If you have an ace-level 400 IP pitcher and a bunch of comparably mediocre 200 IP pitchers, which do you consider to be the more effective strategy, in general terms:

A) A three man rotation where your stud pitcher is able to pitch deep into 54 games

B) A two man rotation (with two of the 200 IP pitchers working in a tandem in the second spot) with your stud pitcher pitching in 81 games, but on a tighter pitch count, where you’ll have to rely on your mediocre bullpen more in those games.

If you bullpen sucks, then I'd think the 54 games would be more important....improves the chances in those games. Add in the possibility that you could micro those bad pitchers against some lesser teams, and try to maximize the studs starts against the good teams

Yeah, with a terrible to mediocre bullpen, I'd be running a 3-man and bumping up the 400IP guy occasionally so he finished closer to 60-65 starts.

I have one team that had strange early-season fatigue problems, and I wound up with two of my stud pitchers taking turns starting and the third one in the BP or resting. Each time one SP gets tired, I send him to the BP and bump the third man into the rotation. It has worked like a charm. The threesome are Mathewson (411), Joss (342) and Mordecai Brown (329). It's a $160M league, though, so the short men in the BP are pretty good.

Three man ro. I don't like pitch counts under 80 unless you give him a Tandem B partner, otherwise you need to draft a few more innings to have enough healthy RP available. You could temporarily use a 2-man rotation if he's not getting enough IP. or make manual adjustments so he gets 2 starts against key opponents. But not against me since I gave you the tip.

To provide more detail for my first post: this team is 125 games in, and Mathewson has 51 GS and Joss 44. It appears both will exceed the 54 they could have gotten in a straight three-man rotation. I’m likely to use this scheme again. It has recovered a team that began with a miserable record in 4th place, that now leads the WC race by 8 games and is just 1GB in its division.

I experimented with a 5-man rotation and all pitchers had 190-240 innings. At the all-star break it looked like I would finish last in my division, then I went to a 4-man and out 5th starter was a long relief and by game 150 was in first place. The team lost in the final four but I have tried everything and seem to do better pitching 4-5 guys. Not sure if it's my lack of knowledge on a 3-man or what.

Whenever I try to do a 5-man, inevitably one of them ends up in the bullpen most of the time. It's not necessarily bad, you just have to expect it to happen and plan accordingly. Usually I have 4 in the rotation and one as a setup, and when the first rotation guy starts not bouncing back to 100%, I swap him and the setup guy.

It varies by cap, but usually you only need 950-1050 innings in your rotation. 1000 innings is ~15,000 pitches, which is 92.5 per game. You can do more, but you run the risk of not using them if your pitchers get pulled early. You can do less, but you need a really deep bullpen which tends to wear out.

When I put together a staff with 5 "high" IP guys (170 to say, 250), I'm constantly bouncing them around to fill the long A or set up A role in between starts. I also manage the "availability in relief" box allowing a listed starter to enter the game in relief so long as he isn't the next game's starter. That helps up in those occasional 15 inning games.

@SNIX: as jfranco points out, you'll need to draft at least quality 900 IP (park dependent, you may need more). If you fill the 900 innings with only 3 pitchers, you'll need to draft a 100-150 IP guy to fill in the spot start role that inevitably pops up when the 3 horsemen are all below 100%.

Posted by redwingscup on 1/17/2018 12:29:00 PM (view original):
When I put together a staff with 5 "high" IP guys (170 to say, 250), I'm constantly bouncing them around to fill the long A or set up A role in between starts. I also manage the "availability in relief" box allowing a listed starter to enter the game in relief so long as he isn't the next game's starter. That helps up in those occasional 15 inning games.

@SNIX: as jfranco points out, you'll need to draft at least quality 900 IP (park dependent, you may need more). If you fill the 900 innings with only 3 pitchers, you'll need to draft a 100-150 IP guy to fill in the spot start role that inevitably pops up when the 3 horsemen are all below 100%.

I've got 7 pitchers 125-243 innings ready for a 120m league. Not sure why but when I draft a 19 million Walter Johnson or someone else close to WHIP and OAV they usually end up getting drilled on a regular basis. If I settle for less innings like a Doc White they do just as well. In fact, my best pitcher in the last 3 months was 2017 Corey Kluber, I've come to the conclusion I don't have a clue.

Posted by jfranco77 on 1/17/2018 9:30:00 AM (view original):
Whenever I try to do a 5-man, inevitably one of them ends up in the bullpen most of the time. It's not necessarily bad, you just have to expect it to happen and plan accordingly. Usually I have 4 in the rotation and one as a setup, and when the first rotation guy starts not bouncing back to 100%, I swap him and the setup guy.

It varies by cap, but usually you only need 950-1050 innings in your rotation. 1000 innings is ~15,000 pitches, which is 92.5 per game. You can do more, but you run the risk of not using them if your pitchers get pulled early. You can do less, but you need a really deep bullpen which tends to wear out.

I just tried a 6-man rotation: MLB120495

went 69-93.