How do relievers tire?

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/822549

This is just one team in my league that has RP's with major innings. Like I said, I have never seen the fatigue factor in place. SGT D

seems Belisario's numbers are a bit dissapointing for you too

Steve, that was not my team, it was another team in my league. This is my team: http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/821808

SGT D

yeah! GO KERSHAW!!

This was a $100 million cap team that I built really to rely on its relievers, without completely over-using one reliever:

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/812721

Admittedly, it helps when it's a $100 million cap team.

I deliberately chose several R2 relievers to eat up lots of innings.

The average start for the starting pitchers was 5.6 innings.

Litsch was used mostly as a spot starter to face teams with lots of right handed batters. He started 6 times with 34 IP. The division that the team played in had a high % of right-handed batters. The overall L-R mix for the year was about 50%-50% left-right batters faced, despite only having 1 left handed pitcher (a reliever) on the whole staff.

This team was 34-16 in one run games, and 12-3 in extra innings. It's run differential wasn't amazing, but I think that the "deep bullpen" strategy contributes to having a good record in close games and extra-innings games.

This is another team that had extensive bullpen innings. Again, the starters' average start was about 5.6 innings.

This time, it's a $45 million cap league, where you had to have either a batter over $5.5 million or a pitcher over $4.5 million:

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/814972

The key thing here is that the bullpen had 6 pure relievers, including 3 RPs that were R2. Despite being small $ pitchers, Lueke and Wood logged some solid inning totals (they are both R2). On this team, I deliberately stretched Clippard to get the most IP out of him, within some limits, and really without letting him get too tired too often (keeping the F levels good). I normally don't like to let the IP get that high for a reliever. I tried to avoid stretching the RPs and having them be tired. From the game play by play results, the pitcher that suffered from some over-use was Ramos, at 104 IP. I recall there were some games where he was getting tired (low F ratings).

This team was 42-24 in one run games, and 10-10 in extra innings. I think the average extra innings results reflect my over-reliance on one RP, compared to the large cap team (above). Unlike the large cap team where there were 4 really solid relievers, this small cap team relieved very heavily on Clippard. Once the game got to extra innings, the team had to use their less costly (and less effective) relievers.

One more thing (which I kinda discovered the hard way) - in a non-DH league, you will tend to get fewer innings from SPs as well as RPs, because the computer manager will make decisions to pinch hit for your pitchers. Therefore, all things being equal, you will need more relief pitchers on a non-DH team than you would on a DH team. It's not just about the innings pitched for a reliever in a non-DH league - you also have to remember that you are going to use more individual pitchers on an average night in a non-DH league than you would in a DH league. Keeping in mind that an RP can only pitch 2 consecutive games before having to rest, that means you need more relief pitchers.

A lot of good info there, thanks