Avoiding Lefty/Righty Pitchers

[LMBombers]

I am not a proponent of the 9R or 9L guys for RP. No matter if you select quick hook, avoid his bad side, max 1-2 innings, HAL will still leave him in to get shelled by hitters from his bad side. Due to HAL's inability to manage them properly I stay away from them. In a face to face board game they would be invaluable.

My only exception to that rule is for SP. Let say you play in a balanced stadium or a RH slanted stadium like Minute Main or Wrigley. You see there is a Shea in your division but you have almost all RH SP on your staff. I will throw in a very cheap hard lefty only to start in Shea (not to start against that team in your park). I do the opposite too. If I have a Shea team I will usually have a cheap hard righty if there is a RH park in my division.

You have better odds of facing hitters from the side of the plate you want them to be on using starters in these situations than you do with RP.

Other people do use cheap 9R & 9L guys so everyone doesn't agree with me on this.

[MARCPELLETIER]

Personally, I think that the strategy consisting of having "9L/9R relievers (1) + quick hook (2) + relief set as agressive (3)" works find as long as you have enough relievers, relievers that are always available in the bullpen (4).

When all four conditions are met, then, from my experience, the relievers will last only one hitter when men are in scoring position. THe reliever might stay a bit longer if bases are empty or if only one hitter gets on base at first, but it will almost never go beyond one inning if you click "1-2 innings max". As a result, when I have a team that meet all conditions, my cheap 9L/9R usually face 70% of "good side" hitters.

That being said, I prefer to have more balanced closers (perhaps 6R/6L) for the ninth inning, given the tendency of Hal to bring in pinch-hitters during the 9th inning.

If you don't have sufficient relievers, however, Hal will call an extreme reliever and then settle with him the rest of the way either because there is no one else or because Hal wants to save a last reliever.

[bkoron]

Agree with the good doctor.

Here is a team with 5 heavily-handed relievers and Juan Rincon:

Cotts, Neal (L, 6R) [b:c5206687f7]vs. L 40 [/b:c5206687f7]6 6 15 0 .150
R2 [b:c5206687f7]vs. R 130 [/b:c5206687f7]32 24 31 5 .246
TOTAL 46.0 170 38 30 46 5 .224 6.07 1.48 $.67M
Walker, Jamie (L, 9L) [b:c5206687f7]vs. L 47 [/b:c5206687f7]6 2 12 0 .128
R1/C0 [b:c5206687f7]vs. R 69 [/b:c5206687f7]21 5 11 1 .304
TOTAL 29.2 116 27 7 23 1 .233 2.13 1.15 $.66M
Groom, Buddy (L, 7R) [b:c5206687f7]vs. L 8 [/b:c5206687f7]5 0 1 0 .625
R1 [b:c5206687f7]vs. R 20 [/b:c5206687f7]5 4 1 0 .250
TOTAL 6.2 28 10 4 2 0 .357 6.76 2.10 $.51M
Fultz, Aaron (L, 8L) [b:c5206687f7]vs. L 62 [/b:c5206687f7]9 14 15 1 .145
R1/C0 [b:c5206687f7]vs. R 69 [/b:c5206687f7]22 4 7 6 .319
TOTAL 36.1 131 31 18 22 7 .237 4.96 1.35 $.50M
Mateo, Julio (R, 7R) [b:c5206687f7]vs. L 63 [/b:c5206687f7]19 11 10 6 .302
R2/C0 [b:c5206687f7]vs. R 110[/b:c5206687f7] 29 2 26 2 .264
TOTAL 42.2 173 48 13 36 8 .277 5.91 1.43 $.50M

HAL has done a pretty good job of making sure that the right guy is in at the right time. The results haven't been incredibly wonderful, but whaddaya want for $.5M?

8)

[durantjerry]

Depth in the bullpen is the key to getting better results as stated. Specialist should be your fifth and/or sixth reliever IMO. You will consistently get 65% vs RH for RHP specialist and about 50%+ for LH specialist in my experience(this % also seems lower in real life based on pitcher card %'s in my nonscientific observation). Maybe the good doctor could shed some light on this. I posted stats on this a while ago when there was a deluge of anti-specialist opinion. I get consistently good results from my specialists and I use more relievers than most.

