What the hell happened?

Leagues are filling painfully slow again after a couple of months of heavier activity.

The initial excitement of ATG 9 has been replaced by the realization that it's the same game but with us having less control over the bullpen.

Less bullpen control and less buying power. It’s true the buying power was increased for the players nobody wants.

Yes to both the previous two posts.

True, but to me, it's all relative, price-wise. Values are values, adjustments made. As for the bullpen, adjustments can also be made.

Changes have made the game B-O-R-I-N-G.

The bullpen changes and pricing is terrible. 9L 9R 9L 9R.

Super relievers have been curtailed while their cost has become prohibitive at caps below 120M.

The two role limit is a giant pain in the ass especially if you change reliever roles each series. SOM needs to at least allow three roles per reliever. Super relievers would still be a thing of the past but this one slight increase in our ability to manage our bullpen would go a long way toward ameliorating the current mess. Then if they really want to fix things, a 10% price reduction for all r3's or higher would probably do the trick.

One other issue. SOM introduced "actuals" for 80M leagues with ATG 9. A clever marketing ploy as that cap probably produces the highest correlation between actual / simulated numbers and real life numbers for players. Reassures the newbies that the game is "realistic" and there have been a whole bunch of those since the onset of our world being "paused." But the actuals as presented have little value for most of us more dedicated managers - the ones who really support the game financially. The actuals should be given for all caps separately as well as the number of
leagues each card has played in at each cap. Finally, winning pct should also be included in the results for each cap, just as they were when Diamond Dope had their actuals. Then they would have real value to the community.

[quote="The two role limit is a giant pain in the ass especially if you change reliever roles each series. SOM needs to at least allow three roles per reliever. Super relievers would still be a thing of the past but this one slight increase in our ability to manage our bullpen would go a long way toward ameliorating the current mess. Then if they really want to fix things, a 10% price reduction for all r3's or higher would probably do the trick.
[/quote]


In complete agreement to what Bruce said.

If I recall the reason Strat decided was on only two roles was due to the fact that in play-testing relievers were still getting up to 270 innings. So the super-reliever issue would still exist. But given those high-end relievers are now pitching a lot less, they should not be priced as high. It seems to me that by taking away the ability to just have a few super-relievers to dominate your relief innings, you have dramatically increased the possible strategies. Which veteran managers should be able to use to their advantage.

That being said, if it turns out in a 80-100 million league that the balance of power has shifted such that most of the time you do better just by getting four expensive S9* and setting them at F0 and using minimal relief because your starters pitch almost all of the innings instead of going with cheaper starters and putting a good relief staff together, then you have a problem. Because then the game gets boring at least with regard to pitching. But I have no idea if that's even partially true. That's the one thing Strat should keep in mind because otherwise as Hack Wilson stated accurately, it's just a matter of making adjustments.

Super relievers have been curtailed while their cost has become prohibitive at caps below 120M.

The two role limit is a giant pain in the ass especially if you change reliever roles each series. SOM needs to at least allow three roles per reliever. [...] Then if they really want to fix things, a 10% price reduction for all r3's or higher would probably do the trick.

Agree on all counts but especially these two assertions.
The game is fundamentally changed, and they no doubt "cured" super relief but it does seem like it was done in an overwhelmingly blunt way that had other second-order effects.
The relief pitching salary approaches have become pretty limited except at high caps.