Looking for advice about settings to start the season

[HBA]

A relative newcomer here (on my 4th team) looking for some advice from the veterans. How do you set your settings to start the year.

I have heard that a lot of players leave their bullpen settings blank at first? Any opinions on that?

Also, what about on starting pitchers - do you automatically set the slow hook on your best starters?

Any other thoughts or advice on initial settings? Thanks.

[Paul5757]

I usually don't use the bullpen settings, at least at the beginning. HAL will have some brain farts, but does fairly well with bullpen management, imo.

After the first week or so, you'll probably have a good idea of what relievers are keepers.

[yak1407]

I seldom use slow hook at all. On the rare occasions that I have, I've not noticed a big difference. If your pitcher is going well, generally HAL leaves him. If you set slow hook, it means he stays in after he has reached his fatigue rating and his effectiveness deteriorates.
If you starter is in a monster year, he'll probably be staying in games longer anyway so you don't need to set slow hook.
The only case I can see for going to slow hook is your starters are better than your bullpen even when fatigued. But, that being the case, you've got troubles.

[Outta Leftfield]

I've generally don't set manager controls on relievers at the start of the season, but this is because I usually use a cheap bullpen. I'm not sure HAL knows what he'd doing with the relievers--sometimes he leaves a good guy unused and gets stuck on somebody else. But reasonably random bullpen use gives a variety of RPs some innings and you can begin to get an idea of who the good ones are. Once I've got a feel for who my better relievers are, I do set the setup and closer roles, since I want to maximize innings from my best guys. If I had a Henke or Eck or Quiz, though, I would give him a role from the start. I personally would put my best RP in the setup role to maximize innings and get him into some close games in the 7th or 8th.

I do like to use slow hook for my best pitchers. I tend to put my $$ into SPs (not RPs) and notice an increase in CGs on slow hook, which I generally am going to want. I also use slow hook for my best relievers, if I catch some good seasons. A good setup man on slow hook can sometimes rack up 120 to 150 innings. If it turns out my bullpen is better than my starting staff, which can happen even with cheap RPs, I'll set the bullpen use on aggressive and try to get to my RPs faster. On the other hand, if your starters turn out to be great. GREAT, you could set bullpen use on conservative and try to max the use of your starters. However, usually I use the normal setting for both bullpen and closer use.

Overall, the settings you choose depend on your team strategy, your park, what you've got in terms of players and what's working or not working. But I personally would start out with a light hand on the pitching controls with most teams, and I generally adjust as the season goes on. By the end of the season I've got pretty specific overall and individual controls on my pitching staff because I've got a pretty good idea of who I want doing what.