Tue May 19, 2015 1:03 am
Except for higher cap leagues, mixing non *SP and *SP is usually not a good way to get most of your money. If a *SP gets only 32 starts, you basically lose 20% of his value. If you give a *SP 40 starts, and limit the other pitchers to roughly 30 starts, then overall, you lose a bit less than 15%. Over 4M, there ain't many pitchers who are worth that waste---but it's possible for cheaper values---15% of 2M is only 300K, but 15% of 9M is a whoopy 1.35M.
BTW, the edge for a *SP rotation over a non *SP rotation in the playoffs is not so big. For ease of calculation, let's assume that a *SP is priced to pitch 40 games and a non *SP to pitch 32 games. So by simply dividing by 10, a fair distribution for the playoffs would be 4 games for a *SP and "3.2" for a non *SP, or the same ratio expressed differently, "3.75" games by *SP for every 3 games pitched by non *SP, which is pretty much the ratio you have for your top 3 starters in 13 games of playoffs.
4 games 1st *SP vs 3 games of 1st non *SP
4 games 2nd *SP vs 3 games of 2nd non *SP
3 games 3rd *SP vs 3 games of 3rd non *SP
avg=3.7...........vs.......avg=3 games
The *SP still get advantaged because the extra games come from your two best pitchers, but it's not that great if your 3rd starter is as good as the first two.
If SOM could give a 4th start to the best non *SP, then this advantage to the non SP would balance out things. This could be performed by giving two rest days between the two series---this would allow the best non SP to come back for the last game of the second series.
In any case, I disagree about allowing everyone to go with a 4-men rotation, the advantage would then be way too great for the nonSP---unless SOM allows the *SP to pitch 1-4-7, which would then give a too big advantage to *SP.