Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

I thought I scored a coup by picking up Steve Carlton. But look what's happened:

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/80s/team/team_other.html?user_id=76251

He has yet to exceed 4+ innings in a single start, and is 0-4. I've checked all his cards, of course, and I'm hoping he gets back to form. True, he'll give up some hits, but he's a big K lefty who can eat up innings. I figure he and Higuera have got to get hot sooner or later.

Higueria will come around, Carlton can be really bad in 83 and 84 even through his cards don't look that bad. But, he cannot be that bad, really. I say two more starts and if no signs of life pull the plug on Steve

at one run for every two on base, Carleton must be giving up a bunch of HR's, which are not really plentiful on his card. What's probably happening is that hitters die are falling on HR's, which is the danger of putting good pitchers like Carleton in the Murph. You could have a good card from him and he could still get hammered.

To answer the original question.... Anyone can be that bad, sometimes. I am in a league where Rocket is 0-9 in 9 starts. ERA 8.50. 22 HRs allowed in 56 IP. :shock:
How's that for a rough start?

Yikes! I've had rocket with a losing record before, but 0-9 is ridiculous (and no tough luck losses!).

I'm going to play the law of averages and hope Stevie bounces back. The team can score (the whole league seems to be scoring, actually). Ya gotta figure over the course of the season Carlton and Teddy will win a few (fingers crossed).

As for his short stints, have you checked the Slow Hook option? Unless you don't want that of course . . .

I use Carlton a lot and he can be bad. However, in all years (incl 83 and 84), he usually is at least solid. I'll try to track down a season where he was off to a dreadful start but the splits looked good to me so I hung on. Ended up having a very good season. Hard to hang on when you're spending $7M and he's getting hit.........

He is set on slow hook, which is interesting. He managed to get a win finally. 7IP, 4 ER's. The HR's do hurt him in the Murph, but they hurt other pitchers, as well. Still sticking with him (for the moment).

But sometimes...
I'm in a league where I struggled with Saberhagen to a 3-8 record, where I kept hoping he'd turn around.
Finally dealt him for Steve Rogers who had very similar stats but was 6-6 with a losing team.
Saberhagen got shelled and dumped after one outing when an injury reveal showed it was his worst card by the team I dealt him to and Rogers has gone 9-3 for me.
My only thought is look at hits per innings pitched, if he gives up more hits than IPs, it's a ad sign in my view. In Saberhagen's case, it was one of two seasons where he was giving up more than one hit per inning pitch but still had a sub 1.30 WHIP. The problem, in my mind, is that hits have a greater chance of scoring runs than walks. So if he is giving up more than a hit an inning, he probably is giving up too many runs.

I found my Carlton reference. Way back on the Jablowmi XIIs, Carlton started 3-10 with a 4.04 ERA in the Murph. Something caused me to hang on and he finished 17-18 with a 3.38 ERA and 1.14 Ratio, a strong 14-8 finish. Team lost in the finals.

Turned out to be his 1980 card. It doesn't take much to get poorer than expected results in a dice game. In fact, if you get 1, 2 or 3 rolls on the small die 6 out of 10 times instead of 5 out of 10, your results will greatly suffer. Probably what happened here...........

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