The Super Reliever Fiasco

Glad to see this discussion come up, although it's an old, old problem. I've been away for 5+ years and I can hardly fathom that all these years later, SOM still hasn't modified the game engine to address this.

Two issues:

#1 - it messes up the asthetics of the game. This is a subjective point, but I think most seem to agree.

#2 - it breaks the salary structure. This is a real problem. If relievers can throw 300 innings, they should be priced that way. In the Barnstormers Tour Finals league, luckyman and cristano each had their relief aces (Tug McGraw & Dale Murray, respectively) throw over 300 innings. If the cards are going to be used that way, then top ATG relievers should be priced in the $10M to $12M range.

Ideally, SOM would program the game engine to effectively cap RP innings at these levels:

R5 - 160 IP
R4 - 140 IP
R3 - 120 IP
R2 - 100 IP
R1 - 80 IP

The salary structure is assumes roughly these levels of usage. Consider that game controls allow a manager to tactically set top relivers to pitch the highest leverage innings. RPs are very good values at those levels of usage. When they throw 300+ innings, they are absurdly under-priced.

FWIW, I'd love to see Barnstormer's Tour institute the the above levels as limits for Tour leagues. Any manager who exceeded those levels would be penalized and potentially disqualified from the Tour.

Issue #3 - Murray couldn't carry a rosin bag for Gossage, Sutter, Rivera or Wilhelm for that matter.

Dale Murray should NOT be the best reliever in the ATG set. He was a ham and egger.

Issue #3 - Murray couldn't carry a rosin bag for Gossage, Sutter, Rivera or Wilhelm for that matter.

Dale Murray should NOT be the best reliever in the ATG set. He was a ham and egger.

Best post in the thread!!!

Question: do the closer ratings actually affect anything in the online game. If so, Murray's expected #/pitches should drop the moment he comes into a closer situation (from something like 40-50 pitches, to, 12-15 or so, for a closer "3" [if I remember right]).

Suggestion: Could always require a minimum number of IP/AB's to be drafted, then strictly limit the AB/IP to +X% of the average total. In one of the earlier computer versions you actually could do just that (so no team is going to toss Ron Jones or Dusty Rhodes out there for 500 AB's).

Observation: I don't use the super reliever strategy, but my setup/closer combo routinely logs 220-250 IP. One season, Dibble tossed 171 inns as a setup man, but that's an outlier.

Opinion: People play super reliever and bomber ball because it's an easy exploit. If you want to stop the exploitation, but in some switches and limits. Years ago, a friend of mine drafted a pair of closers RP's (can't remember who they were) with 3 IP ratings, and pitched one of them every single game, win or lose, bringing them in in the 7th inning and letting them finish the game. Rarely worked against him, because it seemed like they never got shelled or tired. It was annoying as hell. By the way, he had cheap starters and a bunch of HR hitters--sound familiar?

P.S. For RP's, I feel like every 30 IP should give them one inning of Fatigue, i.e., Murray, with his 69 IP, should be rated a 2, at best.

I don't think SOM will do anything to fix the unrealistic super reliever issue because it is actually trying to incentify unrealistic statistical achievements by awarding trophies to managers who have pitchers with 35 wins (gold trophy), or 30 wins for a mere silver. On the hitting side, you need a slugger to wallop an unbelievable 100 home runs in order to garner a gold trophy. Seems to me that a super reliever stands a better chance to get 35 wins than a starter (anybody have Maddox or Alexander come close?). ATG just seems geared toward less realism than the annual or decade games. If a Ruth or Bonds earned you a gold trophy by smacking 100 dingers in a season, it too would be unrealistic but more acceptable because they were legitimate sluggers. However, since Murray was not a legitimate All Time Great pitcher, his unrealistic achievements are considered a fiasco. So bottom line for me is if you want realism in your baseball simulation, play the 2016 game or even the daily game, but if you want to have fun with the famous and some not-so-famous names of yesteryear and maybe even win a trophy, play the ATG game. I like both for different reasons.

