Oh, I agree, that's not worth it. I think getting it down near 3 percent would be a huge boost, assuming you wouldn't have to carry 13 or 14 pitchers. I have a feeling you would need a staff with very high DUR across the board though. Basically a variant of your old 3MT.

zbrent, what is the highest number of pitchers you ever had to carry at one time? I am very tempted to try something like this. Ideally you would want your starters to have 40ish STA and very high DUR (80-90 ideally). Not sure how well it would work with 55 STA/ 27 DUR types.

The problem with carrying more than 12 pitchers is that you run out of players. Assume 1 AB for a pitcher. That's three pinch-hitters. 11-12 already used. Back-up catcher and a D-Replacement are all that's . If you carry a 13th pitcher, I'm not sure what you do.

Quote: Originally posted by kahrtmen on 4/23/2010zbrent, what is the highest number of pitchers you ever had to carry at one time? I am very tempted to try something like this. Ideally you would want your starters to have 40ish STA and very high DUR (80-90 ideally). Not sure how well it would work with 55 STA/ 27 DUR types.

I don't think I had to go above 13 arms at any point in S10.

zbrent, I just looked through your Padres staff again, and it looks like you have a staff capable of throwing 1700-1800 innings. Did you struggle to make this work at times, or was it pretty easy, since you had so many pitchers with high STA/DUR? I fear I don't have enough DUR to pull it off, at least the way you did yours. I don't have any 40STA/80DUR relievers.

The biggest problem that I see with this strategy is that you end up leaving IP on the table. You had at least 3-4 pitchers with 80+ stamina only throw about 120 innings. It's expensive to pay for all of those innings. If you have the extra innings on your staff, I think it's clearly worth it.

Quote: Originally posted by kahrtmen on 4/25/2010zbrent, I just looked through your Padres staff again, and it looks like you have a staff capable of throwing 1700-1800 innings. Did you struggle to make this work at times, or was it pretty easy, since you had so many pitchers with high STA/DUR? I fear I don't have enough DUR to pull it off, at least the way you did yours. I don't have any 40STA/80DUR relievers.

The biggest problem that I see with this strategy is that you end up leaving IP on the table. You had at least 3-4 pitchers with 80+ stamina only throw about 120 innings. It's expensive to pay for all of those innings. If you have the extra innings on your staff, I think it's clearly worth it.

It was pretty easy, both because of the high Sta/Dur and home park. As far as the $, my staff was actually relatively cheap, because (with only a couple of exceptions) no one was *actually* a good pitcher, so I pulled most off the scrap heap for the league minimum (or close to it).

Interesting. Given how much money I have invested in my staff, this might be a bad idea for me. I am still very tempted to try it though.

Quote: Originally posted by kahrtmen on 4/23/2010zbrent, what is the highest number of pitchers you ever had to carry at one time? I am very tempted to try something like this. Ideally you would want your starters to have 40ish STA and very high DUR (80-90 ideally). Not sure how well it would work with 55 STA/ 27 DUR types.

I ran something similar with the Baltimore franchise in AL of the same world as zbrent's Padres.

I found that it could be done with a 3 man rotation (the 20/55 types) and setting them to 40 pitches. On good days, I had 3 guys throwing 3 innings. Unfortunately, there wasn't many good days because there weren't many good pitchers, so the team ended up under .500.

I would also say that this strategy is less effective in the AL than the NL, for the reasons being discussed in this thread. By and large, its harder to assemble 12 quality pitchers, even RP, than it is to find 6-7 effective pitchers, of which 3 are quality 7 IP SP. You can cheat on the quality of the pitchers with more of them, and a quicker hook, but in the AL it's entirely about the pitching.

In the NL, the offensive factor pushes this to "beyond smart", IMO.

Yeah, I wouldn't even consider this if not for the extra pinch hitting at-bats.

After 44 games:
SP 1-3 RF 5.52 RA 4.78
SP4/5 RF 6.47 RA 4.29

I score almost 1 run more, but it is a little bit streakier, with over 1 full run difference in the standard deviation of run scored. Defense is about half a run higher in deviation for the regular rotation.

Yeah, but your pitchers are still using up 6.9% of your plate appearances. I am going to try some kind of tandem this season and see if I can get my pitcher PAs under 5%, if not under 4.

