In 110 Cap league. Random league.. decided to use the Chicago Cubs as my pitching staff.. but have been very unlucky with the cubs bullpen in the past costing me over 15-20 games a year in the 8th and 9th innings. Has anyone had any success piecing together a cubs bullpen?

Hate to say it but Bruce Sutter seems to get torched all the time. the next best options aren't to great either.. Pedro Strop.. Carlos Marmol.

advice would be awesome. thanks
12/3/2014 1:24 PM
What timeframe are you allowed to pull from? There is a large difference in recommendations if you are limited to modern pitchers versus going all the way back to 1900. If you are afraid to use any of the players mentioned above, you can always setup your roster to either

A: Have your starting pitchers pitch complete games (accomplished by selecting pitchers like Mordecai Brown who have a very high IP/G)
B: Setup your team to have a non-traditional bullpen where you have a strong SP available in the bullpen who can come in the 6th and finish out the games
C: Don't have a defined closer, but put all of your best bullpen arms as Setup A and with pull settings of 5 and yank them quickly if they start to get hammered.

Just some thoughts. The modern bullpen style with closers is not the only way to setup a bullpen.
12/3/2014 2:56 PM
Marmol walks way too many guys to enjoy much success.   I've used Sutter a couple times; he's like Quisenberry for me.  I just can't get a decent performance out of those two and now avoid them like the plague.  

Regarding your question of building a Cubbie crew to man the bullpen, and presuming you're not limited to any time period,  you can use guys like the '18 Alexander, '15 Phil Douglas, '11 Charlie Smith,  '2008 Kerry Wood,  '92 Rasmussen (a great value), '97 Mark Clark, and  '97 Bob Patterson.   That's about 365 innings (including 10% bump) of fairly solid bullpen innings.   A couple lefties.   Have to be careful with Patterson as he will give up dingers at Wrigley & has to have a pitch setting of 10/15. If that's an issue for you then you can use the '03 Borowski who is a righty.   This group has a low Bb/9 and isn't too prone to giving up the long ball (Alexander, Smith and Douglas won't give up many at all).    I'd use Smith as my closer set a 10/15. If he tires occasionally, then you can drop in the '18 Alexander to spell him.
Then like frazz suggests, have your starters throw 100+ pitches a game.    That's how I'd do it with the Cubs.
12/3/2014 8:59 PM
forget RPs, just draft the best pitchers and put SP in the pen and rotate the into the rotation as needed. I've drafted teams where I had nothing but SP.
12/3/2014 9:01 PM
apologize for not stating logistics of league. you can use from any time period . thank you very much though. very insightful tips from both of you. im going to finish off my drafting and show you guys how it went.. basically you get three random franchises and have to place one franchise in the outfield/infield/and pitching staff. I tried getting one these leagues started in the non/live section but no traction. maybe one of you popular owners on this side could get it started. would supply details
12/4/2014 10:05 PM

upon further review, I'd fit the '38 Dizzy Dean into the bullpen.. another value guy (0.96 bb/9,  good IP/g number, 0.94 WHIP# and 80 IP before bonus for $32k per inning pitched.  Would use him rather than the Clark I suggested

12/5/2014 11:25 AM
Just for kicks, I took a few minutes and built a Cubs staff which cost a bit over $48m leaving you with $52 to spend on bats.  I wouldn't put this squad at Wrigley without tweaking for a few more IP(would prefer a park that is ,/= 1.00), but ended up w/ 1319 IP, .205 OAV, 0.96 WHIP, 1.96 bb/9 and 0.11 HR/9.  Has (w/ 10% bonus IP) a total of 1133 starter's IP.  
12/5/2014 11:38 AM

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