The Super Reliever Fiasco

Dan (supertyphoon): I agree. This forum could use updating as well. I wish there were "like" buttons as facebook has. It would save a lot of us the trouble of chiming in when we agree with a post.

Also, Murray was a lot closer to 2 innings pitched per game than 3 based on 69 innings over 32 appearances. Although Murray had a 4 inning endurance when his card was issued in 1974, occasionally SOM changes ratings in the ATG game from the original card. For example, Dick Allen was a 1B 3 when his card for the 1972 season was originally issued but is a 4 now. There are numerous other examples of ratings changes, but the point is that it's not unprecedented for a card to have some changes in the ATG game compared to the card originally issued.

I've been playing the online game 6 or 7 years dating back to ATG4. A few months after I started playing online, SOM changed the relief pitcher rules to their present form as an alleged improvement, which was generally well received by the playing community. But, interestingly, SOM kept the old rules in place for a long time, giving league creators the option of choosing which set of relief pitcher rules to use. So there is precedent for using a dual system of relief pitcher rules.

AS BC15NY noted, Murray couldn't carry the jock straps of Gossage, Rivera, Lee Smith, Sutter, Fingers, Eckersley, Hoffman, Wagner, Wilhelm and dozens of others of good relief pitchers. In a conversation of real life ATG relief pitchers, he wouldn't be in the top 250, yet he had that great 1974 half season. Replacing his card would just shift usage to the other super relievers. It's better to try the new rules limiting use so that such would apply to ALL relief pitchers.

It doesnt much bother me whether people go overboard using a Murray or Sutter, Im more annoyed as to what I have forever perceived to be a redundancy of such rules as "clutch" hitting and ballpark homeruns. I have hated ""clutch" hitting since the first year it was introduced.I have felt that the card results already reflect how clutch a player has been without juicing or de-juicing the card results. The game results are skewed by more than someone using Bruce Sutter like Greg Maddux. IMO Barry Bonds hitting 80 home runs with regularity is no less crazy than 200 innings from Bruce Sutter. Plus you have ace pitchers with little or no home run chances on their cards giving up insane home run totals. Given the makeup of leagues and structure an average ace tends to have an ERA over 5 sometimes even 6 with a winning record, is that realistic? In one of my current leagues Tom Seaver is 20-10 with 60 home runs allowed :O We already have the ability to limit the player pool desired for a particular league. Best chance at realism for a 12 team league is limit the player pool reflecting 12 teams worth of players. If you want everyone in the pool you're gonna need at least a 30 team league when seeking realism.

I'm not clamoring for any major rules changes, as I sure don't want to see ATG turned into the modern version of the game, where you have 12-13 man bullpens and pitchers come and go thru a revolving door.

I just think it needs a minor tweak where the overuse would be prevented by the game engine, such as the R-1 after x number of innings accumulated. Don't split the league options any finer, please.

My main point is that 1974 Dale Murray just doesn't belong in the set. Let the best players in MLB history be the best players in ATG. Who is Ross Barnes for crying out loud?

BC

My main point is that 1974 Dale Murray just doesn't belong in the set. Let the best players in MLB history be the best players in ATG. Who is Ross Barnes for crying out loud?

BC

^^^^^^^
THIS

This is also why I want an Unleashed Set and a MLB Set.

I'm not clamoring for any major rules changes, as I sure don't want to see ATG turned into the modern version of the game, where you have 12-13 man bullpens and pitchers come and go thru a revolving door.

I just think it needs a minor tweak where the overuse would be prevented by the game engine, such as the R-1 after x number of innings accumulated. Don't split the league options any finer, please.

My main point is that 1974 Dale Murray just doesn't belong in the set. Let the best players in MLB history be the best players in ATG. Who is Ross Barnes for crying out loud?

BC

I like Ross Barnes..he had a nice run for about 6 years back in the early days. There are several ATG 19th century players whose careers preceded 1893 (which i believe is when modern day baseball is recognized as beginning with the pitching mound being placed from 50 feet to 60 feet 6 inches.)

IMO for realism and fun I would recommend playing in a franchise league. You will be using a number of players otherwise not considered in an open player pool.

