Advice with my pitching

[ANDYCOCHRANE]

How do you guys tend to set up your pitching? Do you stick with a roatation and leave it, or do you attempt to match up, i.e. stopping a pitcher with BPHR's against LHB start in Shea or similar? I try to leave mine but am always worried about a pitcher being lit up in a park which doesn't suit him.

Which way do you do it?

[hechojazz]

If you've managed to allocate your resources so you have the horses to play the matchup game, go for it. The pitching is so thin in '05 that I've gone with putting more $$ into a rotation, and have stuck with it. The matchup game was easier to play effectively in the '03 card set. If you get a good rotation for your home park, you need to just go with it on the road, hoping to avoid getting beaten too badly when the road parks aren't ideal. If the park is a very poor fit for a particular starter, mark him quick hook for that outing and hope your pen is strong. Just feel good that since half your games are home games, a properly organized starting rotation will do good things for you over the long haul.

[Stoney18]

I like 4 *SP so I don't have to worry about it. Not Usually that lucky.

My last couple of teams I've had 6 SP. A couple who pitch anywhere, a couple for home only and a couple for road parks where they match up best. Makes more work but that's half the fun of playing.

I still need to learn some of the nuances of matching pitchers/parks/opposing teams for the best results though.

[ANDYCOCHRANE]

Both of the above sound like good ideas guys. I would like to have a strong rotation, but this current game I have 3* pitchers so sometimes HAL substitutes one to get my stud in more often, meaning the rotation put down doesn't always get followed strictly. This is OK, but I just sometimes see my pitcher is going to get lit up, like Zito in some parks, with his 3 BPHR chances to both L and R and fancy the idea of changing him for someone else but matching up is hard to do really.

I basically wanted some insight to what you experts do to make sure I was on the right track, (sort of!).

[hechojazz]

I always select my pitchers on the per-game starters page, even if I'm doing nothing other than following the usual rotation. If you are in a matchup position with your pitching, some of those lesser used guys are likely guys with both a starter and a reliever rating. You'll want to load them onto your set rotation page, to prevent their use in relief by HAL. But the resulting "rotation" won't be one you'll want to have HAL follow, so use the per-game starters page to keep up on who you'll be throwing at the opposition. You can get by with a three man pen with strong enough starting pitching, but you'll need to "hide" some of those S6/R4 guys.