My preparation for the playoffs

Hey Guys, it's been almost a year or two I haven't written in this forum. I basically stopped playing last year, but some medical struggle forced me to pay extra time on the couch, so I threw in a few credits to play some theme seasons.

I never wrote on how I prepared my team for the playoffs, and I thought my current team, which is in the Finals, was a good example of some of the key issues I like to look at when I fix my settings for the playoffs. I thought it could open up a good discussion on the topic.

So this is a 130M theme league. My team finished 92-70, and we're facing our divisional foe that finished as a wild card only 3 games back in the Finals. We won the semis in 4 game, and they won theirs in 6 games.

My team: the Expos
My opponent's team: the Rangers

Our team the Expos are playing in a neutral low-hitting stadium (Olympic Park si=3/3 hr=5/5) whereas my opponent plays in lefty-favoring powerful stadium (Ameriquest si=13/13 hr=19/11). So there's a big stadium difference, something I will need to consider when setting up my pitching. Since we've finished first in the division, we play game 1 and game 2 at home, along with game 6 and game 7.

So first step, let's set up our pitching rotation.

My starters
Kevin Brown: legitimate ace *SP 1L
Kevin Millwood: *SP 4R
Jose Fernandez: a (non-*) S6 1R
Jeff Fassero: (non-*) S7
Butch Henry: (non-*) S6/R4

Main relievers: Tim Burke, Dale Murray
Mop-up guys: Gil Heredia, Jeff Shaw

So a quick look at my pitching staff tells you this: it heavily relies on relievers. Tim Burke, and Strat God Dale Murray have pitched together almost 30% of my team's innings. I have been "reasonable" on how I used Murray as he "only" pitched 246 innings, grabbing a Cy young along the way, and Burke pitched 164 innings, finishing 3rd of the league for ERA and pitching even better than Murray. (If someone wants to know how to set the bullpen to maximize their usage, I will do so in another post).

As for my rotation, I don't have 3 *SP, so I need five different pitchers to start games. This means I need 2 pitchers to throw twice, and my 3 other pitchers will start only once. I have a legitimate ace in Kevin Brown, so that's an easy pick to start twice. My better pitchers are then Millwood and Fernandez, and I have two cheaper lefties in Fassero and Henry. My right-handed pitchers have better cards, but if my opponent has a much powerful lineup vs rhp (a quite plausible scenario in a heavy lefty-favoring ballpark), throwing in a lefty starter for 3 games could possibly a good bet. Also, if my opponent has many platoons, setting my lefty starter for 4 innings and then turn to either Murray or Burke (both right-handed) for 5 innings could have a lot of potential, getting easy outs on the weaker sides of the offensive cards. So in any case, it might be worth to have a look at my opponent's lineup before concluding who should be my second 2-game starter for the Finals. I will look at the Sim L/R splits, which will give me a better look at how my opponent manages his platoons.

My opponent played the full season with 8 regulars and 1 platoon. More over, his platoon, which consists of Phelps and Gene Tenace is relatively neutral: Phelps is 2R and Tenace is E. In fact, Tenace looks more like a 2L when you look at his card, but in any case, we are far removed from platoons which consist of 9L/7R kinda platoons (say, Gates Brown platooning with Galarraga). If my opponent had 3 extreme platoons, I would have highly considered the option of starting Fassero twice and setting up my bullpen of right-handed relievers to get the easy outs as the game gets late, but with only one relatively neutral platoon, there's not much advantage to start with a lefty that will be removed quickly to be replaced by a righty reliever. Another stat that I like to look at is the Offense totals at the bottom of the Sim L/R splits page. It shows that my opponent is fairly better against lhp: His line vs lefties is 268/.357/.493 whereas it is vs righties: 251/.342/.495. Two other stats can inform on whether a team is better vs lhp or vs rhp: his overall record vs lhp and vs rhp (in this case, my opponent is again a bit better vs lhp) and his overall balance (adding up the BAL (balance) for every offensive starting players: in this case, my opponent has a team overall balance of 3R, without counting the platoon). This 3R result (which suggests a slightly better lineup vs rhp) goes a bit against the observation that my opponent's offense seems a bit better vs lhp. In any case, there is no strong argument here to suggest that this lineup is weaker vs lhp and that I should start a lefty twice against my opponent.

