Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

Someone want to explain the Closer rating to me? What exactly does it mean when a pitcher has a R2/C0 rating? How does that compare to a guy that is a R1/C6?

Closer endurance is the duration, measured in number of outs, a pitcher can maintain his effectiveness in closer situations. In Strat-O-Matic, a "closer situation" is defined differently than a big-league save opportunity. Your pitcher will be in a "closer situation" whenever you have the lead in the 9th inning or later and the tying run is on base or at bat.

The closer endurance rating is the number of outs the pitcher can record before becoming fatigued. Once this number has been reached, reducing his endurance rating to 0, he becomes fatigued as soon as he allows a hit or walk.

Example: A pitcher with a closer endurance rating of 0 will become fatigued as soon as he surrenders a hit or walk, while a pitcher with closer endurance of 6 can pitch two full innings without risking fatigue.

Any pitcher with a closer endurance rating of "N" is immediately considered fatigued with the first batter he faces in a closer situation.

That brings into play the @. A @Strike out then becomes a hit. Most pitchers have 2 of them on each side of thier cards. Most of the time the are a 6-8 and those numbers come up more often in dice rolls.

So a guy like Marmol (R2/C0) can start pitching the 8th inning, and if he stays in the game in the 9th, he will become fatigued as soon as he gives up a hit/walk in the 9th inning, which will change the @ Strikeouts to Single**?

correct. Assuming its a SOM Closer situation.

In other words it is playing with fire to designate any one less than a Closer 3 to the closer role

Just about...there are a few exceptions...say Bentancourt in the 07 set. He is a C2...but gives up next to nothing...even when fatigued. That is still a bit of a risk but not much worse than having F.Rod from the same set.

so what is the point of having a C6? The 8th inning can be a closing situation according to SOM? How can a pitcher be a R1 but C6?

The R1 and C6 have nothing to do with one an other. I would suggest reading the rules to Strat-o-matic baseball. Just pop "strat-o-matic rules" into your search engine and you should be able to find them on-line.

But to answer your question.

A relief pitcher's Point of Weekness (POW) is determined by outs. A reliever with a POW of (1) is immediately vulnerable to fatigue. He could reach his POW by yielding three hits and/or unintentional walks without recording an out. A reliever with a POW of (2) would become vulnerable after he has recorded three outs. Then, whenever three hits and/or unintentional walks occur within a subsequent three-out period, the reliever reaches his POW.

Example: A reliever with a POW of (2) enters the game with one out in the 6th inning. He becomes vulnerable after one out in the 7th. Then, after getting the second out in the 7th, he walks the next two batters before getting the third out. But he allows a single to the leadoff batter in the 8th, and becomes fatigued, because he has allowed three hits/walks in a three-out period after reaching his POW.

Each reliever enters the game using either his closer endurance (if the game is already a closer situation) or his regular POW rating (if the game is not currently a closer situation).

If the pitcher begins his appearance with his regular POW and the game becomes a closer situation, he changes to his closer endurance rating. At that time, reduce his closer endurance by the number of outs he has already recorded. This number cannot be reduced to lower than 0, unless the pitcher's closer endurance is "N".

Once a pitcher begins to use his closer endurance rating, that is his endurance for the remainder of his appearance, even if the score changes and the game no longer is a closer situation.

Example: A reliever enters the game in the bottom of the 9th inning with a 3-2 lead - a closer situation. The opposing team ties the score in the bottom of the 9th. In the top of the 10th, the pitcher's team scores four times. If the same pitcher remains in the game for the bottom of the 10th, he is still using his closer endurance rating to determine when he becomes fatigued.