% of the games.  As long as a reliever is under 70% and under 100% of projected pitches thrown (without the 10% bonus) they will be at 100%.  I think if you have the settings right you get close to 300.

I figured the implicit declaration was that I would also want to get a lot of innings out of him.

This is a live league, BTW.  If my goal is to get over 300 IP out of him, how would this work:

Put him in as part of a 4 or 5 man rotation and then use him in relief as needed.  He would probably have between 60-90 appearances for the season, with ~35 of them as a starter.

In a live league, you'll be able to manage it even better.  I think you can do it all in relief but using him as a starter won't hurt.   I would avoid using him in game 1.  That somehow skews it.

In a live league you'll be fine... in a regular league, Sparky's decisions are a little rough on a big inning long reliever, so you'd get somewhere around 90-100 appearances and around 250 IP out of him. Don't use him in the first game, and I'd even recommend skipping the 2nd if you can as well.

As for the closer question brought up above, unchecking the "only use in save situations" box only allows the closer to be brought into tie games as well. I always leave that unchecked, even for my 40IP closers as I'd rather they come in in a 9th inning tie than my mop up. The only way to get more innings out of a closer is to set their availability to earlier innings such as the 7th or 8th. In that case you can push them to close to 100 IP, otherwise, I don't see you ever getting more than about 75 IP out of a closer only available in the 8th or 9th and in only save situations.

Of course its not hard to get a pitcher into half your games.  I often have AAA pitchers do it all the time.