1987 offseason

[Alan T]

New file is up!

[Chief Rum]

I did fairly well with the draft, with 8, 10, and 14 going with my top 3 picks, and my 4th round pick was the 4th of the 4 decently talent pitchers capable of being SP (IMO). That's not saying much--he was a good deal behind the top three. But, still, at least I got a guy I could convert into a starter.

The SP issue is something to consider, though.

We have 16 teams currently, most of whom are starting 5 man rotations, and even the 4 man squads usually have at least a fifth in reserve. So that's 80 major league spots. If everyone lasts an average of 15 years in the bigs, that means about 5-6 are retiring (or becoming too old to be useful) every year. Drafts have been producing maybe 3-4 pitchers per year at best who have the talent to be major league SPs, and more than half of these, it seems are MRs with high END.

So I think we're definitely looking at a pitching crunch in the near future, as we start to lose guys like Craig Davis, Guillermo Arrojo, Art Wiley, etc. to retirement, and not finding much with which to replace them.

Is the 40 END SP too far away? I am beginning to wonder.

[TimGuru]

You mean owners might have to start evaluating pitchers instead of running out 4 or 5 blue stuff/blue control guys? You mean our hitters might actually hit? Golly, thats a crisis of epic proportions.

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by TimGuru

You mean owners might have to start evaluating pitchers instead of running out 4 or 5 blue stuff/blue control guys? You mean our hitters might actually hit? Golly, thats a crisis of epic proportions.

Heh...I moved that post over to the regular season thread, and added some more numbers for people to think on. Not saying it's a bad thing--just that I believe change is on its way, and I think it's going to surprise people. We're far enough out from the Vulture League days that players introduced that way are either retiring are on their way to doing so. I would be surprised if there is a single player left in the league who did not come into the league either by draft or Vulture League (all of the players from the "generated free agent" classes are likely long gone).

So we're supposedly entering a phase where player abilities would seem to be getting normalized. But it seems to me that the game draft generator, for whatever reason, puts a much higher emphasis on generating quality hitters than it does pitchers. Even if you put out there are 8-9 starting position player spots, and only 4-5 starter spots and a couple key reliever spots, that's still at worst a need of 9 quality hitters for every 6 quality pitchers. And I would guess the draft is generating as much as 3 quality hitters for every 1 quality pitcher. Meaning that if the league is generating the proper quota of 6 quality pitchers, it is "over-generating" 18 hitters of similar quality for those six pitchers--meaning hitting quality is improving twice as fast as pitching quality!

[TimGuru]

My last fictional online league struggled with this, taking the "keep generating the draft class" approach. I forget what they fiddled with. That was probably necessary there because it was a traditional time frame league (8-10 weeks for a season and 3 or 4 for the off season).

Despite my belligerent tone, I really do feel the FOOL needs a tone down of pitching ability. Parks are too roomy in the CL combined with being a no-DH league, pitching quality is insanely deep. In a better balanced world, the infamous (to you and I) Phil Deen WOULD be a marginal but legit candidate for a major league starting slot. Jesus Pena should be an OMIGOD LOOK WHAT ARRIVED moment for my team, if not the CL or FOOL overall. Instead its ho hum. On the other hand, we get all in a lather when our 100 contact guys get dinged by the bug and everyone remembers their guy who suffered from that. Pena's ratings are comparably insane, and he is a 3.5 star guy???!!!

Talking about the league with Brittdad really brings this home to me. I'm just used to it. Guy bats .270 or OBP of .320? Lock him up and bronze his baby shoes, he's a MVP candidate. You have a guy in your rotation with an ERA of 3.5? Enjoy that high draft pick.

[Tasan]

I think the tricked out parks are as much of the problem as anything. There are some HEAVY pitching favored parks out there.

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by Tasan

I think the tricked out parks are as much of the problem as anything. There are some HEAVY pitching favored parks out there.

One park that could change this offseason if he was of a mind to do it is brittdad with his Wyoming park. Those park settings are actually the old Valdosta stadium. No way an extreme pitcher's park like that would still be around in the thinner air of Wyoming. And as a new owner, brittdad wouldn't have to wait for more time to pass to change his park.

Then we could "retire" the old Valdosta park settings as a monument to Alan and his old dynasty.

[TimGuru]

Not to speak for brittdad, but in conversation with him, he has mentioned a name change, possible move and likely park change. I steered him in the direction of the excel file which has the park factors for real parks that I found on some mod site linked on the OOTP forums. I went with old Milwaukee stadium when I did my renovation (somewhat neutral, a bit hitter friendly, I checked it because I remember the old chainlink fencing behind the plate fondly).

I think we would do the league a favor by encouraging people to pick a real life park they like and use it for their stadium. I think some of the parks were over tweaked to become pitchers parks and are unrealistic in their dimensions/factors.

[Tasan]

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

One park that could change this offseason if he was of a mind to do it is brittdad with his Wyoming park. Those park settings are actually the old Valdosta stadium. No way an extreme pitcher's park like that would still be around in the thinner air of Wyoming. And as a new owner, brittdad wouldn't have to wait for more time to pass to change his park.

Then we could "retire" the old Valdosta park settings as a monument to Alan and his old dynasty.

That sounds like an excellent plan. Scott, get on it!