Reliever Discussion 2024

Many managers favor cheap relievers now but some elite managers use expensive relievers. It seems that it is viable despite many players feeling the costs are too high. Generally, I do worse when I spend a lot on my bullpen, but I spend more than many other managers.

As someone who doesn't follow real baseball and only plays Strat, I find it surprising at times when my bullpen performs poorly. The usual culprit is HAL is using my bullpen differently than I anticipated. Most often, the problem is using a specialist frequently against the wrong-handed batters. This could be due to fatigue as HAL tries to budget reliever endurance to make it through the game. I like the specialist setting and find when I don't use it HAL gets very suboptimal in his decision making.

Generally, the more expensive your starters and the highest endurance they have, the less you need relievers although they can still be helpful those times your starter gets nuked or the game goes into extra innings. Conversely, if your starters are cheap and quick to tire, a better bullpen goes a long way. There is also your park's volatility to consider, a 1 1 1 1 park is more lenient on the pitchers while a 19 19 19 19 park will often lead to mayhem and exhausted relievers. So in such parks, I think relievers with more endurance are helpful. However, nothing ever seems to be a guarantee.

Lastly, relievers that give up BPHR are often good in a 1 1 1 1 park and terrible in a 19 19 19 19 park. With all this said, there are also the types of offense your relievers allow. Choosing between high walks, fewer hits but many of them being doubles and triples, and so on. Ultimately, since I watch a ton of game replays I've noticed my bullpen very frequently gets shelled from the very first man to enter the game and it often continues to the next. This can be frustrating at times and I'm not sure I understand completely how to counteract this. Even a great reliever will often give up a hit immediately (often on the hitter card) and start allowing runs.

Anyway, that's the rant. Feel free to chime in whith whatever nuggets of wisdom or thoughts you may have

the keys to reliever recovery--
1. Accept your powerlessness. Your bullpen is unmanageable. The game is not designed to give you the control you desire over your bullpen.There will be no shortage of questionable decisions made for your team which hurt you but also for your opponents team which may help you
2. The game rules and algorithm apply to both you and your opponent. There is a higher power, and you ain't it, neither is your opponent.
3. Turn your will and trust over to HAL. Rather than fighting HAL, embrace the limitations and use those as the best you can.

Every time HAL blows a lead for Team A, he is handing a game to Team B. Are you team A or team B? All of us are both over the course of a season.

There is no single strategy to best deal with the above. I have developed my work arounds which I know are different from others but we all have them. I use the "less is more" strategy (fewer settings and let HAL take the wheel) combined with spending a little more on pitching than most (to give HAL better choices). I try to make up the difference on cheap offense (which isn't always easy). Others do other stuff. Nothing works all the time.

The one implied suggestion from your post I really like is to have the ability to expand pitcher preferences to ballpark (rather just lefty/righty). I would love to be able to have 2 relievers that are low WHIP guys but with bp homers that I can privilege for pitcher parks, while I have 2 singles guys with no bp homers for slugger parks. Lefty/righty can be useful but it doesn't always capture what is needed.

the keys to reliever recovery--
1. Accept your powerlessness. Your bullpen is unmanageable. The game is not designed to give you the control you desire over your bullpen.There will be no shortage of questionable decisions made for your team which hurt you but also for your opponents team which may help you
2. The game rules and algorithm apply to both you and your opponent. There is a higher power, and you ain't it, neither is your opponent.
3. Turn your will and trust over to HAL. Rather than fighting HAL, embrace the limitations and use those as the best you can.

Every time HAL blows a lead for Team A, he is handing a game to Team B. Are you team A or team B? All of us are both over the course of a season.

There is no single strategy to best deal with the above. I have developed my work arounds which I know are different from others but we all have them. I use the "less is more" strategy (fewer settings and let HAL take the wheel) combined with spending a little more on pitching than most (to give HAL better choices). I try to make up the difference on cheap offense (which isn't always easy). Others do other stuff. Nothing works all the time.

