Starting Pitcher stamina in playoffs

[Steven78]

Re: Starting Pitcher stamina in playoffs

Thank you.

[JTommy67]

Re: Starting Pitcher stamina in playoffs

4 days off is only to prevent the kind of damage that happens over years, not days or weeks. Tomohiro Anraku threw 772 pitches over five games in nine days, including 232 in one game(A lot of Japanese pitchers get abused like that, that's why they break down before they turn 30).

Bingo.

This is the root of the problem. The five-man rotation has evolved not because pitchers don't have the energy to pitch more innings, but in order to protect their arms.

The game developers have designed the game based on a flawed premise in contradiction to this reality. By linking innings thrown with energy/stamina, they're now backed into a corner where they've had to resort to a fix to prevent too many innings by starters in the playoffs.

This whole problem is the best example we have that the durability rating fails in reproducing accurate results because it's controlling two things at once - a player's "energy" as well as his tendency to get injured.

IMO, the best way to fix this is to have two ratings instead of one. Combined with a pitcher's stamina rating, it would solve the playoff issue without breaking the rotation scheme during the season.

Three ratings:

1) Durability - a player's tendency to get injured and his recovery rate.
2) Fatigue - a player's overall energy level. Would control the impact of playing/pitching time on his energy bar and govern attribute fluctuations accordingly as the durability rating does at present.
3) Stamina - how quickly a player loses his effectiveness in game.

Injuries would be controlled by #1 and #2 working in tandem. Continually pitching a fatigued player should have a detrimental affect, but more durable players can get away with it more.

So if a pitcher throws eight innings, his energy drops and recovers according to his fatigue rating.

A hidden, dynamic injury value would also drop and recover based on his durability rating and current energy level. Continually pitching a guy when he is fatigued would thus increase his chance of injury over the long haul.

Doing it this way would force you to protect arms during the course of the season to prevent injury and adjust rotations accordingly, which works better than the one-size-fits-all method of reducing innings by manipulating the energy bar directly.

The potential problem of overusing pitchers in the playoffs can be addressed in two ways: 1) Sever any link between fatigue and stamina. Instead, leave the stamina rating alone while reducing other attributes. (Or, at least reduce the impact of energy levels on stamina). And 2) for the cpu, adjust manager hook tendencies and implement a more realistic rotational strategy based on what others have already pointed out in this thread (extra bullpen arms, for example).

A separate fatigue rating may not be necessary if you think all players should recover from playing time at the same rate. This may be true for position players. I'm not sure about pitchers, though.

But the durability ratings influence should be on injuries, and nothing but.

[Jr.]

Re: Starting Pitcher stamina in playoffs

Day 3: Throw bullpen, 80% effort, throw 40-50% of how many pitches you threw last start(So essentially this is exactly what Bumgarner did in game 7, he threw his bullpen session in a live game, not quite as amazing now, is it?)

Still pretty impressive since he wasn't throwing 80% and he threw 6 IP against hitters. Bullpens are very different from game throwing.

[Fours]

Re: Starting Pitcher stamina in playoffs

Still pretty impressive since he wasn't throwing 80% and he threw 6 IP against hitters. Bullpens are very different from game throwing.

He went 5 innings, 68 pitches.

He threw 117 pitches in game 5, so his bullpen would have been around 50-60 pitches.

Ya, a throw day bullpen is way different than game 7 of the world series, lol..

My point was it's not like his "stamina bar" was at 25% and he was supposed to be in bed resting, he was scheduled to throw 50+ pitches that day.

There's some cutting edge development guys that think MLB starters should be available for relief duty on their throw day all season(Not for 5 IP, 68PC).

[NDAlum]

Re: Starting Pitcher stamina in playoffs

He went 5 innings, 68 pitches.



He threw 117 pitches in game 5, so his bullpen would have been around 50-60 pitches.



Ya, a throw day bullpen is way different than game 7 of the world series, lol..



My point was it's not like his "stamina bar" was at 25% and he was supposed to be in bed resting, he was scheduled to throw 50+ pitches that day.



