For those of you that are vets or know how to get the most out of your bullpen already, feel free to skip over this.

Some will find this interesting / new information as I did while going through with this experiment.

Picked up a new team about 3 months ago. I was bored, working from home and it was COVID. Figured I could manage 3 teams.

The team I picked up was decent with no real all stars save for 1 guy.

Ender Fontana.

9.4 Million is a lot for a bullpen guy. Especially one that had been pitching 70-90 innings a season with one season maxing out at 106. I wanted to get the most out of him but had a couple of thoughts on how to do it.

A few owners in the league said to tandem him, but tandem is so unpredictable and you have to stay on top of your rotation or it can really screw things up with having your tandem having to be the last 2 pitchers in the rotation. I knew I didn't want Fontana to close and didn't want him sharing big innings with the other mediocre pitchers in the bullpen.

I decided to try something different. I set Fontana as the only setup A with all other pitchers setup B (save for 1 mopup) set his pull rating to 1, had him set to come in at inning 6 or later (doing this again I may have made it where he could come in at any inning) and set his auto rest to 80.

He ended up with Player of the week for the second week of the season, looks like he will surpass 200 innings if I play my cards right. 11 wins and 24 saves. Right now he has the top spot for NL Cy Young voting but I doubt he will win it (owners tend to go for W's first). But all in all I feel like he was actually worth the 9.4 million this season.

Its so weird, the sim is nothing like real life baseball. In real life Fontana would be a closer that would probably throw 1-2 innings every day and that would be that, in the Sim he makes more sense as a setup guy. Interesting stuff to look at and read about regardless.

That's pretty much what I do with LaTroy Martin in Riley. Only SuA. Couple seasons ago I realized I wanted him pitching anytime he's available. But he can only do about half the innings Ender can.

My bullpen thing is that I make my best RPs the SuAs, and use the second-rate ones as closers. The idea being that the ninth-inning three outs with no one on base is an easy inning I'd rather not use up one of LaTroy's innings on. My closers are the Fernando Rodney types, lots of saves but usually the worst stats of the save leaders.

with that sta/dur combo, i think you could push him to 250+ innings. i view DUR for relievers as the rough number of games he can appear in before he gets appearance fatigue and stamina relates to the in game fatigue as roughly the number of pitches he can throw before he starts turning into goo and needs multi games of rest (like starters would). it isnt perfect, but it gets you in the ballpark. With 89 Dur and 49 Sta, thats 89 games at 3 innings per, or ~250-270 innings without losing too much on the performance side. essentially, for those of you who have been around a while and come from SLB, this is the Superman reliever strategy employed for years on the SLB side.

HOCKEY1984, Where did you set Ender's TPC/MPC?

Traded for DITR Matty last season and I put him at SUA with 99 Autorest so he only came in when at 100 percent. He pitched 235 innings with 14 wins and 22 saves and won the Cy Young award. He is doing it at a slightly slower pace this season, but he could be another Cy Young candidate by season's end.

I used and continue to use a 45 pitch count/55 max pitch count with a pull of 1 on Matty. He will be a free agent after this season, but I am trading for a similar guy so I don't lose this HUGE bullpen resource.

Noice.

Posted by Josh_Exley on 6/11/2020 5:32:00 PM (view original):
HOCKEY1984, Where did you set Ender's TPC/MPC?

I had him at 40/40 and I let him pitch with fatigue into the 80’s. I think I could have upped that to 50/50. I’m curious as to how I could have gotten him to 250-270 innings. This was an NL defensive team. Just sometimes the sim won’t bring him in.

I think you’d have to dial back your starters. If you had your stud RP pitching every game in which you had a lead between innings 4 and 7 you could maybe get him to 35 or 40 wins.

I got 30 wins from this guy.
Player Profile: Steve McCorley - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports

https://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerRatings.aspx?pid=7323750

perfect example of this

12 Cys in 13 seasons. That sh!t is bananas.

463 wins wow. He might even to 500. That’s by far the most I’ve ever seen

General bullpen question for the hivemind: how do you typically personalize the Auto Rest setting? At the moment, I typically set all my SPs at the same value (usually 85) and all of my RPs at another (typically 80.) However, I definitely feel like the bullpen is achilles heel of many of my teams and am looking to improve. It occurred to me that personalizing that setting could provide a significant boost, and am curious what the best way to go about doing so would be.

Posted by bruinsfan911 on 7/5/2020 11:56:00 AM (view original):
General bullpen question for the hivemind: how do you typically personalize the Auto Rest setting? At the moment, I typically set all my SPs at the same value (usually 85) and all of my RPs at another (typically 80.) However, I definitely feel like the bullpen is achilles heel of many of my teams and am looking to improve. It occurred to me that personalizing that setting could provide a significant boost, and am curious what the best way to go about doing so would be.

Bullpen Autorest is between 95-99 with a pull rating set to 5. You want your best guys in at all tines for 1 inning. I think of it like this, take your bullpen guys ratings and multiply them by 0.8 or 0.85. Would you still have them on your team? If not, only play them at 100. Have them toss their 1-2 innings then get out.

Posted by bruinsfan911 on 7/5/2020 11:56:00 AM (view original):
General bullpen question for the hivemind: how do you typically personalize the Auto Rest setting? At the moment, I typically set all my SPs at the same value (usually 85) and all of my RPs at another (typically 80.) However, I definitely feel like the bullpen is achilles heel of many of my teams and am looking to improve. It occurred to me that personalizing that setting could provide a significant boost, and am curious what the best way to go about doing so would be.

Personally....

I would not have an SP start that wasn't at 100%. Bullpen I have guys at 95%.

Pull ratings are at 1 for my best pitchers and 2 for my next tier. Why pull a guy because of bad luck?

I never have my pitch counts higher than my player's stamina rating unless they're studs (80 stamina would have TPC of 75 and MPC of 80). It's okay to have your starter only get 4-5 innings. Everything over their stamina is decreased results. There are no egos in fake baseball.

Stamina and Durability really matter. Have more long reliever types on your roster.

Stud relievers - 100-150 IPs, sub 3 ERA - are very valuable. People will pay much more for the 60 stamina guy who starts and gets 175 innings than the 50 stamina guy who relieves and gets 150 IP. Take advantage.

You can have a couple 15 stam / 45 dur guys but only if they're studs. If a guy can't get you 60+ innings he needs to be very valuable or cheap.