Quite a discussion! I feel like the whipping boy in parts of this thread, as I have committed the sin of having Murray go 37-7 through 138 games so far. Interesting that when I was going through a Barry Bonds phase nobody posted links to my team decrying the 100 hrs he hit (although, the point that Bonds is actually a superstar and Murray an aberration of the deck is relevant here).

A more generous way to perceive this season might be, "wow, Murray is having an amazing season! These are interesting results." It's not as if you put Murray out there and he's going to win 40 games - this is highly unusual. For most of us, getting extra value from a player, whoever it may be, is a thrill, and I doubt that many managers out there who are having "unrealistic" positive results from one of their players has been reflecting on how "abominable" it is.

I personally enjoy the eccentricities of the game and the opportunity for managers to take players and get unusual results out of them (see Brown, Gates). The tendency to pick a ballpark like Forbes '65 and stack it with lefty singles hitters and hit .330 as a team is as unrealistic as anything else, as is winning the division playing in Coors field with a team ERA of 7.75. My perspective is that since everyone is working with the same budget, manipulating the variables at our disposal to try to gain a marginal advantage is the interesting challenge of this game.

With the deck so large (too big, in my opinion), competition isn't for Babe Ruth but for the outlier mid-range or cheap players, Murray, Gates Brown, Tommy Davis, Al McBean, Wagner, etc. This might be a flaw, but I enjoy it.

Murray is clearly undervalued, as are many other players; the stolen bases function, particularly stealing third, is ridiculous; ballpark effects are disproportionate; etc. All true.

An advantage of this game is there is nearly total flexibility in league creation, so while I agree that it seems unnecessary for the playing community to do it's own work in fixing what appear to be simple fixes for the company, it's still easy to do. I join every league I can and the more rules and limitation the better (e.g. the "anti-super-releiver league filling now, where I will be, blissfully Murray-less).

Question: do the closer ratings actually affect anything in the online game. If so, Murray's expected #/pitches should drop the moment he comes into a closer situation (from something like 40-50 pitches, to, 12-15 or so, for a closer "3" [if I remember right]).

There is no closer rule in ATG. But its impact would be limited anyway even if it were used: the closer rule in SOM only affects games where the tying run is at-bat.

tmfw30 wrote: "My perspective is that since everyone is working with the same budget, manipulating the variables at our disposal to try to gain a marginal advantage is the interesting challenge of this game."

Nailed it!

tmfw30 wrote: "My perspective is that since everyone is working with the same budget, manipulating the variables at our disposal to try to gain a marginal advantage is the interesting challenge of this game."

Nailed it!

Exactly! I always keep in mind that this is a fantasy game, in our own little world and that we are all looking for advantages. Some have found formulas that consistently work with the same players over and over again (extreme platoons; super-reliever) and that's all good. Personally, I like to try different players (why spend my money on the same thing over and over again?) though I do have my favorites. Its up to each player to try and exploit the others teams weaknesses given your divisional landscape. We have an abundance of options that we can choose which for me, makes it interesting.

ATG will never be perfect given that the cards are based on the players individual seasons, which if you think about it the inflated results do not make sense since they are going against several quality pitchers in ATG. If Bonds hits 100 in a ATG format, what would he do in a seasonal format, 200 hrs? You do get crazy seasons from Bonds, Bagwell and others because unlike real life where pitchers would pitch around them, the roll of the dice dictates the outcome. Still, the super reliever issue can be settled by pricing Sutter, Murray appropriately - if you get a relief pitcher throwing 300 innings with a sub 4 era at 5 million, that player should be closer to 8 million. Batters are priced much better. Gates Brown, Kal Daniels are priced appropriately given that they are mostly used as DH's since their defense is bad, are injury liabilities and are extreme hitters vs RHP. You can counter that by having a few lefties on your staff, but how do you counter the super reliever? The only way is to penalize the manager who uses one of these guys by taxing them so that other aspects of their team are not as strong (of course, that only works in certain caps!)

Final tally for Mr. Murray. 43 wins - 368 IP

Nuff said.