[ANDYCOCHRANE]

I am still to be convinced about having hard R or L pitchers. I guess it could be because I'm not totally sure how best to set them up to avoid HAL keeping them in too long. This goes for all Relief usage really. I don't know whether to put my top reliever in as Set Up as well or just leave him as closer and give SU job to someone else. I try to usually not bother with hard relievers but have Kline this season and don't know how best to use him.

[durantjerry]

Unless Kline is your closer, he should not be on your team IMO. J walker could be as effective a LH specialist as Kline for about $2.50 less. If you are using Kline to do more than face LH, you might as well get a more balanced guy. This will not be true 100% of the time, but there are very limited circumstances when you should ever have Kline on your team as a noncloser IMO.

[cummings2]

Strongly agree with bullpen depth as most important factor.

When setting up my pen I usually listen to lucky's advice in the newbie thread (thanks again luck) and figure out how many innings will I most likely need from my pen, split it accordingly into my setup, mid, mopper and closer...with that in mind I can more or less figure out if my specialist will have to pitch more than what I want him to.

In my early experience, I shoot for about 35-40 innings from a righty spec and about 15-20 innings from my lefty spec. I haven't set my specs to max 1-2 since I keep getting the feeling that whenever I do that HAL doesn't use them as often and I [u:581bfac5ab]want[/u:581bfac5ab] them to pitch often, just not against their weak side. I do set them to quick hook, and obviously the avoid L/R HB but I've never used the agressive setting so I can't comment on that.

So far so good. Usually, if I have enough depth in my pen my lefty spec has faced strictly lefties and my righty spec faces about 70-75 righties. When my pen has been extended in previous games my lefty spec has pitches to about 50-50 and so has my righty spec.

If I carry enough depth, in numbers of pitchers [u:581bfac5ab]and[/u:581bfac5ab] endurance along with both righty and lefty spec I have been [u:581bfac5ab]very[/u:581bfac5ab] happy with HAL's usage of my pen, quite often the specs bridge between starter and setup in their strict roles and with very good results.

I need a bit more info on this but early observation leads me to believe that the specs are more likely to be used against batters that not only are the pitcher's strength but also that are weak against the spec pitcher. A cheap, hard lefty spec I had one season often pitched against his one batter vs Bonds in late innings but rarely ever vs Giambi (both Bonds and Giambi were in the same team in my division)...I don't know if it is my wishful thinking but the same trend carried through an entire season...by the way, he neutralized Bonds quite effectively.

The specs that I use are always .56M or cheaper...but still every team has different needs. In a Shea stadium where I am likely to have serveral lefties in my pen, I usually need a righty spec, in safeco I usually carry both sides...If my starting rotation is full of S7s and my pen has two studs and 1 solid middle I don't use specs...

Ah, another thing I've noticed...several players are a bit misguided by the balance on the pitcher's card, it's as if a L/7L is chosen as a lefty spec without even seeing the card! If you take a look at some of these cheap, hard relievers they still stink, even vs their "strong" side...so that's the other thing to double check.

[DAVIDCARROLL 2]

I also have some trouble setting the bullpen on some of my teams, the advice so far has been very helpful. My strength has been building the offensive side, but usually lose it in my pitching. Setting the the bullpen has been the key to champions I have played against. I have had guys like Nathan do a very impressive job for me against both hitters, even though he is R\ strong. I have a team currently that I have Colome and Cerda splitting the closer duties and working out well. Getting there has been the problem. Any other tips on the ptiching end would be greatly appreciated.
Dave

[1crazycanuk]

I usually grab Gordon as a setup man and get a pricey closer too. had Nathan and now have Rivera. Rest of the relievers are a bit cheaper. Works good for me...my bullpen is usually better than my starters. Am waiting to see where this strategy gets me but the first time it got me to game seven of the finals.

On topic...I usually get a hard lefty, a hard righty, a reverse lefty and a reverse righty. Probably can't go wrong with that strategy.