How To Build A Ptching Staff

[FamundaCheese]

For the life of me I can't seem to build a staff (startes and relievers) who can function as a unit atleast at a replacement level or above.

My league has the following:

1. Scouts off
2. Coaches off
3. Self imposed salary cap of 45 mil
4. Potential ratings on, all other ratings off

It seems that no matter their potentia, no matter what the minor league report says, no matter their minor league or previous major league stats say, and no matter how many teams want to trade for them, I just can not get my pitchers to produce at a level beyong Jim Bullinger and Mike Harkey.

Any suggestions?

[Nutlaw]

Take a look at your ballpark factors and make sure that your pitchers are playing to its strengths. If, for instance, your ballpark gives up a lot of home runs and your pitchers have poor movement ... well, you're gonna get rocked.

[Ambermonk]

In my game I like pitcher duels, so I have the universal player creation mods (in Game Setup) set to 0.995-0.999 for batters, and 1.001-1.005 for pitchers. I also have pitcher development to be slightly accelerated.

[dawurm9]

I'll second Nutlaw's suggestion. Check out your ballpark. If you're in a home run hitter's ballpark you'll want to find groundball pitchers. If you're in a park that gives up a lot of base hits look for strikeout pitchers.

Other than that, you've made the game fairly difficult for yourself with those restrictions, so it doesn't seem too suprising that you're having a difficult time putting together a good staff.

[RonCo]

Originally Posted by FamundaCheese

For the life of me I can't seem to build a staff (startes and relievers) who can function as a unit atleast at a replacement level or above.

My league has the following:

1. Scouts off
2. Coaches off
3. Self imposed salary cap of 45 mil
4. Potential ratings on, all other ratings off

It seems that no matter their potentia, no matter what the minor league report says, no matter their minor league or previous major league stats say, and no matter how many teams want to trade for them, I just can not get my pitchers to produce at a level beyong Jim Bullinger and Mike Harkey.

Any suggestions?

Minor league stats are very useful if you understand their context--consider performance against league average rather than performance based on number you're used to. A 3.30 ERA is not so good if the league ERA is 2.85, for example. Of course, ERA is not so good for the projections. The important things to pay attention to are the DIPs stats--K/PA, BB/PA, HR/PA...k/bb ratio, etc. It's difficult for bullpen guys since their sample size is very small.

Pay attention to BABIP. An OOTP pitcher has a little more control over BABIP than a real pitcher, but not much. A guy with a high BABIP is being a bit unlucky and may be considered likely to do better in the future. a guy with a low BABIP against may be thought to have been lucky (or just played behind a great defense).

Sample size is important, of course. Most humans don't understand how wide of a variance a player can really have by pure random chance alone.

[FamundaCheese]

Originally Posted by RonCo

Minor league stats are very useful if you understand their context--consider performance against league average rather than performance based on number you're used to. A 3.30 ERA is not so good if the league ERA is 2.85, for example. Of course, ERA is not so good for the projections. The important things to pay attention to are the DIPs stats--K/PA, BB/PA, HR/PA...k/bb ratio, etc. It's difficult for bullpen guys since their sample size is very small.

Pay attention to BABIP. An OOTP pitcher has a little more control over BABIP than a real pitcher, but not much. A guy with a high BABIP is being a bit unlucky and may be considered likely to do better in the future. a guy with a low BABIP against may be thought to have been lucky (or just played behind a great defense).

Sample size is important, of course. Most humans don't understand how wide of a variance a player can really have by pure random chance alone.

<--- SaberDork. But thanks for the tips!

*Edit: Calling myself a SaberDork, not you. :-D

[RonCo]

The first part -- context of minor league stats -- is very important because I think very few people work to get their OOTP minor league totals set well, hence minor league stats are skewed based on what our eyes see and our brains expect. This is a root cause of the complaints you'll sometimes see around here that minor league stats are not "realistic."

When minor league League Totals are properly set for the talents in your league, you'll find that the system provides stats that are better indicators of quality.

[FamundaCheese]

Originally Posted by RonCo

The first part -- context of minor league stats -- is very important because I think very few people work to get their OOTP minor league totals set well, hence minor league stats are skewed based on what our eyes see and our brains expect. This is a root cause of the complaints you'll sometimes see around here that minor league stats are not "realistic."

When minor league League Totals are properly set for the talents in your league, you'll find that the system provides stats that are better indicators of quality.

Hmm. I have to say that I've never thought about the minor league totals. I will look into that now. Again thanks for the tips man.