contrarian23, anecdotal evidence (also known as very small sample size) suggests that Part 6, number 2 above regarding the mopup is correct. I have had 3 or 4 games recently where I was ahead by more than 7 runs where Sparky brought in the mopup despite "when losing only" being checked.

I never check the "use closer in save situations only" ever since I lost a crucial game where Rivera sat and I lost an 8 run lead in the 9th.

A 7-run lead seems to be the cut off for activating the mopup when other pitchers don't meet the criteria, though as you point out this is park-related.

Others may know this better, but I have the sense that this may be related to the managerial settings: I usually set the "rest starters" settings to 7 runs in the 8th, as a 6-run lead in the 7th is thin when you are a Yankees fan and have watched too many Fenway games. Also I tend to have my teams in hitters parks. 

I may be way off about this, but the 7 run lead keeps popping up when the mopup does come in. I would prefer a two touchdown and a field goal lead honestly. 

Posted by contrarian23 on 3/3/2012 11:43:00 AM (view original):

Posted by firesalt on 3/2/2012 5:13:00 PM (view original):
pfattkatt, i think you are right. I have had pitchers set to rest come in but I have never had a starter whose box was not checked pitch in relief. I also agree with jfranco that Sparky should get slapped silly for putting in a mop up in a tie game when the closer could be used. If both guys are unavailable due to the boxes we checked, then Sparky should use the closer first in a tie game. Isn't that what ANY real life manager would do? But for some reason, Sparky is set to bring in the mop first. I just want to slap him.

Hmm.  I don't think I've ever seen this.  Can someone verify with a boxscore?

I'll go entire seasons without ever seeing a pitcher I have set to "rest" brought into a game.  It's very common to see SPs used in relief when Sparky runs out of options.  But, I almost always check the relief box for my starters, so my teams would not likely bring about the situation firesalt and pfattkatt are describing.

Wow!!!  I wish that was how it was for me, because I usually go with a SUA, a SUB, a Closer A and a Closer B, but Sparky has brought in my relievers whom I had on 'rest" lots of times.

contrarian23, this box score might be instructive of one of your points here for others reading it. It is a game last night in a theme league. I have a 3-man rotation. One of the ways that I deal with the early season damping effect is that I put in either a 4th starter, or, when I don't have someone with that many innings to spare, a tandem of some starters serving as relievers, as a 4th starter. I let that run two or three cycles around the rotation and then the 3-man is set to run on its own for a while. 

In this case, the tandem is Cy Morgan 1907 and Toad Ramsey 1885. So I look and with a 3 run lead in the 4th inning, Sparky took Morgan out having given up one run and two runners on, and puts in - Art Nehf. Now this is a waste, since I have Ramsey, a comparable pitcher, scheduled to follow Morgan in the tandem, and don't want Nehf in there this early. 

I checked, no problem with pitch counts. I had Ramsey to come in in the 5th and Nehf in the 4th. I have no idea what I was thinking setting Nehf to be available that early. I usually don't set ANY reliever to be available before the 5th, sometimes even the 6th. Come hell or high water I want starters to give me 4 innings. The only ones set earlier are mopups or AAA ers I set to Long B but which is really essentially a mopup setting with a little more flexibility. 

So I reset both - Ramsey to be available for the 4th, then realized that this too was not ideal since now Sparky will probably take Morgan out after 3, which is sooner than I want, and Nehf for the 6th. So I kept Nehf at 6th and moved Ramsey to 5th, which should make him the only one available and force Morgan to just pitch 4 win or lose.

Sparky takes inning available settings VERY literally.  

Here is the box score for the game, mine is the visiting team: 

http://www.whatifsports.com/slb/Boxscore.aspx?gid=17640960&pid=1&pbp=0&tf=9.95

I am still working on this theory, and haven't had any confirmation from admin on it yet - 

but in a couple of progressive leagues it *appears* that when determining between multiple SUA/LA -SUB/LB - CA/CB sparky will pick the pitcher who's first name is higher in the alphabet!  

example:

I have 1989 Jesse Orosco and 1989 Rob Dibble - both are great relievers.   I have them both set to SUA - - through 144 games Dibble (who I consider to be the better (if not just slightly)pitcher) has appeared in 45 games - Jesse Orosco has appeared in 68 - (and for the record Tommy Greene has appeared in 37) -

In a 1966 progressive I had Al Worthington, Hal Reniff, Ed Roebuck, and Bob Humphreys all set to SUA - after 20 games - worthington had appeared in 12 games, humphreys 11, roebuck 8, and reniff 7.....


unfortunately I don't have the stats deeper into this season as due to performance reason, humphreys and worthington were taken out of the sua role - however Roebuck has a 27 to 23 lead on hal reniff.   

