The Expensive Bullpen Strategy: Does it Suck?

[geekor]

my team above did win 90, but lost in the finals. Why you ask? Because KRod big time choked it and had 2 horrible games. My sp's couldn't last long and my rp's didn't pick up the slack.

I still believe strong sp and weak rp is easier to do, and works more consistantly, but in the 05 set, there isn't enough sp to go around.

[MICHAELTARBELL]

[quote:5006ce97ce="geekor"]look at my team posted above

IMO, you need to put any s/rp into your rotation so as they NEVER releive. only then will it work.[/quote:5006ce97ce]

That was my plan, putting Ledezma,alvarez and powell into the rotation, and then setting my starters on a per game basis.... :)

[MICHAELTARBELL]

[quote:c02191ca4e]Bottom line: I'm CONVINCED that certain relievers are worth every penny and more, but I am not convinced that HAL is able to maximize results with 3 relievers worth $5M+. I mean, does this really offset a starting staff that spots the other guy 2-4 runs a night by the 4th inning?
[/quote:c02191ca4e]

Well, in the example of my team, i do not think that Lilly, escobar and company would be viewed as a particularly "weak" sp rotation....certainly not studly, but not wimpy either :wink: So in this case, after you get 5-6 decent innings out of them, you have 3 HAMMERS coming out of the pen...never a weak matchup guy that HAL might expose for too long, but 3 guys that are AWESOME....seems like it should work :)

[MICHAELTARBELL]

[quote:35e8b4f09e]I still believe strong sp and weak rp is easier to do, and works more consistantly, but in the 05 set, there isn't enough sp to go around.
[/quote:35e8b4f09e]

AMEN to that Geekor! :wink:

[bleacher_creature]

If you went with:

SP1 $5M (OL. PEREZ)
SP2 $5M (J WRIGHT)
SP3 $3M (PENNY)
SP4 $3M (ARROYO)
SP5 $2M (BONDERMAN or N. ROBERTSON)

CL $5M
RP1 $5M
RP2 $5M
RHS $.5M
LHS $.5M

TOTAL: $33M

This would be a well rounded staff where you would likely get a lot of great work from starters, because you would only need about 5 IP in tight games.

$47M left for position players is an avaerage of $4.4 million per starter. Broken down to:

$24 million for 3-4-5 hitters (such as Dunn, Beltre, Tejada)
$20 million for other 6 hitters ($3.33M per)
$3M for bench

[GR8YEAR68]

The Super RP strategy can work very well if you set your staff properly. 1st your home park, I have a team playing in Comiskey'11, favors RHH, as a neutral park, LHH as a stone cold pitchers park. Paying attention to my division foes,I 1st play to win at home, then if nessisary, get a LHP or two. I also pay attention to the Hold Rating and errors. Take a look at some of your past teams and count the errors your everyday play have, subtact from the total, you then have the number of errors your pitchers make. With a good hold rating, takes pressure off your catcher. I have two working options for SR strat.
1st_Set your BP up for 3 RP only, that means one of your starters is a *8/5, or some such, then to keep HAL honest, 3 very good/even balanced RP. Pen with the likes of Wilhelm/Sutter/Hughes, has done very well. With BPv2 you have more control than in the past. Wilhelm is set as Set-up/Middle/Closer. The other two are set at Slow hook/ 2-3 innings. When HAL brings in Hoyt he has a chance of winning, with the other 2 in position for hold/save. Wilhelm will get 350+ innings and has gone over 30 wins.
2nd_ This one has some real possibilities. Ballpark not important, just get hitters to matchup well, go defense up the middle. Four *SP with a 5th being a *9/5. 3Finger Brown in this case. A 6th 50 cent SP only, then you only need 3 RP only. Try to get them as even as possible. Then my strategy is to set my"Per Game Starters" for that nites 3 game and the next series as well. With 3Finger set as "Set-up/Middle/Closer". My starters set at SlowHook, the rest of the pen No setting other than 1/2 innings. Making certain that the RP have 3 or less innings available. Brown being @ 5 innings will go that, if needed, and with him having 300+ innings on his card, CAN'T be injured. He mite become fatigued, but he will be able to come in often and based on his card, do very well. So after the 1st series, lets say we will be at home the next night and the #2 SP is not so hot, I change my rotation to have 3 Finger start gm#2 and have him set @ "F0". Lets say he wins. He gets the next gm off/rest. then for series # 3, have him set for RP roll again, or start him vs soft SP. With this HAL may not use him RP in 1st gm of 3rd series, but gms 2/3 he stands a chance of picking up either a win or save. I 've not tried this yet but it has possibilities. Any way, after seeing a couple of guys employ the SRP strategy, have been very busy trying to figure it out. I know that @ 60/80 MIL it will work very well. Less a chance @ 100MIL, and not so much above that. My 3 Finger strategy will be an attempt to break Chesbro's 41 win mark. Nothing wrong with aiming high. :wink: :idea:

[durantjerry]

I would say it does suck, but of course you can win that way. I just checked my four 2009 Champs and out of all four teams, I only had three relievers total > $1.00 and only one over $2.00. Not saying it's the way to go, but I hate to pay for an expensive reliever who gets outperformed by Brandon League. Also, there are many cheapos who can be effective with the bullpen settings. I do use them(expensive relievers) on occasion, but would rather load up elsewhere if I can.

[AeroDave10]

Two things seem very odd about this thread:

1. It was started 4 years ago ( :shock: ) and is just being commented on again today.

2. The new comments posted by "theMICK64" refer to ATG. I think that the relief pitching situations in the two formats (ATG and 200x) are quite different and thus may require different strategies.

[keyzick]

Wow, good catch Dave! How the heck did an '06 post get responded to out of the blue?

But, as long as it has been....

In $80M 20xx leagues, I prefer to keep a value closer who is under $4M (like a Qualls or B. Wilson), along with a couple R2's - one a sub-$4M rightie, the other a sub-$3M lefty, but ok with righty if I can't get the right guys in draft. Then I fill out the rest of the relief corps with sub-$1M hard righties or lefties (try to mix based on home park and division).

That's been about the only portion of my 2009 strategy I've been consistently succesful with, but it does leave a lot of money to try and move around between SPs and offense. Lately, I've been able to tweak it to getting 2-3 stud SPs, 1-2 value SPs, and trying to build a formidable defensive team first balanced with offensive production 2nd.

That's the abridged quick summary, so before I anyone goes too nuts on it, just remember there's a lot of balancing going on, not the least of which is caused by success (or lack thereof) in the draft.