Rotation Openers

[mattynokes]

I've asked Andy if I can have a file (speficially the 2131 opening day file) with only the sim password removed. He agreed on the condition that I post my findings.

What am I trying to find? I'm curious to see what Mogul does to pitching staffs that employ Openers instead of true Starters. I will be using my team (Cleveland) and tinkering with the Pitch Limits to see if using a starting rotation of Openers is viable or not.

Pitch Limits? You Want to Talk About Pitch Limits???
^^^ Yes. And There's My Guide. ^^^

Below is a snapshot of what I normally use versus what I plan to use for the Opener pitching staff.



What changes is that I'll be using a 4-man rotation, which will change the 5th spot to a Mopup role.

1. SPs #1-4 will have low pitch limits. They may be SPs or they may be RPs. The hope is for them to only go 2-3 innings.

2. I am treating the Mopup and Long Relief roles as the same and will have true, traditional SPs in those spots.

3. The Middle Relief role will also have SP, but I'm not as concerned about them having true 70+ SP endurance. The hope is that the Mopup, Long, and Middle relievers will be used to fill in 4-5 innings after the Opener is removed.

4. The Short Relief and Setup roles will not change. They will continue to have the usual 20-something endurance RPs trying to lock down the 7th and 8th innings.

5. The Closer is still the Closer. I'll still have my best traditional RP in this spot with no pitch limit set.

[mattynokes]

Below is a snapshoot of my "Opening Day" Pitching Staff. Since Patrick Bulman was a bit of the inspiration for this testing, I went ahead and already made a trade for him from Baltimore. Lastly, I auto-sorted all teams to make sure everyone had a competitive team.



SP1 Freese: 40 Pitch Limit
With his ability to dominate, I wanted to give him the max of what I set for my Openers.

SP2 Towle: 35 Pitch Limit
With his low health, I opted for the middle ground of Opener Pitch Limits.

SP3 Smith: 40 Pitch Limit
He has a propensity for keeping batters from getting hits, so he also gets the max.

SP4 Bulman: 35 Pitch Limit
I tend to think that 30 pitches will be too low, so I want to have my Openers begin with at least 35 pitches.

MU Walker: 110 Pitch Limit
I'm keeping him at his regular 125% of Endurance that I'd set for a normal rotation.

CL Stainthrope: No Limit
Remember, Closers have no limit, so that they don't run out of pitchers to finish out a game.

SU Mitchell: 20 Pitch Limit
This is my normal 80% of Endurance for my bullpen.

SR Langlands: 20 Pitch Limit
This is my normal 80% of Endurance for my bullpen.

SR Arriazola: 30 Pitch Limit
This is what I set him at last season and I'll keep him with the same ability to go two innings.

MR Cawston: 60 Pitch Limit
I'll set him right at his current Endurance. It's on the low side of what I suggested, but with a few Openers having 40 Pitch Limits, I think it will work.

Houlbrook: 100 Pitch Limit
I'm keeping him at his regular 125% of Endurance that I'd set for a normal rotation.


The Results






So, it only takes one test run for me to say that I don't think it's a good idea to run with solely Openers in your rotation. As you can see, the game highly relied on the LRP and MRP roles to fill innings. It also pitch my SR2 (Arriazola) in 99 games!

Though, it's not all bad. It shows that it preferred the LRP Houlbrook (missed 15 days) to the Mopup Walker (missed 21 days) as it used Houlbrook in 56 games (2 starts) and Walker in 41 games (4 starts).

I do think that when used sparingly, using an Opener can be a decent strategy. I think it would be best served when you have a rash of injuries to your traditional starters and move up a good reliever to make starts (with a low pitch limit) in their place for a sim here and there.