Starting Pitcher to Relief Pitcher

[Blues61]

Hey guys, quick question about changing a starter to a reliever in franchise. I always play as the Red Sox and this year am looking to acquire a #2 pitcher somewhere in the 1st few months. When I do this, I plan on bumping Joe Kelly from the rotation to the bullpen. My question is if I'm handling his ratings in a realistic way. When I make the change, I plan on bumping his stamina down into the 40's and upping his velocity on every pitch. Is that realistic as to what would happen if a starter moves to the bullpen in real life? Or is there a better way I could re-rate him to reflect the change? Thanks as always.

[countryboy]

Re: Starting Pitcher to Relief Pitcher

Hey guys, quick question about changing a starter to a reliever in franchise. I always play as the Red Sox and this year am looking to acquire a #2 pitcher somewhere in the 1st few months. When I do this, I plan on bumping Joe Kelly from the rotation to the bullpen. My question is if I'm handling his ratings in a realistic way. When I make the change, I plan on bumping his stamina down into the 40's and upping his velocity on every pitch. Is that realistic as to what would happen if a starter moves to the bullpen in real life? Or is there a better way I could re-rate him to reflect the change? Thanks as always.

Personally I wouldn't change any of his ratings and just place him in the bullpen. That way you have a long reliever should you need a spot start or a guy to take over for a starter who is struggling early.

[KBLover]

Re: Starting Pitcher to Relief Pitcher

Hey guys, quick question about changing a starter to a reliever in franchise. I always play as the Red Sox and this year am looking to acquire a #2 pitcher somewhere in the 1st few months. When I do this, I plan on bumping Joe Kelly from the rotation to the bullpen. My question is if I'm handling his ratings in a realistic way. When I make the change, I plan on bumping his stamina down into the 40's and upping his velocity on every pitch. Is that realistic as to what would happen if a starter moves to the bullpen in real life? Or is there a better way I could re-rate him to reflect the change? Thanks as always.

I wouldn't knock him down that far. Maybe 10 points if you want to say he needs to adjust to a different routine, etc. But I think just bullpen usage will handle that, especially as a LR - he's (hopefully!) not going to be called on that often, but when he is, he'll need to eat up innings. I don't if a 40 could do that.

For his pitch attributes, you might could simulate that by focusing solely on his pitch ratings (Bullpen Session). That way he would be working on his velocity and movement (trying to develop a nasty out pitch or two high-tier pitches he'll focus on in the bullpen) and let the /9 (and Stamina) do whatever they do based on his performance and development path.

Might save you from having to edit and wonder how realistic it is while at the same time Kelly is working in the pen and might be training differently than you usually might.

JMO

[Blues61]

Re: Starting Pitcher to Relief Pitcher

I wouldn't knock him down that far. Maybe 10 points if you want to say he needs to adjust to a different routine, etc. But I think just bullpen usage will handle that, especially as a LR - he's (hopefully!) not going to be called on that often, but when he is, he'll need to eat up innings. I don't if a 40 could do that.

For his pitch attributes, you might could simulate that by focusing solely on his pitch ratings (Bullpen Session). That way he would be working on his velocity and movement (trying to develop a nasty out pitch or two high-tier pitches he'll focus on in the bullpen) and let the /9 (and Stamina) do whatever they do based on his performance and development path.

Might save you from having to edit and wonder how realistic it is while at the same time Kelly is working in the pen and might be training differently than you usually might.

JMO

That actually sounds like a better idea. My aim is always for realism and letting things happen as organically as possible while keeping that realism. I'll probably do it this way, thanks.

[Jr.]

Re: Starting Pitcher to Relief Pitcher

Hey guys, quick question about changing a starter to a reliever in franchise. I always play as the Red Sox and this year am looking to acquire a #2 pitcher somewhere in the 1st few months. When I do this, I plan on bumping Joe Kelly from the rotation to the bullpen. My question is if I'm handling his ratings in a realistic way. When I make the change, I plan on bumping his stamina down into the 40's and upping his velocity on every pitch. Is that realistic as to what would happen if a starter moves to the bullpen in real life? Or is there a better way I could re-rate him to reflect the change? Thanks as always.

If I'm just moving a starter to the long relief role, I'll leave everything the same. If it's a permanent move to the pen, I'll do what you're saying. Move stamina into the 40s and raise velocity 1-2 mph on each pitch, raise the break 8-10 points, and raise Pitching Clutch, H/9, and HR/9 8-10 points and K/9 about 5-7 points.

[Ghost Of The Year]

Re: Starting Pitcher to Relief Pitcher

I wouldn;t change his stamina until the 2nd year he's in the pen.

[Unlucky 13]

Re: Starting Pitcher to Relief Pitcher

I actually wouldn't change his ratings at all. I have found that regardless of a player's stamina, when he's tagged as a RP instead of as a SP, he'll get tired more easily, even if you use him in s spot start.