There's some cutting edge development guys that think MLB starters should be available for relief duty on their throw day all season(Not for 5 IP, 68PC).

You're not accounting for his warm up for the start and his in between inning pitches. He probably throws 20-30 in the pen then another 30 on the mound in between innings. Those aren't 100% effort but some are close.

As a former pitcher there is no way I could regularly do what was done. I couldn't throw an inning here or there either.

He just had adrenaline I guess. What he did is crazy.

I think there's a happy medium between what the system is right now and what some want.



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[jinjun]

Re: Starting Pitcher stamina in playoffs

Hmm that is interesting. I'm starting to wonder if the game doesn't account for off days in regards to pitcher energy/stamina. Seems to work properly for position players but not the pitchers.

[Jr.]

Re: Starting Pitcher stamina in playoffs

He went 5 innings, 68 pitches.

He threw 117 pitches in game 5, so his bullpen would have been around 50-60 pitches.

Ya, a throw day bullpen is way different than game 7 of the world series, lol..

My point was it's not like his "stamina bar" was at 25% and he was supposed to be in bed resting, he was scheduled to throw 50+ pitches that day.

There's some cutting edge development guys that think MLB starters should be available for relief duty on their throw day all season(Not for 5 IP, 68PC).

I did it my Junior year of college. Started on Saturdays, threw in relief on Wednesday (my bullpen day). But that's going on 6 days rest, not 4. With as much as teams invest in pitching, I don't see any team going that route. The most advanced thing I've seen is what the Astros have experimented with in their minors.. schedule 2 "starters" per game and they divide the game 3-4 innings each.

If a team decided to use their starters in relief, they would be going to a 7-8 man rotation, I would have to think.

[Fours]

Re: Starting Pitcher stamina in playoffs

I did it my Junior year of college. Started on Saturdays, threw in relief on Wednesday (my bullpen day). But that's going on 6 days rest, not 4. With as much as teams invest in pitching, I don't see any team going that route. The most advanced thing I've seen is what the Astros have experimented with in their minors.. schedule 2 "starters" per game and they divide the game 3-4 innings each.

If a team decided to use their starters in relief, they would be going to a 7-8 man rotation, I would have to think.

It's interesting stuff, the truth is that right now the modern approach hasn't prevented injury in the way it was hoped it would. It's not as simple as throw less and be healthier.

Right now, the number of guys getting a shiny new UCL before they turn 22 is crazy, it's come to the point of a 20 year old being happy to get it out of the way early so he doesn't lose a year in the bigs.

I didn't know the Astros were doing that, do you remember LaRussa in Oakland trying the 3 teams of 3 starters per game? 40-60 pitches each, 2 days rest, so in a 6 day span you throw around 100 pitches each.

I like the theory behind it, but you're just never going to pull a guy when he throws 4 clean innings with 8K's.. And you'll also never sign a big name Free Agent starter.

[Jr.]

Re: Starting Pitcher stamina in playoffs

It's interesting stuff, the truth is that right now the modern approach hasn't prevented injury in the way it was hoped it would. It's not as simple as throw less and be healthier.

Right now, the number of guys getting a shiny new UCL before they turn 22 is crazy, it's come to the point of a 20 year old being happy to get it out of the way early so he doesn't lose a year in the bigs.

I didn't know the Astros were doing that, do you remember LaRussa in Oakland trying the 3 teams of 3 starters per game? 40-60 pitches each, 2 days rest, so in a 6 day span you throw around 100 pitches each.

I like the theory behind it, but you're just never going to pull a guy when he throws 4 clean innings with 8K's.. And you'll also never sign a big name Free Agent starter.

Yeah, I really don't know what can be done. Pitching is just so unnatural and no one is going to say "I can throw 95, but I should probably just throw 88-90 so I don't hurt myself"

The kid for the Yankees that just had TJ hadn't thrown more than 100 pitches in any outing in a couple of years from what I read. Didn't matter.

Brady Aiken, the #1 pick last year that didn't sign, didn't throw over 85 pitches in any high school game, took 3-4 months off per year, and just had TJ last month.

