In an 80M (with average AAA) theme I'm in, I've had 2 pitchers in a Setup A role all season:

1909 Cliff Curtis
ERC# 2.14
OAV# .202
WHIP# 1.07

1918 Fred Toney
ERC# 1.36
OAV# .196
WHIP# 0.79

Both righties.  Both their inning available settings at "any."

When both pitchers were rested and available, Curtis was brought in first every time.  Not that it bothered me since this team coasted to the playoffs and it didn't make a difference (if it had, I would have switched Curtis to Setup B), but still.  Why would an obviously inferior pitcher be brought in first every time?

Alphabetical?

Ha, good guess.  But I had other pitchers who were Setup A (like Charlie Smith and Jack Pfiester) and Toney always came in before them.

I was told(by staff) that if there are 2 setup A's available the sim would choose the *better* pitcher every game.
I had 2 very similar guys with RL innings of 98 and 102 - the sim stats were -  pitcher A 48 times(57inn) and pitcher B 9 time(11inn) - so I assume from this that *A* was selected first and *B* came into relieve *A* 9 times. I was also told if I wanted *B* to pitch more I should rest *A* once in a while.

Yeah, I assumed it was the better pitcher, too.  That's why I don't understand Curtis always coming in before Toney.

Although in fairness to the sim, Curtis did wind up with a better ERA for me (2.37 to 2.59 for Toney), so who knows.  Maybe he is the better pitcher.

I don't have time to look both of them up right now, but what are their ERA's (and ERA#'s)? Once upon a time pitchers were primarily priced by their ERA and the Performance History lists a player's best season by his ERA, maybe Sparky's determining who is best based on the pitcher's ERA?

I've always thought OAV was the number Sparky used to bring in relievers of the same designation.  In this case, Curtis' OAV was .191 and Toney's was .192

So it's just one stat?  And it's a real life stat (not a normalized stat)?  I guess that would explain it, but it doesn't seem like the best way to decide which pitcher is "better."  If I had to go with one stat, I'd pick ERC# (which Toney wins, 1.36 to 2.14).  Or even $/IP (Toney again, $37,530 to $27,930).

Well Crazy, for whatever its worth, I find it difficult to believe that Curtis is the "better pitcher" between he and Toney, but perhaps insofar as how the two were performing for that particular team (irrespective of their prior history's), with Curtis' league numbers being better than Toney's, Spark considered him as the "better" pitcher (due to his then league performance compared to Toney's) and therefore always brought him in first.  But me, personally, I always start with the inferior pitcher at SUA, and then if he gets into trouble, the real deal comes in.

Curtis' RL ERA is also better (1.41 vs. 1.69), so do we have anyone who has some other examples so we can determine if it is ERA or OAV (or something else entirely)?

In my example above pitcherA's ERA is 2.27 and pitcherB's ERA is 2.19 - so it must not be ERA - but pitcherA's OAV is .211 and pitcherB's OAV is .218.

I don't think it is OAV either because I have 89 Dibble and 89 Orosco both as SUA and Orosco has 68 games pitched to Dibble's 46 and Dibble has the better RL OAV

In the Dibble & Orozco example, does handedness come into play?

Posted by skunk206 on 3/19/2011 4:24:00 PM (view original):
I've always thought OAV was the number Sparky used to bring in relievers of the same designation.  In this case, Curtis' OAV was .191 and Toney's was .192

Yes, that is my understanding.