Pitcher Consistency

I typically try a lot of different ballparks and pitchers but I've seen some managers like to specialize more. Have you guys seen that the ERA for each pitcher in your park is pretty consistent season to season or is there more variation? Also, as the salary increases do you find the ERA consistency improves as well as you would expect? The reason I ask is I have seen mention that "mid range" pitchers constantly underperform. I haven't seen this personally but I'm only a few teams in since I returned to the game.

Never had a reply to this--but may be because wasn't clear what was being asked exactly. Care to rephrase?

I typically try a lot of different ballparks and pitchers but I've seen some managers like to specialize more. Have you guys seen that the ERA for each pitcher in your park is pretty consistent season to season or is there more variation? Also, as the salary increases do you find the ERA consistency improves as well as you would expect? The reason I ask is I have seen mention that "mid range" pitchers constantly underperform. I haven't seen this personally but I'm only a few teams in since I returned to the game.

Ballpark obviously matters a ton (and the most), but how much each team you play has invested in offense obviously matters quite a bit as well. I try to measure my pitching (and offense) versus the median for the league to get a better idea. Also, I find mid range pitchers with reverse splits to be most effective (think Saberhagen’s 5.87 card, or Palmer’s 5.95).

I also try to track how my pitchers are doing on their own card versus hitters card. I just had an instance where the 7.1 Clemens card was holding hitters to a .450 Ops on his own card, but 1.340 on the hitters card with 60% of the rolls on the hitters card. Hence he was getting shelled, and nothing can be done but hope the rolls even out.

I don't think there are hard and fast rules on SP salaries.

But my own experience is a strong Don't Spend A Lot on SP.

I'm playing a league now, for example, and we're 2/3 the way through the season in an $80m format, and one owner spent around $12 million each on his 4 SP*. We're talking primo, top-dollar Greg Maddux, Pete Alexander, Walter Johnson, and Sandy Koufax. He's also based in Forbes Field '09. I admire his approach, but he's 2 games under .500.

Now, he could come back, and I kinda hope he does, because I like good pitching. But right now, it doesn't look good. https://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1716246

Fast, short, and sweet advice? Find old Negro League SP who don't give up HR. There are a bunch of 'em. NeL SP* are significantly underpriced.

Put another way, there are 36 dice roll chances on all pitchers' cards, whether its $0.97M Ray Caldwell or $12.92M Greg Maddux. The dice are finicky, and the Hitters' cards don't care who's pitching.

Ask any '20 Ray Caldwell owner about this (and his stolen bases, while you're at it). LOL

I don't disagree with your overall message necessarily, but I would add context to the rolls explanation because it is not quite right.

Each column has 36 chances, so on one side of a pitcher card (lefty or righty), there are 108 chances, just like on the hitter card.

The difference from the hitters is every pitcher card has 30 X fielding chances of those 108.

So a pitcher card only uniquely determines about 72% of the chances when a roll comes on it. Approx 28% are fielder chances. Check my recollection here against a card as it is from memory but I think it is correct.

Anyway, this is the reason for some using a salary rule of thumb where a starting point in a neutral park is salary cap x 72% for what to spend on pitching.

That is, if you start with a 50-50 hitter:pitcher assumption since there is an equal chance for either card lookup, you only weight the pitching half by 72%.
Therefore at 100M, you get an initial target of 50M x .72 = 36M. Therefore, a H/P split of 64:36.

BUT--then account for park and defense to tweak it--and that part is an art.
A 9M pitcher in Braves 38 will pitch more like as an 11M guy.

Specifically on the X chances, when considering fielder investments:
P/1b/LF/RF each have 2;
C/3b//CF each have 3;
2b has 6
SS has 7

So 2b/SS have 43%+ of all fielding chances which is why it is emphasized.

I don't get hooked on anecdotes because everything is dependent on the league and the particulars of the team.

In the example cited for instance, I have seen people have success with almost 50% on their SPs but they may also have used guys with minimal defense.

You are right, Frankie, about the number of rolls in total on a Pitcher's card. But per at bat, there are 36.

And looky there, so there IS a hard and fast rule about what to spend on SP! Thanks for the math. I never would have thought of it myself, but I'll try it next time.

Play ball!

Cheers--self-ID of a nerd alert--I am going to get pedantic on semantics and I apologize up front but this is a nerdy stat game and I am a nerd.
:p

Per at bat, where I was coming from is you "roll" 3d6 (and sometimes 1d20 at the same time if men on base etc). One of the d6 determines the column. The other 2d6 determine the roll in the column.

We can then agree number of rolls doesn't matter--but what matters is that you can roll a 7 six different ways, but a 2 only one way; ie it's the chances that matter and that's how you get to the weighted importance of fielding on the pitcher's card and thus how to value/assess consistency.

I guess my point is we get some folks that get on here and think there is voo-doo sometimes yet sometimes there is a lack of basic understanding of how the game is played, or of statistics, or both, so of course it seems like voo-doo.

I am trying to be anti-voo-doo for those folks--present company excluded. :tips cap:

The difference from the hitters is every pitcher card has 30 X fielding chances of those 108.

So a pitcher card only uniquely determines about 72% of the chances when a roll comes on it. Approx 28% are fielder chances. Check my recollection here against a card as it is from memory but I think it is correct.

Anyway, this is the reason for some using a salary rule of thumb where a starting point in a neutral park is salary cap x 72% for what to spend on pitching.

That is, if you start with a 50-50 hitter:pitcher assumption since there is an equal chance for either card lookup, you only weight the pitching half by 72%.
Therefore at 100M, you get an initial target of 50M x .72 = 36M. Therefore, a H/P split of 64:36.

B

And just to be picky, since 2 of the x chances are the pitcher's, the split between hitters and pitchers is about
63:37 ( 136/216 : 80/216 ) for a dh league

If you're playing non dh, then some of those hitter's chances are really a pitcher batting so the h/p split is
59-60: 40-41. This is less precise since it depends on how often your pitchers bat.


I'm sure these fractional percentages make all the difference in the world.

haha--yes they do barrmorris great point!
my OCD is complete now