[Fours]

Re: Starting Pitcher stamina in playoffs

Yeah, I really don't know what can be done. Pitching is just so unnatural and no one is going to say "I can throw 95, but I should probably just throw 88-90 so I don't hurt myself"

The kid for the Yankees that just had TJ hadn't thrown more than 100 pitches in any outing in a couple of years from what I read. Didn't matter.

Brady Aiken, the #1 pick last year that didn't sign, didn't throw over 85 pitches in any high school game, took 3-4 months off per year, and just had TJ last month.

After the Astros drafted Aiken, I read that the medicals looked bad, not just UCL damage wise, but that the UCL itself was abnormally small. I assume they were worried that TJ with a regular size UCL would have him lose leverage/whip, and TJ with an equally small UCL would mean many future TJ's. It will be really interesting to see what happens with him.

You're right about the radar gun hurting pitchers, prep kids with 92 heat spend 2 years trying to hit 95 even if it straightens out the pitch instead of refining secondary stuff..

[JTommy67]

Re: Starting Pitcher stamina in playoffs

I read an interview with Orel Hershiser where he stated that pitchers today are forced to go all out on more pitches due to the strength of the hitters, and that during his career few pitchers outside of closers had that approach.

It makes me wonder what would happen if pitchers backed off a bit more in today's game. Do you think Hershiser was correct? Is it really necessary to put more energy into pitches nowadays to be competitive? Remember that R.A. Dickey won the Cy Young award just a few years ago.

I suspect that the absurdly high strikeout rates of today are fueling the tendencies that Hershiser was commenting on. Blowing fastballs by people, although fascist as Crash Davis once observed, is alluring and perhaps teams, managers, and pitching coaches have fallen in love with their simplicity (nothing can go wrong on a K) and have created an environment where pitchers feel the need to develop a screaming fastball in order to be competitive.

And yet I have a hard time envisioning a Greg Maddux in his prime being unsuccessful against today's hitters. I don't know. What do you think?

[OhioCub]

Re: Starting Pitcher stamina in playoffs

I read an interview with Orel Hershiser where he stated that pitchers today are forced to go all out on more pitches due to the strength of the hitters, and that during his career few pitchers outside of closers had that approach.

It makes me wonder what would happen if pitchers backed off a bit more in today's game. Do you think Hershiser was correct? Is it really necessary to put more energy into pitches nowadays to be competitive? Remember that R.A. Dickey won the Cy Young award just a few years ago.

I suspect that the absurdly high strikeout rates of today are fueling the tendencies that Hershiser was commenting on. Blowing fastballs by people, although fascist as Crash Davis once observed, is alluring and perhaps teams, managers, and pitching coaches have fallen in love with their simplicity (nothing can go wrong on a K) and have created an environment where pitchers feel the need to develop a screaming fastball in order to be competitive.

And yet I have a hard time envisioning a Greg Maddux in his prime being unsuccessful against today's hitters. I don't know. What do you think?

Kyle hendricks proved just last night that a Maddux style can still work.

[KingV2k3]

Re: Starting Pitcher stamina in playoffs

I just had a Playoff run where the Cubs team I'm using got a bye / beat STL 3-0 and ended up losing to LAD in 7...

Both my #1 and #2 guys and LAD's #1 and #2 guys pitched two games each, but they ended up using a slot starter in game 7 against my gassed #3...

It seemed that the first two guys in both rotations recovered faster than in the regular season, while everyone else recovered slower...

I've played this title for years, and something about this seemed particularly "unbalanced" and "off" compared to the past...

[MetsRampage]

Re: Starting Pitcher stamina in playoffs

Is this ever going to be fixed? Because I'm about to face Kershaw at full stamina in the playoffs while my most rested pictures is at half stamina.

[Fours]

Re: Starting Pitcher stamina in playoffs

Is this ever going to be fixed? Because I'm about to face Kershaw at full stamina in the playoffs while my most rested pictures is at half stamina.

Right now it's considered to be a "feature" to facilitate 4 man rotations in the playoffs.

We're going to need a lot of up votes on the bug report to have any chance of it being fixed.