Can someone explain real quick the way the old superman strategy was closed a few update back? I am in a league now where Pedro has 90 appearances for about 180 IP and still seems to be 100%. He definitely has not been overused but I dont see Pedro being Mike Marshall without some type of penalty.

180 innings is NOT a superman in the old sense... They closed the loophole that let starters pitching in relief get 2x their RL innings or more. I can certainly understand the argument that since RL relievers can't be stretched out into starters in the sim starters shouldn't be able to relieve either. On the other hand, it's the postseason right now and we're seeing firsthand that most teams are willing to pitch starters in relief when they need them in that capacity. And it's certainly also the case that while there have been some guys such as Johan Santana that struggle as relievers and need to be converted to starters, there have been many more cases of starters being pushed into relief and being quite successful (Gagne, Papelbon, Lowe, Smoltz, Brett Myers, and Joba Chamberlain are just the very beginnings of a list of only the current major league pitchers who have come into the league as starters or having been starters in the minors but have had success in relief).

SPs tire by total pitch count regardless of where they were thrown. they closed the old loophole by doing several things. pitchers who appear in more than 70% of the games will suffer appearance fatigue. Picthers suffer fatigue for the next game only if they pitch and are over their RL pace but still within the 10% fatigue cushion. And they fixed the actual loophole which was probably a programming error. also I remember some comment about SPs fatiguing slightly faster when they throw a lot of pitches in relief, but I'm not sure if this was implemented or still exists.

Starters definitely do fatigue faster when they pitch in relief than when they start.

In-game fatigue that is.

Add Eckersley and Gossage to the list of pitchers who had their best years as relief pitchers.

I was only counting guys who are playing now, and certainly not all of them. But yeah, most of the best closers in baseball history have been converted starters. Eck, Gagne, and Rivera all came into the majors as starters. Trevor Hoffman was a late conversion to pitching and was never really a starter; off the top of my head that's the only dominant closer I can come up with who wasn't a starter before being moved to the bullpen.

I believe that there is a games played fatigue factor as well. I don't remember what the number is but it might be around 100 or so games played.

Yup, 100 games...I was using Doc Scanlan in a long reliever style in a league and he was worthless for the playoffs because he pitched 101 games in the regular season.

Thought that was gonna cost me in the WIS tourney...had to sit Firpo Marberry for a week with my 24 Senators teams because I was worried about the same thing happening, and he was really my only solid reliever.

Guys would use what used to be a cheap '85 Clarkson in almost every game. They put in a cheap SP to throw 40-50 pitches, then Clarkson was brought in Long A to pitch the rest of the game. You had to provide only 3 or 4 decent arms to put in front of him, and only a RP or two to close out some games. His salary has increased alot from what it had been several updates back. The 70% game cap did it in...You can still use a 2 man rotation effectively.

Thanks all. Good logical arguments/facts. I just didnt see Pedro 2000 being able to crank it up 90 times, regardless if he only pitches an inning or two.

No issue, I tip my cap to the guy who has built his team with this in mind, he will Win about 110 games in my league and I will finish second with about 102 Wins...have to beat him in the playoffs I guess...hahaa.

i'm not sure i agree, it's been demonstrated that starters pitch better in relief roles. In RL, it's safe to assume that a starting pitcher will allow about .3-.5 runs less per 9 pitching in a relief role. So I'm not sure why WIS would put in some kind of penalty for using a starter in a relief role. It's a waste of their innings anyhow.

Just because RL managers don't use their pitchers like this generally I don't think should disqualify options like this. That's part of why WIS is fun to play.

...the reason why starters are starters is because they are better pitchers. And there's no reason to think someone like CC Sabathia couldn't throw 180 innings out of the bullpen or whatever. It just hasn't really been done in the past 20 years

The solution to this is rooted in reality. The thing that the sim does not take into account are the pitches expended warming up for an appearance. Take Pedro 2000 for example. He had 29 appearances and pitched 217 innings. I know that the sim currently allows him approximately 3500 pitches for a 162 game season. It's estimated that a major league pitcher throws about 20 - 40 pitches warming up. If we were to credit Pete with another 25 pitches for each of his 29 games, he would have a total seasonal pitch allowance of 4225.

3500 + (29 * 25) = 4225

When he makes an appearance in a sim game, charge him 25 pitches + whatever his actual pitch count is. If he make exactly 29 appearances on a sim team, then he gets his full allowance 3500 pitches.

4225 - (29 * 25) = 3500 pitches (217 innings)

If he makes makes 40 appearances, the additional warmups eat in to his pitch allowance:

4225 - (40 * 25) = 3225 pitches (or about 200 innings)

If he becomes a "super" reliever and makes 100 appearances:

4225 - (100 * 25) = 2500 pitches (or about 107 innings)

Only 8 pitchers have ever made 90 or more appearances in a single season and 6 of them were Mike Marshall and Kent Tekulve. Of them, only the 1974 Marshall exceeded 200 innings pitched.

Letting Pedro throw 217 innings in 90+ appearances is absurd.

I think the warm-up pitches are fairly irrelevant as starters throw 40-80 pitch bullpen sessions between starts that simulate game environments... if you're factoring in total pitches thrown on the year, you have to factor those in just as well as relief pitchers warm-up pitches.