What difference a role might make, or a question about starting versus relief pitchin

[Gastric ReFlux]

There was some discussion about this issue last year. I'm really not up-to-date as to what the current thinking is, although I don't imagine that the evidence has really changed any.

Simply put, there is a whole lot of good evidence that when used in relief, a pitcher will have a lower ERA than when asked to be a starting pitcher. So far in the DIPS era of OOTP, 6.0 and on, we haven't seen a similar parallel between an OOTPverse and our real baseball universe.

So I'm wondering if there has been adjustment to the pitching talent models and how those talents are expressed with some dependence upon whether a pitcher is starting or relieving?

[Markus Heinsohn]

Research has shown that the reason for that is hitters adjusting during a game and hitting better when they see the pitcher more than once in the game.

This is modeled in OOTP 2007

[Gastric ReFlux]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

Research has shown that the reason for that is hitters adjusting during a game and hitting better when they see the pitcher more than once in the game.

This is modeled in OOTP 2007

Okay, thank you.

What you stated above always seemed like the most likely explanation of the data that people like tangotiger have uncovered.

[Kaitiaki]

Originally Posted by Gastric ReFlux

Simply put, there is a whole lot of good evidence that when used in relief, a pitcher will have a lower ERA than when asked to be a starting pitcher.

I know Baseball Prospectus (IIRC, it was Nate Silver, though I could be wrong about that) has written articles alleging that working in relief can reduce a pitcher's ERA by as much as a whole run, all other things being equal.

Pitcher fatigue (i.e., for starters), batter familiarity, the greater ability of managers to match relievers to hitters they have a better chance to get out, and so on all play into this difference.

Whether that evidence is conclusive or not I leave to people who have better math skills than I. But there is at least a case for it being made by a widely respected group of baseball analysts.

- Kai

[chriskelly]

One thing I noticed from 6.5......AI teams valued SPs must more than MRs, which makes sense. So, if you could find a pitcher being used as a MR, but with endurance over 50 (similar to SPs), you could trade for him pretty easily. In fact, if you took your own MRs with high endurance and changed them to SPs before putting on the trade block, you got much better offers. I'm wondering if this has changed in 2007.

[Markus Heinsohn]

Originally Posted by chriskelly

One thing I noticed from 6.5......AI teams valued SPs must more than MRs, which makes sense. So, if you could find a pitcher being used as a MR, but with endurance over 50 (similar to SPs), you could trade for him pretty easily. In fact, if you took your own MRs with high endurance and changed them to SPs before putting on the trade block, you got much better offers. I'm wondering if this has changed in 2007.

Yes, it has...

[JHruska]

How will this affect the ratings we enter to get the results we want from a player? Will we need to put mediocre starting pitcher ratings for movement, stuff, and control in order to get a set-up man?

[chriskelly]

I know that in the past, velocity and type of pitches thrown was pretty much cosmetic. but....in real life, certain pitchers are just better suited for relief or closing than starters are. In prior versions, it seemed like the main seperating pt was the endurance....anyone could pitch in relief, but only guys w/ the endurance could start. It would drive me nuts that so many pitchers in the amateur draft had low endurance....are there really that many teenagers whose endurance should be that low? I'd love to see the new version "know" that some guys are a better fit in relief, such as high velocity guys or 1 pitch guys. I'm confusing myself as I write this, so I'm hoping it makes sense to someone else.

[RonCo]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

Research has shown that the reason for that is hitters adjusting during a game and hitting better when they see the pitcher more than once in the game.