I don't think the super reliever issue is a fiasco, nor do I necessarily agree that dichotomizing leagues by anti-super reliever rules will work. It is hard enough to fill leagues now without adding extra preconditions, so that might be a tough sell with SOM; not that they pay attention to what the community wants in any event.

I have no problem with Bruce Sutter pitching 200 innings. Anything more than that tends to negatively impact his performance, he will come into games so frequently and early, that he will start out tired too often for my taste. Mike Marshall pitched 208 innings the same decade when Sutter routinely pitched in the low 100's so there is some realism with a reliever hurling 200 innings. ATG encompasses the entirely of MLB baseball history. The game has evolved from relievers being afterthoughts to the highly specialized roles they enjoy today. So I think that there is room for multiple styles of reliever usage.

Wilhelm and Sutter are legitimate super relievers, Murray is an aberration inflicted on the community by a well intended Bernie Hou who saw Murray as a special gift to the game. No way he should be any where near the most expensive pure reliever in ATG, he had a journeyman career with an early fluke season. It might be simpler to just eliminate his card. Wilhelm is self limited as a super reliever given his ballpark hr's vs righties. The influence of super relievers in general is a function of salary cap. They can easily unbalance a league with a 80M cap, they really aren't nearly as dominant at the higher caps.

One way to address the super reliever issue is not to impose an absolute limit to innings pitched per season, but to have any relief pitcher who exceeds, say 200 innings in a season becomes a R1 for any appearances beyond 200 innings (or whatever the community deems an appropriate limit) including the playoffs. That should solve the issue.

Mike Marshall was an aberration, so he's not a good example. Out of thousands of pitchers who've relieved in major league history, he's the only relief pitcher to pitch that many innings in relief in a single season in the last 120 years or so, maybe even over the entire course of baseball history, as up until the 1950s, relief pitchers were generally second rate starters relegated to bullpen duty, not to say that some didn't have good seasons out of the pen. So to say that, because Marshall pitched likely the one and only season in baseball history of 200 relief innings, justifies other pitchers to do so in the ATG game, is a bit misleading. Sutter averaged 107 innings per season in his career, with a high of 122. To say that he should be allowed to pitch 200 relief innings in a season because it happened just once in baseball history is a stretch. There have been more starting pitchers to throw 500+ innings in a single season than relief pitchers who threw 200+ innings. Maybe based upon that, SOM should allow all starting pitchers to pitch every third day.

I do think, however, that Marshall notwithstanding, 160 innings would be a good cap for relief pitchers, however SOM wishes to enforce such. As noted in my previous post, starting pitchers can pitch only every 4th day, which reduces innings to less than real life for the 15 or so ATG8 starting pitchers who threw 400+ innings in a single season. Changing to an R1 or even an F0 for all innings after 160 would be an improvement, but there is nothing but drop penalties to prevent a manager from dropping the player and picking up another relief pitcher. Under the R1 or F0 penalty for overuse, would dropping an overused and tired Sutter or Murray for a fresh Dick Radatz really solve the problem? I don't think so.

SOM has 40 pure relievers in the ATG game who pitched 150 or more innings in a season. Based on Baseball-Reference.com, of those 40 alleged "RP only" players, I was SHOCKED to discover that just 5 (Hiller, Konstanty, Eichhorn, Radatz and Marshall) didn't make a single start all season. For the other 35 pitchers, 25-33% of their appearances on average were starts, with a handful of pitchers making starts in more than 50% of their appearances. Except for Marshall, the high for innings pitched for those 5 pitchers was 157 by Radatz, so the 160 inning limitation seems fair. Another alternative is to limit pure relief pitchers to 110% of actual usage, but that would involve the need for repricing and big reprogramming. The above alternatives have all been previously discussed over the years, with no movement from SOM. I fail to see how making the anti super reliever rules developed by SOM to limit relief pitcher abuse would reduce participation, as improvements in the game engine would add realism and more people would play as a result. Further, SOM has previously updated relief rules while making the prior rules available with no noticeable resulting reduction in leagues formed.

It's time for SOM to take its head out of.....the sand and address the super reliever problem.

