SOM announced:
"Starting with the 2019 season, we've made changes in an effort to moderately curtail the 'Super-Reliever' phenomenon. You can read about them in detail here. These changes do not affect any other player sets AT THIS TIME." (emphasis added) MARCPELLETIER wrote:Nothing indicated that these new settings applied to ATG.
I read it exactly the same way as Rich and bcousy57, who both seem to think that the new relief pitcher rules will eventually be applied to the ATG game.
It appears from SOM's language that the handwriting is on the wall for the end of the super reliever era in the ATG8 game as we currently know it. It's obviously a question of when, not if.
Aside from when, the next question is whether the changes go far enough to end super reliever over usage. SOM said this:
"In our testing, we have found that these changes resulted in would-be 'Super-Relievers' pitching approximately 65-75% of the innings they would have previously pitched, which turns out to be still many more innings than a modern pitcher would pitch in real life, but is in line with our initial goals, which was to diminish the problem without making changes that would be too drastic."So if some relief pitchers are pitching 400+ innings in relief, "65-75% of the innings they would have previously pitched" would be conservatively estimated to be 250-300 innings. It's a start, but such hardly resolves over usage issues. Regardless, it seems to "diminish the problem" by bringing relief pitcher usage closer to the 150 inning limit that I believe was intended when the cards were originally priced.
It is worth noting that the relief pitcher usage changes are being made to the game engine and not the cards, perhaps to avoid having to change card prices and/or change the endurance factor of various pitchers.
Hopefully any changes intended for the ATG8 game will be made before the start of Barnstormers 2020, as there are a number of managers who rely heavily on the super reliever strategy in Barnstormers who would probably prefer not to test the new rules in the tournament.
I have sent an email to SOM volunteering to form an ATG8 league to test the new relief pitcher rules. If SOM agrees to such, who wants in?