The Evolvement of the Game

To address the issue of "Super Relievers" several things were implemented.

1) Limitations for relievers (in terms of # of checkmarks etc)

2) cost of good and high value relievers increased significantly

3) Cost of midrange starters was dropped

Result?
Certainly don't see Murray pitching 400 innings and winning 20 games anymore......the super-reliever strategy was shut down.

but of course the un-anticipated result was that the "Game the Gamers" came up with new strategies.

What emerged first was the 4 studs all S9's, set to F0, and who each get 350+ innings, and all .5 mill cheapo relievers who barely accumulate any innings. That became quite popular.

Then the gamers figured out other ways in to increase salary for offense by finding high value mid-range starting pitchers that were tailored to their particular park, and of course, continue with the cheapo relievers.

Now, the game has become skewed in another way---i.e. relievers barely get any innings, and starters are regularly getting 350+ innings, and the half decent cheapo relievers are going high on owners draft cards.

Oops. Shock surprise, who would have thought.

So I sense its time for another adjustment, to make relievers part of the game for a change.

1) Change the F ratings so that starting pitchers cannot exceed realistic innings without becoming significantly "tired"

2) Reduce the cost of relievers so that they will actually get used again.

3) Require each team to carry a minimum of 10 pitchers, 5 pitchers that can start, a minimum 5 relievers (4 of these must be pure relievers)

my two cents.

Forgive me, but I believe you and Mike were right at the the front of the line in demanding bullpen remodeling and pitcher repricing. I recall his suggested pricing of Sutter being around 10M. Now we are all suffering because of the changes your voices brought about.

The bullpen system was certainly not optimal prior to SOM's addressing your concerns about super relievers.

But now the changes have thrown out the bullpen baby with the proverbial bathwater.

I take great offense to your characterization of the folks, spearheaded by Cristano in the Barnstormer's tournament, who found a functional workaround with the 4 aces strategy, as "Game the Gamers". As if they were somehow at fault for wanting to win, and finding creative workarounds from the problems YOU created by repeatedly demanding SOM make changes to the super reliever phenomenon.

SOM has repeatedly shown that they are incompetent, and just as bad, uncaring about the quality of ATG and customer satisfaction. So is anyone surprised at the changes they wrought to bullpen usage that have painted those of us who try to be creative and successful at the game into a corner where we are forced to adopt a highly unpalatable workaround?

And now you want to limit starting pitching, when a good portion of ATG saw starters routinely pitched 300+ innings, as if that will solve something. So now what, let's cancel deadball strategies and only allow starters 120 pitches before they are mandated to be yanked to have grossly overpriced relievers come in to blow the final innings??

Maybe you should just restrict yourself to playing the 200x games where 200 IP's for starters is a rarity instead of again instigating change in ATG while taking no responsibility for your critical role in allowing SOM to create the current bullpen disaster.

By the way your header should read "The Devolution of the Game", because that is what you have previously caused to happen.

You’ll have to give up anything close to realism because, no matter what tweaks you make, managers will pick extreme ballparks, then overload lineups. I’ve seen rosters in lefty BPs where there’s literally not 1 RH bat on the roster. Abusing SPs has been going on since day 1. And playing dead ballers with skewed stats, well that’s been around, too. Every time we take nominations, you see more of these guys added. Bomberball is still a thing, as well. I don’t find any of these practices particularly creative. If anything, pursuing the extremes is easy and formulaic. But it’s not my $20, so if someone wants to keep trotting out the same players in the same parks, using the same settings and caps (and then brag about how smart this makes them), so be it. It’s just a dice game, after all.

But now the changes have thrown out the bullpen baby with the proverbial bathwater.

I take great offense to your characterization of the folks, spearheaded by Cristano in the Barnstormer's tournament, who found a functional workaround with the 4 aces strategy, as "Game the Gamers". As if they were somehow at fault for wanting to win, and finding creative workarounds from the problems YOU created by repeatedly demanding SOM make changes to the super reliever phenomenon.

I don't have the historical part because that was during my hiatus. But this part rings very true for me. The pursuit to find an edge IS the game. Otherwise it is just some random soup. Disparaging people for trying to win with their $20 doesn't make sense to me--where are we drawing lines on what is an "acceptable way to play"?

There will always be unintended consequences and that should make us wary of yet again tinkering using anecdotal approaches. Tight manual control of everything is more often like sand through the hand.
Increasing the reliever roster requirement does nothing but add more wasted roster spots and increase competetion for the best cheap players to fulfill the do-not-use-me role.