But you have to remember, I am only (trying) to cut down on PA's for 2 games during a rotation. I figure to have 2 real good starters and the 3rd is pretty solid. I am not concerned with those ABs, as the pitching is well worth the lose of Offense (and 1 is hitting .240 with a double and 1 hitting .318 with a HR). The biggest problem I am having is a big inning by my offense, and my pitch count is jacked up, then my tandem A ends up hitting once. Not that I am complaining about the scores.

zbrent, do you have your relievers set for extremely low pitch counts? I would look at your game logs, but it looks like you guys just started a new season in Kinsella, so there aren't many games to check out. In order to eliminate your starters appearing as hitters, it looks like your pitchers can't ever go more than 2 innings. After that though, the only way to really be sure that your relievers don't hit is to have your target pitch count settings really low. I'll be honest, this is pretty tough to control with target pitch count settings. In live play it would be easy, but the limited control makes it tough.

Quote: Originally posted by kahrtmen on 4/29/2010zbrent, do you have your relievers set for extremely low pitch counts? I would look at your game logs, but it looks like you guys just started a new season in Kinsella, so there aren't many games to check out. In order to eliminate your starters appearing as hitters, it looks like your pitchers can't ever go more than 2 innings. After that though, the only way to really be sure that your relievers don't hit is to have your target pitch count settings really low. I'll be honest, this is pretty tough to control with target pitch count settings. In live play it would be easy, but the limited control makes it tough.

Not what I would call "extremely low" but we may differ on what that means. Right now I have the following TPC in my pen:

20, 15, 10, 20, 20, 20, 20, 40, 10, 145

The 145 is my dedicated mopup man. The 40 is a RP that another owner and I have been fighting over the WW for (sending him back and forth) and is a 69/40 (dur/sta) so I think of him as sort of a second mopup, even though he's designated as Setup.

3417 PA so far this season, a bit over the halfway point.
158 PA by my pitchers.

Right now, then, my pitchers are picking up about 4.6% of this year's PA, up from last season. A couple of ideas why that may be happening.

1) We're winning more games, so my mopup man is getting more PA in bigger wins (which is perfectly fine with me). He has 19 PA so far this season, compared to only 20 for all of last season.

2) In order to limit fatigue issues early on, I had one of my now setup As set to go long in games, so he picked up 4 games of 2 PA and one game of 3, which accounts for more than half of his current 21 PA. Since going to a "normal" setup A PC usage, he has (I think) 4 PA.

3) A couple of pitchers (Lecuona for example) are pitching markedly better than last season, and so are more likely to get through 2 innings with 20-25 pitches rather than one. They therefore face the risk of batting. Lecuona has 20 PA already this season, compared to 21 for all of last season, but is also on pace for an additional 30 innings in roughly the same number of games.

I'm very interested in how this impacts Budget. I see that you are sacrificing Great Pitching (which is expensive) as the ERA shown is over 4.5 on the Season. Now, this is not bad for a full Staff, it's not the Sub 4 that could be had with top notch 1-4, LR, SU and CL. Essentially paying out the nose for 7 Stud Pitchers that carry most of the innings for the entire Staff could get you that stupid super ERA. Instead, you are taking Lesser Pitchers and using less IP for your Prime Pitchers in order to get less PAs from your entire Staff. (This won't really affect SU and CL as they don't hit anyways, and most Middle Relief won't see more than a few PAs a Season as they usually pitch until their AB then get a PH, but your LR and Starters take a huge IP hit here).

This means a few things to me, being an outsider looking in. Stamina is no longer a Priority at any Pitching Spot, as you don't ever WANT your SP to see 7 Innings and your Long Relief will only pitch until he hits so never more than 3 Innings. Pitchers that can toss amazing Innings at a Quality Level cost a ton of money. So you are now saving on SP due to not going after those Top Pitchers that can throw for 7+ IP.

It looks like you would now Target the Best Relief Pitchers or the Low Stamina Starters that would otherwise be really good (a 5 IP type of guy that would be an All-Star if he could throw 7+ a game)

You could still field a good enough Staff, you'd just need more of those really good but low STM types on your team. I would assume netting 10-12 of those would be cheaper than trying to get a 1-5 Rotation of All Stars with Stud Closer?

The reason the Money is Important is because of what you are trying to do. By not having the Pitcher bat you are having a Hitter bat (fairly obvious). The money saved by going for Cheaper Pitching can now increase the Quality of your Hitters, and as PHs are more common for your Team having those Stud Hitters as Back Ups would be almost more beneficial than upgrading a Starter. Since he is a PH he won't need good Defense, though that will be a bonus.

You are getting an extra 250 PAs from Hitters now, so Imagine if that was producing .300 BA with .350 OBP and 40+ HRs, like an AS Power Hitter would net you.

Just saying, the idea of Less Pitcher PA is to increase scoring. That money saved by taking Lesser Pitching could equate into improved Pinch Hitting due to Player Quality, which could really blow the roof off of your Current Runs For.

So, how much $$$ is this saving you from 'Traditional Staff Costs'?