Broken Bat - Help: Pitcher Role allocation

Forum >> Help >> Pitcher Role allocation

Post ID	Date & Time	Game Date	Function

#42116	11/24/2016 11:06:15 am
Buster Joined: 10/14/2016 Posts: 24 Inactive	I have two questions that I would like help with if at all possible. These sort of follow on from the roster question. First of all I would like to know what makes one pitcher a better choice for a certain role over another pitcher. For example what attributes should my closer have, what should my LR or my MR have? What makes them different from my Set Up man or how do I differentiate between my set up or my Left set up or right set up or my ss? Once I have deciphered who should play where, how do I use the management screen to ensure that the pitcher that I would like to come in from the bull pen in a certain situation is actually the one that the AI selects?

#42149	11/24/2016 11:19:43 pm
Crazy Li Joined: 01/25/2015 Posts: 879 Inactive	Well looking at the MLB, most teams elect to put their best reliever in as closer. Why? Because this is the guy who comes in when the game is on the line... often in the 9th inning with a 3-run lead or less. The margin of error is extremely small and you want the greatest chances of winning. From there, they go down to Setup, MR, LR... the closer they are to that "end of a close game" scenario, the more important the role. A setup man functions much like a closer, but usually in the 7th or 8th inning. Mid Relievers are more to eat up the middle innings if the starter is out that early... but generally speaking, a starter getting pulled before the 7th inning is bad news and generally indicates he faltered. In such a case, you probably aren't even winning the game. This makes the situation less critical since you're not trying to hold onto a slim lead. MRs may also be used in the reverse situation when you're up by so much, the pressure is off. The long reliever is like an extreme version of the MR, potentially coming in as early as the first 3 innings. This could be because your starter gave up 6 in the first and generally means whatever this reliever's performance, the outcome of the game likely won't be changed, so a lot of people throw their worst guy here... what damage can he do? Of course, in real life, there's also injury which can create a situation where it's still anyone's game, but the starter exited early... requiring the use of pitchers who are actually reliable to consume as many of these innings as possible... but since there's no such thing as a mid-game injury (all injury events are calculated after the conclusion of the game), you don't hafta worry about that at least. It's a pretty safe bet, that you gave up a lot of runs to have your starter pulled early... so it won't be close when a LR comes in unless the other team did just as poorly. To be safe, you could use the RD settings to make a special LR that only comes in during close situations (one who is pretty good like a guy who could have been a starter if you had another spot for one) and the other to be the weak link pitcher who comes in during blow-outs... but not everyone has the luxury of having that sort of talent to spare. So the safest way is to make your absolutely best pitchers starters (assuming they have the necessary stamina) and with what's left go through from best to worst distributing down through CL, SU, MR, and LR. There aren't any real attributes for these positions. They're just situations and levels of importance. And you may value different roles differently than I, so don't be afraid to change the priority based on what you think about each role. As for RHS vs LHS... this is simple. These roles function identical to the SU role. RHS is only called in to face a right-handed batter and LHS is only called in to face a left-handed batter. Plain SU can be called in for either. You should pretty much never put a lefty as RHS or a righty as LHS due to that. Use the R/L to determine the pitcher handiness and you'll have a favorable matchup. As a warning, though... just because they only get brought in to face the hand I said, doesn't mean they only pitch to batters of that hand. If the next batter is of the opposite handiness, the pitcher will not necessarily change. They still need to hit their pitch count limit or hook to be replaced. The handiness of the batter is NOT checked to determine whether or not to pull the current pitcher, only when determining what pitcher to bring in next... so bare that in mind.

#42170	11/25/2016 9:47:26 am
Rock777 Joined: 09/21/2014 Posts: 9597 Haverhill Halflings III.1	I'd suggest using the default settings (especially RD) to start off with until you get a better understanding of how things are working. Crazy Li gave you a good break down. A couple additional thoughts: You generally want your Starters to have decent Stamina. Low Stamina will either mean they fall apart more often in later innings, or they have small pitch counts which puts more stress on your bullpen. Starters are not necessarily your best pitchers. Your Closer and SU are probably more important. That is of course just my opinion and other may differ. For starters, I prefer for them to have a minimum of 12. Others may have different minimums. Other than Stamina, you want to set your lineup 100% based on performance. The ratings don't mean much compared to the hard performance numbers. RHS and LHS are specialists and take priority over your SU. So you want guys with strong splits in those two positions. A lot of teams just use a SU and don't use the specialists. If you do have an LHS for example who does horrible against righties, you can always give him a 0 pitch count to ensure he only pitches to one batter, or a hook of 1 to make sure he gets pulled at the first sign of trouble. I personally keep the pitch count low on my starters (they fatigue over the course of the game), so my MRs come in during close games, but the SU is still more important. You basically want your ERA to get smaller the lower you go in your bullpen. For your Closer and SU, you might want to pay extra attention to how many HRs they give up. Nothing worse than blowing a save off one hit.

#42180	11/25/2016 3:53:19 pm
Crazy Li Joined: 01/25/2015 Posts: 879 Inactive	I should have noted there were two schools of thought on how to break down your best pitchers. Rock provided an alternate that CL is the best and starters follow after (at least before MR... I think everyone can agree that MR are less important than starters). You really have to develop your own ideas of how to do things in the end. For some, it's SP1-5 CL SU MR LR for others, it's CL SP 1-5 SU MR LR For some it's maybe even SP 1 CL SP 2 SU SP 3-5 MR LR different people have different ideas... and even if you have an ideal, you may need to compromise on it based on your team. Like even though I believe my #1 guy goes in SP1... if my absolute best pitcher only has 6 stamina, he's never starting. I break my rule and make him CL and the next best guy (assuming he has at least 12 stamina) goes in SP1 instead. Updated Friday, November 25 2016 @ 3:54:33 pm PST

#42181	11/25/2016 4:22:43 pm
Rock777 Joined: 09/21/2014 Posts: 9597 Haverhill Halflings III.1	Actually for me its CL SU SP 1-3 MR SP 4 LR SP 5 But I agree, there are lots of variation. The only thing most people can agree on is that LR is the least important, and MR are pretty far down the ladder.

#42189	11/25/2016 7:50:32 pm
Buster Joined: 10/14/2016 Posts: 24 Inactive	Thanks guys that has been most helpful.