SP* Reliever question

Has anyone gone with a stud 4 man rotation and used 1 or 2 of them in the pen on days they don't start? What effect on fatigue do you think they would encounter?

To be more specific I have a S9*/R5 and a S7*/R3 among my 4 starters. I don't plan to use either one as a main relief guy, but more a secondary guy. I'll have one 3-4 mil guy as primary relief workhorse and planned on using the starters for spot duty as it's a non-DH league so my starters will get pulled for pinch hitters I fear far too early. My intention is to drastically reduce the amount of innings my cheap bullpen guys will pitch. But will it effect my SP/RP too negatively?

Note that my SP's are solid and will go deep most games (hopefully).

Thoughts?

I'm pretty sure that as long as your pitchers are in the starting rotation, or scheduled to pitch within the next few games, they will never be used out of the pen. If they were used, they would enter every game fatigued. Now if you have five starters, either all with the * or a mixture, that could be another story . . . but it didn't sound like that was what you were asking.

Thanks. I have used this method with the 5 man rotation that you were talking about with some success. I wasn't aware that they wouldn't be used out of the pen with a 4 man staff, although it does make sense.

Interesting thread.

I have a similar related question - I was playing in a free trial league a couple weeks ago, and somehow, I ended up using up all 5 of my relievers by the end of the 11th inning. I scored a run in the top of the 12th to take the lead, but then HAL brought in one of my SP (not one even with a RP option) in the bottom of the 12th (can't remember if he pinch hit for my last RP in the top of the inning or not). He chose to bring in the SP that had pitched in the previous game (and thrown 7+ innings).

You can probably guess what happened. My SP, from having pitched the day before, gave up the tying and winning runs, and 4 hits in 1/3 of an inning, and I lost the game.

Has this happened to anyone else? Did I screw up my bullpen assignments, or did something go haywire with "HAL"?