A last thing to look at is my opponent's lefty/righty balance. Surprising for a team that plays in a lefty-favoring stadium, my opponent has only 3 left-handed hitters, he has 5 right-handed hitters, and one "regular" platoon (regular in that a lefty vs rhp is combined with a righty vs lhp). When a team has lots of platoons or switch hitters, there might be an edge to start a lefty pitcher in a lefty-favoring ballpark, because that team will lose many of his BP chances when facing a lefty pitcher. But in this case, there is only one platoon, and no switch hitters, so not much room to get a big gain.

So again, the big picture here is that my opponent doesn't look weaker vs lefty pitchers, and he does not have many platoons I can exploit, and finally he doesn't seem to lose much power by having switch hitters or platoons turn around to face a lefty pitcher. So I have no reason to start my lefty starting pitchers who are weaker than my right-handed pitchers.

So the question of who's pitching 2 games in the Finals along with Kevin Brown will have either Millwood or Fernandez as an answer. And since I find that Fernandez has the overall better card, even if we consider the option of having Millwood, along with his 4 BP vs lh, in my low-hitting stadium, Fernandez will be my starter for two games. (if you want more info on how to determine the better pitcher, I can give details in another post).

So I'm set to have Fernandez and Brown throw 2 games apiece, with Millwood, Fassero and Henry pitching the other games. The next question is, which games? Fernandez is a non* starting pitcher, but Brown can pitch with only 3 games of rest. All my starting pitchers are available (one advantage to win the semis in 4 games). There are a few options in the way I could set Brown and Fernandez:

I can set them both (in different ways) to start all 4 games at home (games 1-2 and 6-7). In this set up, Millwood, Henry, and Fassero would all have to pitch on the road.

I can set Fernandez and Brown (again, in different ways) so that Brown pitches one game on the road and one game at home. This road game could either be game 3 or game 5. Either way, Fernandez would have to start 2 home games. In this set up, I can have Millwood, Henry or Fassero pitch one game at home.

As I just said, Millwood, with his 4 BP vs left-handed hitters, is not a good match in a lefty-leaning ballpark such as Ameriquest. These 4 BP will simply turn into 4 chances of homeruns in Ameriquest (ballpark 19 rating out of 20 for homeruns), whereas, in the Big Olympic Stadium, the 4 BP will translate into 1 chance of homerun (ballpark 5 rating out of 20). Considering that my opponent will face 4 lefty hitters against Millwood, if I have Millwood pitch on the road, I will yield 12 extra chances of homeruns through one turn of my opponent's batting order compared to setting Millwood at home. One might argue that Butch Henry also has 4 BP vs left-handed hitters, but Henry will face only 3 left-handed hitters (my opponent has one platoon). Besides, my opponent's right fielder Larry Walker loses 4 BP against lhp. So overall, Henry will not yield as many extra chances of homeruns as Millwood. Even the right-handed hitters of my opponent's lineup have fewer BP chances vs lhp than vs rhp. So, while there might be theoretically other issues to look at (matching opposing pitchers, usage), there is at face value a very strong case to have as many starting left-handed pitchers as possible in Ameriquest and conclude that the best scenario is to have Millwood pitch at home.

Millwood won't pitch in games 1 and 7 (doing so will prevent me from starting Fernandez and Kevin Brown twice apiece), so my available options are to use Millwood either in game 2 or in game 6. If I set Millwood for game 2, then I must start the series with Fernandez, and Brown would then have to start game 3 and game 7. On the other hand, if I start Millwood in game 6, this means that I start the series with Kevin Brown (who will come back for game 5).

To settle this issue, I could turn to analyzing my opposing starting pitchers, to see if there are good match-ups to exploit, but first, especially with this team, I must turn to my bullpen analysis. As I wrote earlier, my bullpen consists of two outstanding relievers in Murray and Burke, and then 2 disastrous pitchers in this fairly high-offensive 130M environment. If both Murray and Burke are not available, my bullpen becomes a disaster waiting to happen. My only chance to win a game in which neither Murray nor Burke is available is to have my legitimate ace, Kevin Brown, to pitch as long as he can. Since he is a S7, he can usually go through the 8th without being fatigued (unless he gets hit for 5 runs in one inning early, in which case, the game will be probably lost anyway). Millwood has a similar stamina, since he too is a S7, but he has a weaker card, so I prefer to stop him in the 7th inning and have Burke or Murray close the game.

