Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

If you have 4 starting pitchers who can pitch on 3 days rest is it better to use a 4 man rotation or the "normal" 5 man rotation?

Does fatigue play a factor on a pitcher who is used all season in a 4 man rotation as opposed to a 5 man rotation?

Strat Rookie

as far as i know fatigue does not play a factor....

most people including myself prefer a 4 man *sp rotation.................
i have had success with 4 and 5 man rotations....but i prefer a 4 man...

when you purchase a * sp, his price is bumped up because he can throw every 1 out of every 4 games. so, if you have 4 * sp's, they wont use the 5th starter, so just buy a .5.

[b:0626778f2c]note[/b:0626778f2c]: if you have less than 4 * sp's, you will need 5 sp's and they will all see time on the mound starting games.

You can also go with the 6-7 man staff. This allows you to carry a few match-up arms.

One of my current teams has this rotation:

-Smoltz*
-Oswalt*
-Blanton*
-K. Rogers Chicken
-J. Sosa
-Downs

Hal is actually using Downs and Sosa quite well in relief, on a team that also features Helling and Isringhausen who are unbeatable.

Downs is reserved as a starter for any of the three PNC teams, perhaps the Safeco. Sosa is there for spot starts vs teams that favor RHBs, one in particular plays in Coors, and Sosa has ZERO BPHRs vs-R.

As a beginner, an easy mistake is to not pay attention to ballpark homers on the pitchers' cards. They look like this: [b:73a9c6528f]#[/b:73a9c6528f]

what bleacher said is probably confusing to a new SOM player, so here's the deal. when you set your rotation, regardless of if you have stars or non-stars, to determine who starts the game, it looks for the highest in your rotation who is not tired.

if you have a star, any time that pitcher pitches he will require 3 days of rest then can throw again. if you have a non-star, any time that pitcher pitches, he will require 4 days of rest, then can throw again.

thus, you have 5 non-stars, they will throw in order every 5th day all season long (if no one is injured). if you have 4 stars, they will throw in order every 4th day. so, if you have 4 stars, it makes no sense to have any more starters than maybe a .5 backup (since that 5th sp will never see action).

it gets complicated when you mix and match * and non-* sp's. if you ever put a non-* ranked above a * in your rotation, then it negates the * for the second pitcher (since the second pitcher must wait each time in the rotation for the first pitcher to pitch).

typically if managers mix and match *'s and non-*'s they will do 1 star and 4 non-stars (thus the 1 star throws every 4th day, and the other 4 pick up the rest of the time), or 2 stars and 3 non-stars (the first 2 stars throw 2 out of 4 games, the non-stars pick up the rest), etc. in these cases the stars are ranked higher than the non-*'s so they get more innings out of the *'s (since they are normally better pitchers).