The Super Reliever Fiasco

The Barnstormers Tour years ago, it could be 10 or more years ago, did have a rule which penalized a team in which a pure RP went over a set amount. I want to say 200 IP but my memory is not what it used to be. Maybe someone else playing the tour that long will remember the specifics.

I do remember this MM.

That was WAY back - I'm thinking ATG2 or ATG3 when the Woody Frymans, Bugs Raymond and Willie Hernandez cards were the one's to have......and Eck was a $7 mil card R1.


To SIMPLIFY things, just created a special "SHUFFLE DECK" for any Tour league with $100Mil or less caps and take those cards out. (The Sutter's, Murray's etc...).

TSN will do that pretty quickly.

No monitoring, no "ethical" issues.

Easy peazy.

I don't recall creating shuffle decks to overcome the Super Reliever issue. And I don't believe that this would ever work. You would never be able to come to any kind of agreement on who to keep and who to toss out.

The solution if there is a need for one, has to come from SOM. Oh and while you're at it, where is our Live Draft with picks of HOURS duration, not seconds. This has been promised for 4 years.

Why do we have to come up with a creative work around on an obvious 365 game flaw?

I am baffled that Strat hasn't done anything...
Or that someone from Strat doesn't lurk these boards from time to time...and jump in with a comment when a thread really needs one.

Terribly disappointed in the lack of customer service.
Unacceptable is not a strong enough word.

Murray won games 35 and 36 against my team last night, now at 300 IP with 30 games left in the season. I think it's almost certain he will win at least 40 games in this league and pitch over 350 innings. Absurd aberration of what is otherwise an enjoyable diversion. I wish SOM would step in and prevent something like this from happening in the future.

Link to this abomination: http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/sim/1449263

Why do we have to come up with a creative work around on an obvious 365 game flaw?

I am baffled that Strat hasn't done anything...
Or that someone from Strat doesn't lurk these boards from time to time...and jump in with a comment when a thread really needs one.

Terribly disappointed in the lack of customer service.
Unacceptable is not a strong enough word.

In all fairness the customer service (support) is fine. If you email with any issues/requests with a league, etc., etc., they are very timely and accomodating.

Where they are failing completely is there is zero engagement between PD (product development) and the community. Such as on issues like relievers being able to routinely pitch over 300 innings. They could easily fix Murray by changing his card to an R2. This might be a bandaid, but it at least acknowledges the issue.

Bill

Link to this abomination: http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/sim/1449263

Well for what it's worth, the manager of the Murray team cited above, almost invariably has either Murray or Sutter as a super reliever. I think he has somewhere between 30-40 teams going currently and I'm in many leagues with him. At first I was surprised for a relative newbie to be doing so well, but this thread caused me to review super reliever performance in my leagues and so I stumbled upon the realization. I don't really have a beef with his inevitable use of the super reliever strategy, and frankly find comfort in knowing that it is an exploitable weakness of his: forewarned is indeed forearmed. I actually don't have a horse in this race, there are so many ways in which ATG stats are unrealistic, simply by virtue of the fact that cards are generated to perform in the context of the season in question and then used with so many caps and in so many bandboxes where #'s are way too heavily weighted. But I wouldn't refer to it as an abomination, that is more like Gehrig hitting .250 or Bonds hitting 110 homeruns.

If I was in a league with a manager who I knew had an affinity for super-relievers, I'd consider some of the following approaches. This is just brainstorming coming from a manager who likes to use super-reliever strategies himself.

Pro-Active
Make the player pool exclude Murray.
Make the league no-DH.
Make a rule that excludes Murray
Make a rule that excludes R3, R4 and R5s.
Set an inning cap for relievers.

Draft
Draft Murray and use him in a non-super-reliever fashion. That way my opponent can't use him.
Draft Murray and dump him at 10:00 p.m. on the night the season starts (if you feel that is ethical).
Use a stadium that favors Righty Power
Don't use speedsters (at least not folks who steal a lot, base-running speed is fine)
Draft mostly right handed hitters, at least some of whom have HR power.
Don't use (many) platoons if your opponent is prone to use crap lefty starters followed by all righty relievers.


In terms of the righty power, it's not that Murray is prone to home runs, it's that he is prone to walks to righties. And since he kills lefties, perhaps right handed power would have a relatively better shot against him. I'm not really sure.

Anecdotally, I can tell you that righty power has sometimes thwarted me when I use Murray. And real good starting pitching has always been a problem. When I've used Murray, I often use about 10m worth of starters. I get behind early, and my hope is that my powerful offense will help me catch up and win late while Murray holds down my opponent. But against excellent starting pitching, my chances of catching up are greatly diminished. Again, just brainstorming.

Please, don't focus on Sutter and Murray: pretty much any R3 above 4M has the potential to be a super-reliever.

Just completed a 100-win and a 113-win with respectively 300 innings of Tug McGraw and 296 innings of Schultz, both 20-winners, both ERA in the low 3.00.

Of course, both are 80M and DH, the two conditions to maximize the low-payroll SP/high-priced RP strategy.

This said, even in regular 20XX, you wouldn't get 300 innings from a R3. The closer rule forces Hal to get another reliever for the 9th inning. The lack of closer rule and lack of any provision to prevent overusage are the key faults.

Link to this abomination: http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/sim/1449263

Well for what it's worth, the manager of the Murray team cited above, almost invariably has either Murray or Sutter as a super reliever. I think he has somewhere between 30-40 teams going currently and I'm in many leagues with him. At first I was surprised for a relative newbie to be doing so well, but this thread caused me to review super reliever performance in my leagues and so I stumbled upon the realization. I don't really have a beef with his inevitable use of the super reliever strategy, and frankly find comfort in knowing that it is an exploitable weakness of his: forewarned is indeed forearmed. I actually don't have a horse in this race, there are so many ways in which ATG stats are unrealistic, simply by virtue of the fact that cards are generated to perform in the context of the season in question and then used with so many caps and in so many bandboxes where #'s are way too heavily weighted. But I wouldn't refer to it as an abomination, that is more like Gehrig hitting .250 or Bonds hitting 110 homeruns.

This should be interesting. I'm in a league that just launched this week ($80m, no DH) with the aforementioned manager — and he has Murray AND Sutter. Team link: http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1452156.

I've used Murray a time or two like many have, but I would love to see final stats (whether it's pitching or hitting) as realistic as possible.

Ok, some seem irritated because it's Murray, who is in no way one of the top relievers of all time. Some don't like the strategy, which yields unrealistic results.

With the former, I agree. I wish the All-Time Hall of Fame best relievers (and 2b and SS and so on) were the highest priced players in the game. Sutter and Mariano, Ted Williams and Rogers Hornsby--not Murray, Luis Gonzalez, and Ross Barnes.

With the latter, it is a strategy that is currently within the rules. It yields unrealistic results, but so do a lot of other things in this game. If a manager wants to commit 15% of his 80m roster on Murray/Sutter or the 16m Ruth, great. That's a lot of $$ locked up in one/two players.

In my opinion, the fiasco is Murray being the highest priced closer in the game.