Four Man vs Five Man pitching staffs

[ksher58]

"The way I look at it, in taking you in 5 the first round, I had to overcome going up against a team that had a $70M pitching staff, because for this playoff series you had approx. $40M worth of starting pitching and in any given game, another $31M coming out of the bullpen (the other 4 SP's)."


Those staffs seem to do well, but I really don't think it was really $31 mil. coming out of the bullpens, since they were always pitching tired. I found on the couple of teams where I used Adams and Relbach in that way they always seemed fresh in their starts even after having relieved, but they were always tired when pitching in relief between starts-Their ERAs were way higher in relief than as starters. On one team Adams was 18-3 as a starter at the Polo Grounds, pitching 242 inn. giving up 71 runs, ERA 2.63 and 2-5 pitching 61 inn giving up 36 runs, ERA 5.3. I can't find his #s for another team, but they were similar.

[thetallguy747]

You're probably right about each of the 5 starters having at least somewhat diminished monetary worth as a reliever. Still, I would point out that Babe Adams tired is only barely worse than Eckersley rested. In this particular five game series, Adams went 9 innings in a start and 6 innings in three relief appearance.

Which brings me to this point: it was mentioned above that this use of a pitching staff was "deadball pitching at its best as everyone started & relieved." Well, no. The SOM required pitching staff is 10. Five sat all year. I don't think deadball teams paid five rag arms to sit in the bullpen all season and watch. So, does this mean pitchers like Babe Adams came out game after game and pitched "tired?" I doubt it. I assume their "5" relief inning rating reflects that they were not in fact used 4 games out any stretch of five, the way Adams was used in our series. My understanding of the deadball era is that the starting pitcher pitched the entire game, period, unless he got injured midgame or couldn't shake his hangover. Then a guy like Adams would be called into the game and do the expected thing -- pitch the rest of the game. Hence the "5" inning relief rating. A few long appearances; not 1 or 2 relief appearances between starts. Gaming the game in this way is gaming the game. It's not deadball pitching at its best. It's taking the SOM-imposed modern era pitching staff template and severely bending it to exploit a type of statistical anomoly produced by deadball pitching practices.

Despite all that I just said -- it's still all a heckuva lot of fun and we could, after all, be arguing about things that actually mattered. :D

[Sheikyerboudi]

Kevin A - congrats on your win in the semi's, it was a heck of a series that came down to a game 5. My whole point is this: Your team beat me, not HAL - I didn't let him. Hope you do good in the finals and maybe we'll meet up again sometime 8)

[modmark46]

About to start a season with a 5 man I drafted last night. Clemens, Adams, Reulbach, Russo and Killian. Playing in the Astrodome. $100m league. We'll see how it works out. :) 8)

[thetallguy747]

Zap -- thanks. I hope you understand I'm not casting asperagus at you. I'm just an old purist at heart and not a big risk taker. I'm the kind of guy who always walks away from a night of poker up $10. :wink:

[Sheikyerboudi]

Not a problem, dude. No asparagus taken :wink:

[Sheikyerboudi]

About to start a season with a 5 man I drafted last night. Clemens, Adams, Reulbach, Russo and Killian. Playing in the Astrodome. $100m league. We'll see how it works out.

modmark47 - is it a DH or non-DH league? I tried the same strategy in a 100mil DH league and it didn't work very well - everyone in the league had Polo '36 for there park, it seemed, and the pitchers got beat up too bad.

[modmark46]

FZL, it IS a DH league. I realize I am taking a chance with so much on pitching, as $100m teams can all field powerful lineups. The league consists of 5 slugging parks, 5 pitching parks and 2 neutral parks.