As for realism, there is no way to recreate everyone's stats in ATG. You can't have a roster of.400 hitters and 1.12 ERAs each get recreated simultaneously. These are not controlled replay leagues.

Bline - consider joining leagues using the PC version of the game that are run independently from this site. Many of those have rules limiting player usage to their actual AB / IP. The larger the league the more realistic the results, fewer all star rosters so the card results are closer to real life.

Bullpen usage is the aspect of the game we have the least control over, at the mercy of HAL's terrible decisions. Knowing this, you want...bullpens to be a bigger part of the game? Why? In God's name, why? The game is called All-Time Greats. You look at rotations full of pitchers who are good enough that they rarely need relief, and think, nope, we need worse starters and more relievers, a.k.a. more opportunities for HAL to screw things up.

Bullpens SHOULD be a minimal part of ATG, not only because it minimizes HAL's involvement, but because for most of MLB's history, bullpens were a minimal part of MLB! I know when I hear the words "All-Time Greats" the first thing I think of is pitchers who weren't even good enough to start games. You want those guys to play a bigger role in ATG? Terrible idea, terrible post, try to do better next time.

geeze.....sorry i brought it up

did not in anyway mean to offend anybody, was merely making some suggestions. guess thats not a good idea....

of course gaming the gamers is what it is all about

meanwhile back on the diamond......

We're all trying to game the system as best we can, and once tweaks in one direction are made, the cognoscenti among us will look for the new value areas that open up. Like it was said above, "unintended consequences" will happen. The four aces strategy was in use before the super reliever changes, too. There are ways to combat the four aces strategy, such as bomber parks with value lineups etc.

...because for most of MLB's history, bullpens were a minimal part of MLB! I know when I hear the words "All-Time Greats" the first thing I think of is pitchers who weren't even good enough to start games. You want those guys to play a bigger role in ATG? Terrible idea, terrible post, try to do better next time.

Strong relief pitching has been an integral part of the game for at least 40 (maybe 50) years. And I can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t consider someone like Mariano Rivera, Goose Gossage Or Hoyt Wilhelm an all time great. And besides-if this really was about using the best pitchers, we never would’ve seen Andy Sonanstine, Joel Pineiro, or Ryne Duren anchoring rotations. The same can be said about underpriced hitters who are far from “great” (Duncan, Mercer, Karl Daniels). I mean, if we’re gonna bitch about accuracy, what say we toss out those pre-1900 players, who played under sets of rules that were around a lot less longer than there have been relevant bullpens.

...because for most of MLB's history, bullpens were a minimal part of MLB! I know when I hear the words "All-Time Greats" the first thing I think of is pitchers who weren't even good enough to start games. You want those guys to play a bigger role in ATG? Terrible idea, terrible post, try to do better next time.

Strong relief pitching has been an integral part of the game for at least 40 (maybe 50) years. And I can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t consider someone like Mariano Rivera, Goose Gossage Or Hoyt Wilhelm an all time great. And besides-if this really was about using the best pitchers, we never would’ve seen Andy Sonanstine, Joel Pineiro, or Ryne Duren anchoring rotations. The same can be said about underpriced hitters who are far from “great” (Duncan, Mercer, Karl Daniels). I mean, if we’re gonna bitch about accuracy, what say we toss out those pre-1900 players, who played under sets of rules that were around a lot less longer than there have been relevant bullpens.

Fair point about the randos who happen to be good values and see a lot of play. The point about "accuracy" I assume is intended for OP since I don't believe I complained about it. Personally I am not too worried about "realism" in a game that combines different cards made for different parks and different leagues over a 150 year span. The whole enterprise is so clearly fantastical that I just can't conceive of being turned off by a lack of relievers, of all things, like that's the thing that punctures the fantasy.

I mean I love every era of baseball including the modern one, but by far the worst part of the modern era is the proliferation of single-inning relievers. And it seems like most people here hate the modern game, so idk why anyone would want to make ATG more resemble the modern game.

Incidentally you mentioned the only three relievers who I don't consider laughable additions to the HOF. (Eck is obviously worthy too if you count him as a reliever.) So yeah, I agree there were literally three all-time great relievers. The rest are just a bunch of dudes who weren't good enough to start so they were given by far the easiest job in baseball, i.e. to come in and throw max effort for a few pitches. Some of those guys were better than others so they got to close games and sportswriters mythologized them as being somehow uniquely intense or otherwise superlative, but in the end they're all failed starters.