In my current franchise, I've been using my long reliever as a starter while my #4 starter is on the DL. Even though his stamina is higher than what my #5 starter has, my LR can never, ever go beyond six innings in a game, even if his pitch count is low, while my #5 SP can go deep on occasion if everything goes right. The LR is just totally out of gas after around 60-70 pitches, no matter how well he's pitching.

[sink4ever]

Re: Starting Pitcher to Relief Pitcher

Here are a couple links to research done on a pitcher's stuff "playing up" by converting to reliever:

http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2010/04/whose_stuff_pla.php

In general, pitchers add about 0.7 miles per hour to their fastball by making the switch from starter to reliever.

http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/starter_v_relief_1953_2008/

Basically, use the “rule of 17”: difference in BABIP is 17 points higher as starter. K/PA is 17% higher as reliever. And HR per contacted PA is 17% higher as starter. Walk rate is FLAT.

[KBLover]

Re: Starting Pitcher to Relief Pitcher

So in MLBTS terms - a few points of velocity on fastball pitches (4SFB, 2SFB, SNK, CUT, RFB).

Not sure how many points would relate to H/9 (BABIP) and K/9 difference, though.

How much H/9 would = a BABIP from .290 to .277?

[steveownzzz]

Re: Starting Pitcher to Relief Pitcher

"I plan on bumping his stamina down into the 40's and upping his velocity on every pitch."

I guess it depends on the role that you are giving him. If he's you're long man, then you probably wouldn't want to change much. If he's your set-up or middle reliever, then it wouldn't be balanced to have a guy in that role with high stamina (60s, 70s+)- so yea, bump it down. Then he could pitch a few innings everyday.

As far as velocity- he already throws hard. How much higher do you think his stuff will play in the 'pen? We saw somebody like Jon Neise throw harder out of the 'pen in the playoffs, but he wasn't a flamethrower to begin with. I'm not sure I know the answer- that part is basically up to you.

[sink4ever]

Re: Starting Pitcher to Relief Pitcher

So in MLBTS terms - a few points of velocity on fastball pitches (4SFB, 2SFB, SNK, CUT, RFB).

Not sure how many points would relate to H/9 (BABIP) and K/9 difference, though.

How much H/9 would = a BABIP from .290 to .277?

Yeah, that's where you start running into difficulty. I started trying to put together a format for that but haven't had a ton of luck. What I might do moving forward is just using a random number generator to give me a number between 0 and 10 to add to H/9, HR/9, and K/9.

[sink4ever]

Re: Starting Pitcher to Relief Pitcher

So, continuing with @KBLover . . . the main difficulty I've encountered is the translation between ratings and stats. This is because you don't want to change the ratings by 17%, you want to change the ratings in a way that should change the stats by 17%.

So my thought so far is to make a template where I can plug in a player's numbers and have it calculate the relevant stats. Then I calculate the stats I want and change the raw numbers accordingly (like how much do I need to change the number of hits to get my BABIP in line). Then I'd probably use Knight's old spreadsheet (although I'm not sure how well the ratings correspond to stats anymore, SCEA may have made some changes) to calculate my target ratings.

Haha, does any of that make sense?

Or in reality I'll probably just use a random number generator to give me a number between 3 and 10 and change the ratings by that much, lol.

[KBLover]

Re: Starting Pitcher to Relief Pitcher

Oh wow, that spreadsheet...that's gold.

Even if it's not exactly accurate anymore (I wouldn't be one bit surprised if it is), that's a great start and actually hard data.

Been wondering what the ratings -> stats correspondence is/expected to be. Even a "what's average" answer would have been great.

I mean, I think we could calculate BABIP ranges for each of those pitcher areas if we come up with some sort of number of BF/IP baseline. That's the only thing missing. We have the H allowed, HR allowed, and K's allowed in ranges. We need a way to get ABs against the pitcher (BF - all the stuff that's not an AB, well SF are included but they are probably so small vs a specific pitcher we can not worry about it).

[sink4ever]

Re: Starting Pitcher to Relief Pitcher

Yeah, for AB against a pitcher I've just been doing all outs (IP*3) + Hits + HR. Obviously there's stuff like errors and whatnot, but I'm just going for a ballpark.

I have a spreadsheet I've been testing with. I'll try to polish it up a bit and share it here if you want to take a look at my formulas and suggest some improvements.

[KBLover]

Re: Starting Pitcher to Relief Pitcher

Yeah, for AB against a pitcher I've just been doing all outs (IP*3) + Hits + HR. Obviously there's stuff like errors and whatnot, but I'm just going for a ballpark.

I have a spreadsheet I've been testing with. I'll try to polish it up a bit and share it here if you want to take a look at my formulas and suggest some improvements.

I wouldn't count H and HR both. HR are a subset of H (i.e. it's a type of hit) so when you say 130 H, that's including his HR.

Outs + Hits...that would even capture SF/SH (they aren't ABs but they are outs). Errors are missing, but that's probably small enough to not worry about for this.

((Whole Innings * 3) + fractional innings) + Hits = Pit_AB

That would be the outs + the hits. We could always just go whole innings for easier calculation (might have been what you meant when you said IP - just realized that lol).