Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

This is my first post. How does HAL decide to use a SP RP pitcher in relief? I'm looking for how to both maximize the use as well as minimize the use.

I've played with giving the pitcher a relief role. I've made sure that they are (or are not) scheduled to start same night as well as the next night. I've removed them from the default rotation. I've looked at the fatigue rating from the last time they pitched.

I welcome all thoughts, guesses, answers that you may have. Thanks.

There are some guys, like barterer2002, who have done this successfully. When tried, I have usually not had much success.........

Try not setting a default rotation but using the per game starting pitcher option and slating your SP/RP pitcher into 2 relief roles . You should be able to get some starts for him by doing this.

Thanks for the info. I have Hecker who started last night and has a start tomorrow night. I will give him the Closer role tonight. I'll let you know if I have any closer situations and HAL puts him in.

1787 wrote:Try not setting a default rotation but using the per game starting pitcher option and slating your SP/RP pitcher into 2 relief roles . You should be able to get some starts for him by doing this.

"Thanks. Got it set."

skirmish1960 wrote:Thanks for the info. I have Hecker who started last night and has a start tomorrow night. I will give him the Closer role tonight. I'll let you know if I have any closer situations and HAL puts him in.

Hecker did not come in but none of the three games had a closer situation. I'll keep experimenting and post again in a week or so.

besides closer list him as middle relief

I think I figured it out and the answer is not good. 1st of all, in a relief role, Hal very rarely selects a pitcher who started a game the previous night even when the pitcher is removed from both regular rotation and per-game pitching. Even if you give the pitcher a relief role, Hal doesn't want to use them.

When Hal does use them, it may be a disaster. One data point isn't a trend but it is enough for me to stop this experiment. Guy Hecker started the last game the previous night pitching 8.1 innings and left the game at F9. Last night, he came in to save the 1st game of the evening. He entered the game at F0, gave up a bunch of hits including a HR and blew the save.

Wild guess - Maybe starters are set to F0 following each of their starts until three (*) or four games are played.

Just from my small sample size of experience, if you have SP only cards, put them in your default rotation, and still set game by game starters. I've found that seems to make HAL think they'll be the next 3 starters, making someone like Hecker a viable option as RP.
As you've found out, a relief appearance after a start isn't pretty.
My first point above may get HAL to use A high priced SP/RP like Hecker out of the pen, if you want to use him as a spot starter and get a lot of RP appearances. If you want to start him every 5th day AND get RP stints in between, HAL gets unhappy about that.
While not in Hecker's league, I use Bennett as a hard LH SP/RP, along with Eggie to spot start and get appearances out of the pen. It works, as I have 3 or 4 SPs in the default rotation, and unlike Hecker, HAL doesn't see them as someone to save for a start in the next series.
Here's an example of what I'm talking about, but the Eggie and Scherman as the RH/LH SP/RP combo. In looking at their game logs, I was able to set them as a per game SP whenever I wanted, but the didn't come out of the pen for 3-4 days after a start.
Hope this helped more than it confused.
https://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1699874

Thanks for the info. That makes a lot of sense. I can't do it with my existing team but I might give it a try with a future team.