Another information to bear in mind is that there is a flaw in SOM playoffs. The computer doesn't consider any rest games for the relievers between the semis and the finals. In my case, for example, I used Murray in the semi-finals in both game 3 and game 4. We won the semis in 4 games. You would expect that Murray is 100% fresh since he will benefit from 5 rest days between game 4 and the first game of the finals, but this is not the case. SOM will not consider Murray available in game 1 of the Finals since he pitched consecutively in the last two games of the semi-finals.

BTW, SOM is aware of this flaw since 6 years or so, maybe even more, and it's still not fixed. You have there one big reason why I stopped playing, but anyway. (I'm not considering the option that SOM has fixed the issue since my return!!!)

So I take for granted that I don't have Murray available for game 1. Burke is available though, so I'm not completely out of bullpen weapons. But if Burke pitches in game 1, he, in turn, will not be available for game 2, and my bullpen will then consist of Murray and pretty much nothing else. In any case, in pretty much all scenarios I can think of, Burke and Murray should both be available for game 3.

This situation goes AGAINST the idea of waiting for game 3 before using Kevin Brown. I can instead use one my weakest pitcher in game 3 knowing that I will have my two superheroes available out of the bullpen. So the best scenario that turns out from my bullpen/fatigue analysis, knowing that I need to use Kevin Brown on the road, is that I have the follow set-up:

Game 1: Brown
Game 2: Fernandez
Game 3: one my lefty pitcher
Game 4: my other lefty pitcher
Game 5: Brown
Game 6: Millwood
Game 7: Fernandez

What I really like about this scenario is that I have the option of using Brown for as long as I can in game 5, hoping for a complete game. That would refresh both Burke and Murray before the final two games, and therefore that will give my team the option of being aggressive about pulling out Millwood and Fernandez early in games.

However, there is a second scenario that I find also attractive, but for other reasons. Henry is a S6/R4, which means that he can both be used as a starter and as a reliever. And because of another flaw in the SOM website, any S/R can be used as a reliever in 3 of the first 4 games and still be available and fresh as a rose to start game 5. How you achieve this is pretty easy: you just need to leave open all settings for game 5. In particular, you need to NOT set any pitcher for game 5 in the per-game-starting pitchers page; and you need to leave open and NOT set your S/R as your 5th in your default starting rotation.

The great benefit of having Henry pitch from the bullpen in the first four games is that 1-he would be my 3rd best reliever, especially in my opponent's stadium which favours lefty pitching over righty pitching 2- he would add some depth in case any game goes in overtime, a nice feature considering that my bullpen only consists of 4 relievers.

Under that scenario, my starting rotation would be set as:
1-Fernandez
2-Millwood
3-Brown
4-Fassero
5-Henry
6-Fernandez
7-Brown

Another issue that needs to be examined is the pitching/catcher match, especially if you use a platoon, which I do because of an injury to my starting catcher. I will be playing the finals with a platoon of Tamargo and Grote for the catching spot. Tamargo has one of the worst possible catching rating: he's 4(+2)e16 T-20. But I find his bat good enough to compensate if he faces a right-handed starting pitcher. As for Grote, he has a great arm: -3, but his bats gets lively only vs left-handed pitchers.

One thing to know is that no hold+arm combination (pitcher's hold + catcher's arm) can be lower than -5. So if I match, for example, Henry (hold=-4) with Grote (arm=-3), the true arm combination will be -5, not -7. In other words, matching Grote with Henry will come with a cost: Grote's arm will be downgraded from -3 to -1. And Besides, if I match Henry with Tamargo, Tamargo's weakness will be well compensated by Henry's great hold.

It turns out that, when I look at my opponent's calendar (for the post-season), that his lefty, Tanana, is currently set to start in game 4. If this doesn't change, my best scenario is to start Butch Henry in any game but the 4th.

