Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

..........to pitchers on a '70s league team. Just curious about other manager's strategy. With 3-4 lousy starts, it's easy to want to give up on a pitcher without having an obvious "tell" about which season you're dealing with. Patience is a virtue, and roster budget is too. How do you guys strategize?

If you don't have a obvious "tell" and it's a guy you drafted in the beginning because he's a good fit for your ballpark, I'd be more likely to give him two more starts, but, four starts is where you need to think about the guy. If he's got terrible numbers, but three of his four starts are decent and one was a horrendous start on the road, I'd be more tolerant. If three of his four starts were at home and he did poorly in all of them, I'd be less tolerant. Look at his home-road record. Look at his righty-lefty stats. Is he at least good against righties Is he at least good against lefties? Are opponents hitting over .300 against him from both sides of the plate? Is the difference between his second best card and fourth best card close? In other words, is he a play-it-safe kind of starter designed not to mess things up too bad long-term? If all five of his cards have ERA's between 3.40 and 3.80, for example, and his ERA after four starts is 4.50, then, you're pretty much getting what you wanted. Is he at least good at home? On the road? If nothing positive stands out, then four starts is about as far as I would go.

What to do with pitchers is the toughest part of the mystery league. It's even worse in a no-DH league.

In a recently completed 60s league, I cut a starter after four starts who had a great card, kept a reliever all season who had a terrible card, cut another reliever after a dozen innings who had a terrible card, and stayed with one starter who was doing horrible but didn't have a bad card.

So I was essentially 50-50 in my decisions.