I'm seeing a lot of teams in my worlds having success using Tandem Pitching set ups. I've never used it, opting for 4 SPs and using a LR as a spot starter when needed. Is anyone who has had any success with TP willing to give pointers / advice on using Tandem Pitching? Especially what ratings a pitcher needs to run in the A spot and in the B spots. Any other pros and cons?

I used it alot eons ago. The biggest advantage is the L/R pitching change when the tandem enters. Other than that, you don't need much of a bullpen, maybe three short guys and one long guy for emergency. Ratings you want would be the same as always. The other thing you can do is bring your better pitchers back on short rest if they have a short outing.

I'm doing it right now with my SD team and I'm shocked.

https://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerRatings.aspx?pid=7936741

starts with a pull rating of 5 and TPC 70 MPC 80

then

https://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerRatings.aspx?pid=8268439

comes in. Same TPC and MPC but pull rating of 3.

oddly Van Hekken is doing better then James. Like Mike said, it's the L/R switch that helps.

Posted by hockey1984 on 12/7/2017 4:04:00 PM (view original):
I'm doing it right now with my SD team and I'm shocked.

https://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerRatings.aspx?pid=7936741

starts with a pull rating of 5 and TPC 70 MPC 80

then

https://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerRatings.aspx?pid=8268439

comes in. Same TPC and MPC but pull rating of 3.

oddly Van Hekken is doing better then James. Like Mike said, it's the L/R switch that helps.

Are those low durability ratings allowing you to run that same tandem every 4th start?

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/7/2017 2:13:00 PM (view original):
I used it alot eons ago. The biggest advantage is the L/R pitching change when the tandem enters. Other than that, you don't need much of a bullpen, maybe three short guys and one long guy for emergency. Ratings you want would be the same as always. The other thing you can do is bring your better pitchers back on short rest if they have a short outing.

So you're not using tandems now? Why did you stop?

Posted by sallyleaguer on 12/7/2017 4:53:00 PM (view original):

Posted by hockey1984 on 12/7/2017 4:04:00 PM (view original):
I'm doing it right now with my SD team and I'm shocked.

https://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerRatings.aspx?pid=7936741

starts with a pull rating of 5 and TPC 70 MPC 80

then

https://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerRatings.aspx?pid=8268439

comes in. Same TPC and MPC but pull rating of 3.

oddly Van Hekken is doing better then James. Like Mike said, it's the L/R switch that helps.

Are those low durability ratings allowing you to run that same tandem every 4th start?

Pretty much. The low durability mixed with the high stamina causes them to never drop below 50 after a game and I get between 6 and 9 innings per start.

I have a team with 7 or 8 pitchers that are legit starters. I tried tandems for two seasons but I've had better success going with a 6 man rotation with higher pitch counts. YMMV though.

It's nice having a nine man pitching staff though. Gives a lot of flexibility on the position side of things.

I had a tandem setup that worked well once but only by blind luck...I tried the same thing the following season with pretty much the same players and they did horribly. Like the team ERA jumped 1.4 runs!

I think my problem was I never looked into the Lefty and Righty change that MikeT notes. I just saw a few other players using it to some success and noticed that my best pitchers had lower stamina in the 60s and 70s. I am gonna pay more attention this season to it.

Do anyone believe that any of the tandem success has to do with role? Specifically if the pitcher has different success as a starter or as a reliever?

Shouldn't matter.

I typically like starting my leftie over my rightie because I find (on average) VsL lineups tend to be much weaker then VsR.

I set my starter to a pull of 4 or 5 so that when he gets into trouble the power rightie goes against the weaker lineup.

I've made it to the LCS with this tandem because my SP1 went down the first game of the wildcard play in.

This season I'm experimenting with a rather unique group of 5 starters. I have two RHPs that are real workhorses - 90ish STA and 35ish DUR - but they're my #3 and #4 best SPs. The other three guys are all LHPs with about 75ish STA and 25ish DUR. The plan is to start the two RHPs every other game, and have the three LHPs rotate in to the back half of the tandem: RHP1+LHP1, RHP2+LHP2, RHP1+LHP3, RHP2+LHP1, etc. All the guys would have TPC & MPC around 50-60 pitches, and over the course of the season should end up pitching about the same number of innings as they would have on a 5-man rotation. The theory behind the structure (besides the handedness swap that should take advantage of platoon lineups) is that with shorter pitch counts, they'll only be dropping in stamina from 100 down to maybe 80 during their game, then resting back up to 100 in the off day(s), instead of throwing deep into games that tires them down to 20, where I assume they're less effective in those later innings.

I have noticed that you generally get more innings out of each pitcher in a five man rotation than if they are in a four man rotation.

tlowster, you're in my league doing almost the same thing! I decided to pop into the league leaders to see my two Openers at the top of the list and lo and behold you've got two tied up with mine. I see you're getting your openers to only go about 20 pitches, but the minimum player setting for any type of starter is 40. Does that mean after a guy is declared the probable starter, you're changing him to a reliever and adjusting his MPC down to 20?