The one implied suggestion from your post I really like is to have the ability to expand pitcher preferences to ballpark (rather just lefty/righty). I would love to be able to have 2 relievers that are low WHIP guys but with bp homers that I can privilege for pitcher parks, while I have 2 singles guys with no bp homers for slugger parks. Lefty/righty can be useful but it doesn't always capture what is needed.

I like a less is more strategy as well, also spending a bit more at times to give HAL options. I will adjust my settings to keep my expensive starters in the game longer, how much so depending on their salary. Anything lower than 7M I leave at default. I set righty and lefty specialists. That's it. I have tinkered more with other settings such as roles but that led me to some of the worst performances I've ever had. I do think middleman may have merits but as for the rest, I am not confident.

golf is absolutely right! 2 strong against lefties and 2 strong against righties and let HAL do the rest. It’s the only way togo. Works great for me in my small ball teams, usually around 75 to 80 percent of the time.

golf is absolutely right! 2 strong against lefties and 2 strong against righties and let HAL do the rest. It’s the only way togo. Works great for me in my small ball teams, usually around 75 to 80 percent of the time.

I love the cheap reliever route. Especially while using a small ball team. Give me 4 expensive 9* starters and 5 sub 1m rps. I go one specialist for r/l and 3 guys with ball park hrs that are at least a 2 with fatigue. I don’t set any roles except for the specialist. Regular teams I go with 2 l/r specialists and one rp usually around .80m with a 4/5 fatigue. Seems to work well. The bigger the cap the more I’ll spend on rps

"golf" ????

this question is for you (or anyone)

"I would love to be able to have 2 relievers that are low WHIP guys but with bp homers that I can privilege for pitcher parks, while I have 2 singles guys with no bp homers for slugger parks. Lefty/righty can be useful but it doesn't always capture what is needed."

I know how to employ/ask HAL to use LHP/RHP pitching specialists, but how is it possible to ensure/maxmimize low WHIP/high BPHR or high WHIP/low BPHR guys ?

is there any settings for that ?
does/would HAL make good decisions based on those factors ? (BP HR's)


i like your idea, and normally have just done the righty lefty thang

so looking for other options/ideas/suggestions ;- )

thanx

I am not sure of HAL's level of intelligence but there is often good reasoning for his decisions. He is also able to see the levels of fatigue the pitchers currently have. A lot of the time he makes the right decisions but other times they can seem to be terrible, and may be. Do we have any info on how reliever fatigue is handled from game to game? Afaik if your reliever pitches a lot one game they need to rest, but often they will play the next game anyone, and other times they won't. Not quite sure how it works.

The hardest thing is letting go
It seems to make sense to assign pitching roles.
We have so little control the temptation is
to set those roles ourselves .
I’ve learned to resist the temptation .
I will set up :
Specialist roles
Mop up roles
Most of the time that’s it
If I have a couple of specialists
I try to have enough pitchers so Hal will
only use in those situations .
Hal needs options .
He does a decent job if left to his own
devices .
But he will ignore things any common sense
manager would not in trying to stick to the roles
assigned .
It’s very hard to do
Took me a long time .
But most of the time it’s the best option .

I go with a couple of different strategies:

In a DH league, I'd prefer S9 (sometimes S8) pitchers who can pitch a complete game the majority of the time. For bullpen, I take my chances with (2) 9R & (2) 9L guys typically. I don't set roles. Just avoid the wrong side and quick hook.

In a NON DH league, I don't worry about pitcher endurance so much and I give HAL more options. I still set my starters to don't relieve before # and slow hook so he doesn't yank them right away. But since it's a NON DH league, I know the might get pinch hit for no matter how expensive they are or how good they are pitching. So I typically will go with one or two low to mid priced relievers AND two or four specialists. Typical Example: $2M reliever set to Closer & Setup, $1.5M reliever set to Mop Up & Middle Man. Then the specialists set to avoid wrong side and quick hook. The two more expensive relievers will get 80% of the innings in this scenario.

I avoid roles all together in DH leagues. And the fancier you try to get, the more likely HAL will screw it up. So keep it as simple as possible for him.