There is a way to get any reliever, be they R1 or R5, to pitch 108 games without coming in tired in any game during the season. That part is easy. [If you can live with your #1 reliever coming in tired some times, you can get over 108 appearances. Having a reliever come in tired has never appealed to me, so I never have my #1 reliever pitch more than 108 games.] This functionality, being able to pitch 108 games (2 of every 3 games in a series), without fatigued innings, is part of what critics refer to as the super reliever fiasco. But it applies to relievers who are R1 and R2 as well.

As a note, it isn't just pitching 2 of every three games in a series, it is knowing/controlling WHICH 2 of 3 that is so amazingly powerful about the Super Reliever strategy (or exploitation, if you prefer). The game in which you know the super reliever is not available allows the manager to adjust the settings for the starter (to hopefully get an extra inning or two out of him in such a game, as opposed to a game where you'd like the super-reliever coming in in the 5th inning or so.)

Regarding innings, the relief innings can be pretty damn amazing (or horrible, as you prefer). Even more amazing than getting 360-370 innings out of a 9* starter, which, of course, it totally unrealistic and exploitative as it relates to the modern game. People in this thread are referring to 300 innings from Murray, but if someone is only getting 300 innings out of Murray (in a DH league), then they are not exploiting Murray.

It is easy to pitch Murray (or Wilhelm, who is better than Murray in small ball parks) 108 games and to get about 425 innings. If you go with 5m (total) worth of starters, you can get 450 innings. If you go with 15m worth of starters, probably 400 innings.

If you go with Miljus, Adams or any other R5 reliever as your #1, you can exceed 525 innings if your starters are particularly crappy. And get 450-475 if the starters are mediocre.

You can use Sutter (or other R3s) as super-relievers, too, although it just isn't as efficient, and you dance on the razor's edge. You end up either needing slightly costlier starters (who can go 6 or 7, as opposed to 4, 5 or 6 innings), or you pay the price on the back end where Sutter gets tired prior to closing out the 9th inning. If you need to go to your #2 reliever too often, then you end up needing your #3 reliever (or worse!) in the third game of the series. Where that happens, the thread gets pulled and the team design fails.

That said, I don't agree that his (Sutter's) effectiveness wanes after 200 innings as was suggested earlier in the thread. As long as you are not using the max closer rule, and are using the other mechanics available in the other settings, you can get Sutter to pitch 108 games and get about 320 innings from him without every having him pitch fatigued.

On a separate point, you can also use super relievers as a hedge against platoons. I find that to be a lot of fun!

I don't mind the super reliever strategy, but I would be fine if Strat weighted the cost of reliever duration more heavily. I'd just look for, and utilize, other strategies to (try to) secure an advantage.

My main critique of ATG is there are too many cards (I suspect I may be alone in this). Scarcity makes strategies, and drafting as part of the strategy, sharper and more rich and complicated--at least from my perspective. With so many cards, cruder strategies like super reliever ones are begging to be used until and unless the rules change.

When I finish one of my current leagues I will create a league where only R1s can be used for relievers. We can always create leagues with limitations. I find leagues with restrictions to be particularly enjoyable. We don't have to depend on Strat to make a change. If they do, great, but if they don't, we hold a lot of power through using leagues with other than default rule settings.

peace, Chompsky

As the great philosopher, NEVDULLY, once told me, shortly after I began playing this game........It's not perfect, and there will be certain things that drive you wacky, and things you would love see changed.

Wacky number 1 for me: When someone like Murray can now win, 33 games, within striking distance of a 40 win season!

This is so far from realistic, it makes me want to pack up my dice and go home.

Yup, I would LOVE for us to have staggered schedules. Where you might have a three game series, then a four game series, while at the same time, other teams in the league are playing two three game series, or 2 four game series. That way, you would not continually see your ACE, Maddux, for example, facing your oppositions ACE, Johnson, for example, each and every start.

Not having this capability bothers me, but will not keep me from saying ADIOS SOM. The Murray situation WILL.

CMON SOM, Get with it! Show me you are paying attention!

My 33 cents worth. One for every Murray win, So Far.

Doug

By the way, does anyone know if certain players can still view the ballparks chosen in leagues before the draft? This is a totally unfair situation. Sorry, didn't mean to hijack the thread.

Bernie closed that down quite a few years ago.