As I understand it, splits are not used, but I just found that out now.  I have been stacking the lineup with righties when lefties are pitching and pitching lefty pitchers against strong lefty lineups, etc, etc. This is my first league so now I can change my strategy to go with batting trends.

Lefty hitters are supposedly 5% (I believe) better against right-handed pitchers and vice versa. Players' actual splits are not used, but there is a generally applied advantage to playing the L-R matchups. A one-sided lineup will perform better against opposite-handed pitchers.

ok thanks, atleast I didnt set my lineups for nothing. I guess I'll have to balance my lineups out a little more and not rely too much on lefty righty matchups.  I wonder if it is better to play the hot hitter or does it matter?

Streaks are not used in the SIM. If you have two players of equal quality, always a good idea to start the guy at a higher %.

If they're the same, then look at hand. If that doesn't matter... start who you want.

Any thoughts on setting relievers as either left or right handed specialists?

If they have more than 30 or 35 RL IP it's usually hard to get them their innings.  The sim doesn't seem to use specialists very regularly or leave them in very long even if you put a high pitch count on them (which makes sense...).  It can make a borderline pitcher a little bit more usable, but I certainly wouldn't try to plan a whole staff around using specialists.  I know a few people have tried it and in general it doesn't work out.

My issue with specialists is that it's hard to get Sparky to pull them fast enough. So if you have a lefty reliever set to LHS, he'll come in and face a lefty most of the time, but he'll stay in for the next hitter even if it's a righty. It seems to happen somewhat regularly even if his PC is 5/5 and his pull setting is 5. So maybe instead of a 40/60 split (40% lefties) he'll face 50% lefties, but that's about it.

Posted by uncleal on 6/20/2010 12:13:00 PM (view original):
Streaks are not used in the SIM. If you have two players of equal quality, always a good idea to start the guy at a higher %.

If they're the same, then look at hand. If that doesn't matter... start who you want.

The % your talking about is fatigue? I read fatigue is not that important?

Posted by jfranco77 on 6/21/2010 9:16:00 AM (view original):
My issue with specialists is that it's hard to get Sparky to pull them fast enough. So if you have a lefty reliever set to LHS, he'll come in and face a lefty most of the time, but he'll stay in for the next hitter even if it's a righty. It seems to happen somewhat regularly even if his PC is 5/5 and his pull setting is 5. So maybe instead of a 40/60 split (40% lefties) he'll face 50% lefties, but that's about it.

I have a team now, just 34 games in, with both a lefty and righty specialist set to 5/5 and a pull 5.

The lefty has faced 7 LHB and 4 RHB.

The righty has faced 2 LHB and 10 RHB.

I guess it's not bad, but I figured with those settings I  could get better than a combined 17/23 in "favorable" matchups...  

17/23 is pretty good. Sparky may PH for the lefty your guy was brought in to face. Or the next guy might be a switch hitter so Sparky will leave your LHS in, figuring that it doesn't matter who faces him.

jfranco77, you raise a good point about pinch hitters and switch hitters, which I hadn't considered.  That makes the 17/23 ratio even more impressive.

Because these two specialists are on a powerhouse prog team that shouldn't have any trouble making the playoffs, I can afford to do an experiment here.  I'll leave them in those roles with those settings (5/5 PC and 5 pull) all season long.  Then I'll go back and break down the # of LHB and RHB they faced, as well as the number of times an unfavorable matchup was thwarted by a pinch/switch hitter. 

The more I think about it, it's tough limiting your righty or lefty specialist to just one batter faced.   A 5 pitch count is more than the number of pitches an average PA uses up (about 3.3, to go by my leagues).  Maybe WIS should add a special pitcher setting whereby you could click something like "face 1 batter maximum" (at least for your specialists).

As far as matchups, what handed pitcher do switch hitters do better against in general?  I have noticed a few of my switch hitters are really bad vs righties for example and great vs lefties.    Are they generally better vs a particular arm?

With specialists, you might have to worry about appearance fatigue. I wouldn't use one if I had 6 or fewer relievers, as a specialist would probably create an extra pitching change for every game he plays.

A specialist will have a 5% advantage above neutral, and a 10% advantage above the opposite hand in effectiveness, so they are worth using if it makes sense for your team. Season stats can be misleading because of switch hitters. A switch hitter will always be listed as a RHer in your LH specialists totals. So, if your specialist faces 50 LHers and 50 RHers, that means he actually faced something like 50 LHers, 20 Switch, and 30 RHers.

As stated by others, I'd use a 5/5 PC with a 5 pull setting. With the 5 pull setting, if your LHspecialist gives up a hit to his LH counterpart, he won't be left in to face the RH batter usually. If he does get his LH counterpart out, then he will probably be left in to face the next guy who is probably a righty, but you can at least take solace in that there isn't anyone on base in that situation.

 

Good info Boogerlips.  But my main question was when you are tryign to get a hitting advantage, are Switch hitters generally better vs Righties or lefties or neutral vs both/