Super Reliever "phenomenon"

It's really hard to believe they tried to fix the supposed super reliever and used so little common sense.

Because of a few whiners, we have less control over our bullpens than ever.

They went from allowing relievers to appear in 12 different roles to two different roles? And no one sees a problem with that??? How many relievers in real life can only appear in two different situations?

What they should have done is forced us to carry a minimum of 14 pitchers and maybe limited pitchers to four or five roles.

Again they went from 12 roles to 2 roles. And people/ someone actually thought this was a good idea???

It makes me angry how little common sense was used.

I actually heard a manager suggest leaving ALL ROLES BLANK FOR BEST RESULTS.

And oh by the way, R1s can still pitch 170+ innings, you just don't control any of it ANYMORE. GREAT JOB GUYS.

I want to know who thought giving up ALL CONTROL of the pen was worth it to not even stop super relievers?

Also who thought going from 12 roles to 2 roles was a good compromise?

Also if a modicum of bullpen realism is the goal, WHICH MLB team made it through a 162 game season with less than 14 pitchers over the last two decades?

And which MLB RP only pitched in two roles for an entire season?

And who thought going from 12 to 2 was a good compromise instead of say 12 to 4 or 5?

Is it really that hard for them to use just a little common sense?

Meanwhile, no one has a problem with 100 HR seasons or starters pitching 350 innings.

It's a lot more realistic that a modern reliever could pitch 200 innings than a starter being able to pitch 350 innings.

Why couldn't a reliever in today's MLB appear in 80+ games and 200 innings?

I am just saying they ruined the bullpen and didn't even fix the supposed problem!

you just kicked my butt in 6 games in the semis

had bummer throw 174.1 innings as rp2, then another 10.2 in 6 playoff games.....

unexpected rant for sure.

There are many Strat rules stuck in the mid 20th century. No real SP ever starts on 3 days rest, pitchers generally get hurt much more than hitters, there are too few RP on rosters etc. To fix these would take somewhat of an overhaul which is probably overdue. The RP in just 2 roles is another example. It fixes an issue of certain RP getting too many innings but it's a strat hack rather than an attempt to replicate real baseball.

So either we live with these anomalies and hacks or ask for a more complete overhaul to better correspond to real baseball. That is the state of strat which when compared with the rest of the world isn't really all that bad.

I think there are several good points here about fixing
super relievers. I believe even allowing 3 roles each reliever would make things a lot more doable. 2 is obviously overly restrictive, but I am glad we are not allowing 200 innings for a Reliever! No one could pitch every other day in relief and go 2-3 innings a time - not even close!
Some Starters, even today can pitch on 3 days rest effectively, but not for a full year, of course.
Trever Bauer on the Reds did actually pitch extremely well on three days rest most of 2020, but it was a drastically shorted year. Bauer does want to pitch on three days rest and pitch well over 200 innings in 2021, just not sure if he can find a manager who will let him do that. The Reds really did let him do that this past year and he was amazing.

Personally, I like the changes. Esp that CGs are so much lower now, meaning a closer is a MUST and even a good set up guy.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to stop the super reliever in the same methods that are used in the real world. Why don’t pitchers throw 100 games in a season, because they lose effectiveness and get hurt. Seems that adding these to the mix would take care of the issue more than a hack.

Truthfully, injuries in any sim are unrealistic. People don’t want to lose their superstar for 3 weeks but it happens regularly in real life. However strat takes it a step further by making it so that pitching injuries are extremely rare and for the most part uneventful. After all losing your ace for three days essentially means the rest of this game. So increase pitching injuries across the board and then increase their probabability overall.

Simplest fix would be to limit all relievers to a season cap of innings equal to the actual number they pitched in MLB, would it not?