So, after almost two hours of analysis (and writing(!!)), I'm finally set to one of the two scenarios:

Scenario 1.....................Scenario 2
Game 1: Brown...............Fernandez
Game 2: Fernandez..........Millwood
Game 3: Henry................Brown
Game 4: Fassero..............Fassero
Game 5: Brown................Henry
Game 6: Millwood.............Fernandez
Game 7: Fernandez...........Brown

I'm still not set between the two scenarios. What is certain is that I need six strong innings for the 1st game, and even a bit more, if I want Burke to finish the game without getting fatigued (since Burke is a R3, his fatigue could step in in his third inning under normal circumstances, which in turn means that I can 100% rely on 2 full fresh innings unless an apocalypse occurs). But on the other hand, because we are facing quite a potent offensive lineup, I don't want my starting pitcher pitch too long in the fatigued mode. So I have to find the right balance between pushing my starting pitchers to the limit, but without putting them in the fatigue mode. If I start Brown, the settings are easy to determine. Since he's a S7, I can expect him to pitch till the 7th before he gets fatigued. So I will set him up at F8, quick hook. But Fernandez (S6) has a different stamina, if I use the same settings, there's a chance that he be removed in the 6th inning, so I think I will rather rely on the slow hook option, but I will set him to 7 innings max. The bad scenario here is that Fernandez could pitch the 7th inning in the fatigued mode, but I will still be using the aggressive mode of bullpen, so I hope that Hal will still relieve Fernandez with Burke despite the slow hook if the rating gets much lower like F4/F3.

The more I talk about it, the more scenario 1 appears the most cautious!!

Tomorrow: offensive line-up decisions!!

Thanks for this! Two things about the Henry thing I quote below. First, when non- experts learn about these weird glitches it’s a bit discouraging to contemplate ever winning games not to mention playoff series.
Second, the fact that the Henry thing and the other glitch you mentioned have not been fixed by Strat is also discouraging - Strat should be constantly updating the software.



Henry is a S6/R4, which means that he can both be used as a starter and as a reliever. And because of another flaw in the SOM website, any S/R can be used as a reliever in 3 of the first 4 games and still be available and fresh as a rose to start game 5. How you achieve this is pretty easy: you just need to leave open all settings for game 5. In particular, you need to NOT set any pitcher for game 5 in the per-game-starting pitchers page; and you need to leave open and NOT set your S/R as your 5th in your default starting rotation.

My thinking would be "my best chance to win is with Brown". I don't want to wait until game 7 to exploit this. Game 5 is often the pivotal game in any series. Seems like the obvious move is Brown 1 and 5.

I tend to agree with ya Steve...

If I'm in the post season, I'm thinking 1 game at a time, best SP for me.

I feel like if I'm spending a ton of $ on a *SP, I wanna get my $'s worth.

That being said, if my #3 or #4 SP isn't a good match up for an opposing team AND I have a cheaper alternative that fits better, I'll use the cheaper alternative.

ie. Just an example, let's say I'm using the $3.50 Ken Holtzman and he's scheduled to face a Hilltop/ Minute team. If I have Ed Farmer on my team, he's getting the start.

visick

I will respond later, and my discussion about how to manage the batting order will have to wait for another day too. Finals start tonight!!

Something I wrote yesterday was wrong, after verification, and this will allow me to go over one of the glitch SOM has during playoff time.

Butch Henry started game 4 in the semis. As you know, he is a starter/reliever. He pitched less than 5 innings. So by rules he would be available after 2 or 3 games of rest (less than 4, that I am certain). If I had played 7 games in the semis, he would then be free, full fresh, to be used as a reliever for game 1 of the Finals.

But, because of that stupid glitch that SOM doesn't count rest days between the semis and the Finals for relievers, Butch Henry won't be available as a reliever before game 4, contrary to what I wrote. If I start him in game 5, then I may have him for only one game as a reliever. Not worth much. So I prefer instead to start him early in the series, in game 3, which might mean that he will be available, with a quick exit, for games 6 and 7. So I am going full blown with scenario #1.

As I said, I haven't played for the last year or so, so maybe SOM fixed that glitch, but I don't count on it. To prove that the glitch is on, I will set my bullpen roles so that Hal turns in priority to Murray for every situation. But I bet that you will see Burke instead for game 1.

My thinking would be "my best chance to win is with Brown". I don't want to wait until game 7 to exploit this. Game 5 is often the pivotal game in any series. Seems like the obvious move is Brown 1 and 5.