I HOPE that there is actually a different way of determining what pitcher goes into a game besides the letter of their first name - I am collecting more data to see if this plays true - does anyone else see this trend out there??? 

*to note *

So far as I can see - this does not appear to be the case in any situation other than SUA - all my other reliever roles are not balanced the same way

So we need setup A men whose names start with A. B, or C ? Last name right ? 

Posted by contrarian23 on 7/16/2012 6:38:00 AM (view original):
Thanks crazystengel.  I am 100% sure the deciding factor is not alphabetical order (though frankly, that wouldn't bother me - if you're putting multiple people in the same role, you are effectively telling Sparky "hey, I consider all of these guys to be roughly equivalent.")

I use Toney and Nehf as my Set Up As fairly commonly.  In every case, Toney appears in many more games than Nehf.  And in games when both are used, Toney is invariably brought in first.

It does seem that this is just a coincidence, which is a relief.  I don't agree that if you put them both in SUA that you are saying they are equivalent.  Maybe I have to much faith in the sim, but if I have two SUA relievers, I expect sparky to use some sort of statistical factor to decide who to bring in, in addition to fatigue.   

I typically don't have the luxury to have multiple SUA pitchers that I consider roughly equivalent - and in this specific case I wasn't necessarily mad because, well both choices are good choices - I was/am more curious as to what the process is - and why a inferior (albiet slightly) pitcher was used in 22 games more to this point.

This boxscore confirms that your "if no other options" list is pretty much correct:
http://www.whatifsports.com/slb/Boxscore.aspx?gid=17993183&pid=1&pbp=0&tf=10

(My bullpen situation for the game: Jackson SUA, Hoffman SUB, Shaw MOP, Devine CLA, Rivera SUA/AutoRest, Burns LA/AutoRest, Powell Rest, Sierra Rest)

(That said, why Powell at 41% was brought in over a 100% Sierra is odd, but meh. I probably lose there either way. This is what I get for not checking my SP's "relief" boxes. At least I won the series anyways.)

Not terribly crucial for most people, but I believe LHS/RHS are brought in before Setup B in most situations.  For example the situation you outline in Section 5.

Posted by soxdoc on 3/6/2012 3:23:00 PM (view original):
With regard to Setup A vs B ...

I typically set all of my relievers to Setup A, forgoing a closer and LH/RH specialists. I also use a mop-up. I chart every game and keep track of how many pitches are thrown by every pitcher so I don't go over the allotted maximum until near the very end of the season, if at all. So even if one of the pitchers is still at 100% rest, I try not to throw them more than 2 games in a row, especially if they can be used as a spot starter at the end of the season/playoffs.

So occasionally, I have games where I may only actually have 2 or 3 available relievers. In that situation, I will sometimes set one of the guys I would prefer to not pitch as Setup B, in the hopes that the game will be over before I use the starter and 3 relievers. Most of the time, this works like a charm, and my guy gets a second straight day off. But I have seen on some occasions that the Setup B comes in before the Setup A.

This usually occurs when my team is losing, or in the 8th or 9th inning when my starter has reached his MPC and I am winning by greater than 5 runs. I wish I had boxscores to confirm this, but I don't.

So for the most part, Setup A will come in before Setup B, but I think that Sparky looks at Setup A as a more elite pitcher, and chooses Setup B when the game is not as close and an easier victory is at hand.

I tended to agree with the above quoted post until after one of my AM games this morning.  It was a 1-1 tie in the 9th inning with 2 outs when Sparky lifted 88 Elton Chamberlain after he gave up a 2 out single.  While I would've obviously preferred that Elton stayed in for the final out, I was ok with him being lifted after giving up that hit because for one, he had reached his pc and two, I had several good relievers ready to go who were all available pursuant to their "inning available" settings and were at 100%. This included 1919 Ray Caldwell, 1904 Chick Robitaille, 1915 Chet Hoff, 2006 Brandon League, and 2005 Kyle Farnsworth.  But instead of bringing in one of them, what does Sparky do?  And for the life of me, I can't fathom a reason why.  He brings in my 85% mopup AAA pitcher who promptly threw 95 pitches and gave up 11 runs in two innings, and of course, cost me the game. Any explanations????????