This is modeled in OOTP 2007

To be techincally more corect, it shows that this is at least a healthy part of the difference. It may, or may not account for 100% of the difference. A few other likely candidates (among others):

1) Usage: merely the fact that relievers often only need to get 1-2 outs rather than three--so, for example, a reliever who gives up - walk, out, walk, out, HR - upon entering the game may well get out of it with only 1 or 2 earned run (assuming one of the two outs were #3 for the inning), whereas a starter who gives up that combination immediately upon entering the game will get tagged with 3.
2) Energy Expended: Bullpen pitchers tend to have slightly higher K/BF numbers, and perhaps slightly higher BB/BF rates. However, the question of which is cause and which is effect is not clear--do relief pitchers strike out more because they are relievers or are they relievers because they strike out more? I think it's generally felt now that the same pitcher throwing in relief will tend to have a little higher K-rate than when they are throwing as a starter. Still, it's not much...and just getting the multiple hitter/pitcher interaction implemented is a nice step forward.

I can say that in the big picture, bullpen and starting pitchers looked good in testing. I admit to not having been detailed enough on this aspect of the game to state anything in too concrete of a form, though.

[LASpirit]

Some of us are planning a conversion to OOTP from a DMB league (www.cbabaseball.com). I'm helping our founder work out the logistics for creating our own historical Lahman type dB. Creating one is relatively easy from our league dB, however, we plan to create our own player models for our 2007 season based on 2006MLB stats, 2007 real life projections, and 2006CBA stats.

This creates a bit of a problem for some pitchers b/c some pitchers are used as starters in MLB and relievers in our league, or vice versa, etc.

My question is this: If a pitcher has a line like -

120IP 115H 45BB 95K 10HR

Will his player model be affected (and how) if his line includes

20 Starters
or
15 starts and 10 relief appearances
or
70 relief appearances?

I hope that's clear. Any insightful input would help.

Thanks.

[Elendil]

LASpirit - OOTP will model that player with starting-level endurance if he has more than a couple of starts, and a high-level relief endurance if he has no starts (or just 1 or 2), but that doesn't mean that he couldn't be used as a reliever even with starting-level endurance. OOTP prevents pitchers with endurances under...45/100, I think, from starting effectively, but teams will frequently use pitchers with higher endurance in the bullpen.

[Dogzilla]

Research has shown that the reason for that is hitters adjusting during a game and hitting better when they see the pitcher more than once in the game.

This is modeled in OOTP 2007

This is great, but to go one level deeper I would guess that the real reason the hitter does better is because he has seen the pitchers SPECIFIC PITCH before, probably a few times. If the batter saw nothing but fastballs the first two times up, he probably won't fare better if he sees nothing but curveballs and change-ups on the third at-bat. This ties in to what Chriskelly was saying:

I know that in the past, velocity and type of pitches thrown was pretty much cosmetic. but....in real life, certain pitchers are just better suited for relief or closing than starters are. In prior versions, it seemed like the main seperating pt was the endurance....anyone could pitch in relief, but only guys w/ the endurance could start. It would drive me nuts that so many pitchers in the amateur draft had low endurance....are there really that many teenagers whose endurance should be that low? I'd love to see the new version "know" that some guys are a better fit in relief, such as high velocity guys or 1 pitch guys. I'm confusing myself as I write this, so I'm hoping it makes sense to someone else.

If a pitcher only has two pitches, he probably won't do well as a starter, because he has to use each pitch too often. So you might choose to use a high quality pitcher with a high endurance in relief, because you know he would do best there, even if he has a high endurance rating. If you did use him as a starter, you might have to be careful about having him work the third time through the order.
Maybe in spring training you could teach him another pitch, at the expense of other priorities. This could be used in conjunction with an individual rating for each pitch. Just thinking.

[StyxNCa]

I was wondering if a pitcher's endurance drops if he is switched from a starter to a middle reliever, or closer for that matter, and is used primarily in the new role?

Pardon me if it's been answered at some point. I am very limited on the time I have on-line when I'm not home so I am unable to read through the threads.

[Elendil]

Originally Posted by StyxNCa

I was wondering if a pitcher's endurance drops if he is switched from a starter to a middle reliever, or closer for that matter, and is used primarily in the new role?

Pardon me if it's been answered at some point. I am very limited on the time I have on-line when I'm not home so I am unable to read through the threads.

No, endurance stays the same.