Obviously, there is no human element to influence in Strat. No need to encourage players by winning the first game. In fact, from a purely mathematical standpoint, the Finals are a perfect permutation: all 4 wins in any arrangement is good.

So I don't think it's a "one size fits all situation". My best chance to win does NOT always have "starting game 1 with Brown". Here is a very easy counter-example. Imagine my starters are Brown (he gives no ballpark homeruns), the 8.62M Singer and Millwood (both of whom are vulnerable in homerun ballparks, with 3 or 4 BP on the left side). Imagine that I start the Finals in Ameriquest and follow up at the Big O. To me, my best chance to win is clearly to have Brown pitch 2 games in Ameriquest, in order to protect Singer and Millwood from being too exposed in a high-homerun environment. And that means setting Brown game 2 and game 6, so that both Singer (game 5) and Millwood (game 3) pitch a game at the Big O.

One thing I didn't mention is that I would never ever put Brown against a very weak starting pitcher. That would be a waste of talent. In this series, my opponent has 3 very strong rhp, so that was not an issue. But, yes you're right that if there is a big drop of talent in your opponent's pitchers as you go from #1 to #2 to #3, then your best chance to win almost always involves setting Brown #1.

(and if I were this opponent, I would strongly consider setting my very weak #3 for game 1, if doing this sets my team in good position to win game 2 and game 3).

If I had only one superstar reliever, I would strongly consider setting Brown 1 and 5 so that I have a fresh Murray for games 6 and 7. But with Burke backing up, I feel less unsecured on this dimension.

I think you should start Heredia twice and use Shaw as much as possible in the pen. Yes, I am the Ranger owner.

Hey Dave, only chance you see Shaw or Heredia is if you lose by 10 runs!!

So we split the first two games. My ace won and his ace won.

I confirm that the glitch about the bullpen not resting between the semis and the Finals is still there. Good job SOM management!! So despite resting for 4 days, Murray was too fatigued to get involved in the first game.

Now, for game 3, my two super relievers are available, so I stick with my logic of using my worst pitcher right away, keeping in mind that Millwood is much better in low-hitting Big O and will sit until we get back in Montreal for game 6. If only I can find that Rays-special 30 pitch-limit-to-the-starter button...

I don't if this counts as a compliment or a criticism, but this thread is the BEST one I've ever read on the message boards.

Thanks.

So here is my situation:

Series tied 1-1
Next two games at Ameriquest hr=19/11
Starting game 3: Butch Henry, a lhp:
Starting game 4: Jeff Fassero, a lhp:
Bullpen: Burke is fresh.He can pitch in both games. Murray can only throw in one of the two games, since he pitched in game 2.

My intentions: for game 3, I want to be very aggressive, using my bullpen as early as possible. For game 4, I need to be more careful, since I am likely to only have Burke available.

Since I want to be aggressive, I need to set my team strategy at "bullpen aggressive". Further, since I want my relievers to pitch more than one inning, I need to change the default strategy at the team strategy page from Maximize Closer to Regular Closer. Otherwise, if I leave it at maximize, the computer will override all my instructions on the pitchers pref and limit my closer to pitch only the 9th.This is not I want because I want 3 innings or more from both Murray and Burke.

Since I want Butch Henry out of the game as soon as possible, I set the options, in the pitchers pref page, to quick hook, leave blank the F number, and I set him at 6 innings max. This way, he should out as early as the 5th inning.

I want Burke to come in first: if I get 5 innings from him, that might give Murray a rest. However, if the game is tightly played, I still want Murray to be used over Shaw or Heredia. So I will set Burke first at every bullpen position and Murray second. I will set Burke at F7, meaning he will throw all the fresh innings he has in his arm, but I will set him at quick hook, so that he be removed as soon as he is tired. Obviously, I don't want Murray to pitch as mop-up, so I need to set the options to avoid this situation.

However, I want to be more cautious with Fassero, because I might not have not Murray available. Since I am using an aggressive bullpen strategy, here are my choices of options:

A-Quick hook no F rating: Fassero would be removed as soon as he yields a walk or a hit, in early 5th or 6th. With this option, Burke gets in early in the game. However, since this will be his second consecutive inning, his fatigued mode will get triggered earlier than otherwise, precisely in his 3rd inning regardless of he allows something or not. So Burke is likely to get fatigued in the 8th. Shaw and Heredia are likely to close the game.

B-No hook no F rating: Fassero would be removed when he gets close to his stamina, likely in the 7th inning. So I would expect that Burke is called in in the 7th inning as soon as Fassero allows something and Burke is likely to pitch unfatigued till the 9th, but the last out or two might be obtained in the fatigued mode. However, this option gives a lot of flexibility to Hal, Fassero may get removed earlier in the game if he gets in trouble and if Hal doesn't like the match-up. It could be as early as the 5th, although that would be surprising.

C- Slow hook, no F rating, Max 7 innings. This setting pretty much will force Hal to let Fassero complete the 7 innings, and it will forcefully remove him when the 8th begins, unless Fassero gets badly hit. If Fassero gets in the danger in 7th, Hal will likely leave him there. If the scores are closely matched, Burke will enter in the 8th inning and finish the game not fatigued.

D- Quick hook, F8, Max 7 innings. The F8 will override the Max 7 innings options. If Fassero is not fatigued, he will begin the 8th inning, but as soon as he yields something in the 8th, his F rating will get lower and only then will he be replaced by Burke.

I don't like A, I prefer to rely on Fassero than on Heredia or Shaw if you give me the choice. I don't like D, I prefer to use Burke in a clean 8th inning than to wait for Fassero to get in hot water. I opted for B since this option allows a greater opportunity for Burke to take care of the 7th inning if trouble is at the horizon, even though this option leaves Hal with more flexible.

Last thing I need to check is how I set the options for Heredia and Shaw. Because I start with two lefties, my opponent will have 3 left-handed hitters and 6 Right-handed hitters. If I look at the misc page of my opponent, I see that Phelps, who will start both games on the bench, has been used only once as a pinch- hitter for the whole season. This tells me that Hal will not replace one of his starters for Phelps when my right-handed relievers will take care of the games. In that case, I find Shaw as a better fit than Heredia, so I will set up the options so that Shaw gets the ball the longest if the game gets down to him--likely in overtime or in a blown out game. So I will use Shaw in the last bullpen roles that I have left, and I will set him at F6. Somewhat, surprisingly, though, I will chose the option to limit him to 2-3 innings. This is because Shaw is so weak that I don't want him to throw at an extreme fatigued mode. Furthermore, if I have no reliever left, this option forces Hal to call on a starting pitcher rather than to exhaust a fatigued reliever. And my understanding of how Hal decides which starting pitchers to use, I expect that Hal will call either Millwood or Brown. For sure they will be in a fatigued mode, but a fatigued Brown is still much better than a fatigued Shaw. As for Millwood, since he didn't pitch since game 2 of the semis, I expect him to relieve at F6 if he gets the call, which isn't too bad [EDIT....after checking the rules, Millwood will be in full swing, F9, for his bullpen role, even though he is no reliever. The SOM engine will simply consider him a one-inning guy].

You might wonder: shouldn't Brown, who will start the 5th game, be affected by his relief appearance if he throws an inning or two in game 4? He should, but because of yet another glitch in the web-based SOM game, his start won't be affected at all.

Of course, the more cautious move would be to use Heredia as a second back-up if the game gets ever down to the 13th or the 14th inning, but I will rather use Heredia as a lefty specialist (he is 7L) and as a closer vs lh. This way, if Burke gets in trouble in the 9th and Larry Walker is due up, little Gil Heredia will face him before Shaw gets the ball. Since Heredia will be set up to avoid Right-handed hitters + quick hook, he won't face more than a hitter or two.

The way I set the bullpen options, I will be left with no reliever at all if the game goes beyond the 11th inning of game 4, so I am playing with fire. But I do have a joker or two in my back pocket: Brown and Millwood!! Still not a comfortable situation, but we are playing in a stadium that highly favors hitters, and these lineups have a lot of power (these are 130M teams), so i don't expect that games beyond the 13th innings. In all 81 games played in my opponent's ballpark, 3 went to the 13 th inning and only one went as far as the 14th inning. Besides, there is still a possibility that Murray doesn't pitch in game 3. If that's the case, he will take care of the overtime in the 4th game.