New Bullpen Problems - easy fix- won't hold breathe

There are 22 bullpen settings. Since each reliever can ONLY FILL TWO spots, five relievers can cover 10 of the 22 roles. That means Hal (The computer) is making most of the bullpen decisions for YOU.

There is always a trade-off, and this is what we have given up in order to CURB (not end) the super reliever.

You would have to carry 11 relief pitchers to fill all 22 roles. That is absurd.

However, if they were to fix this minor oversight, and let the relief pitchers fill 3-4 roles, we would have our control back.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not struggling at all with the new bullpen, I am kicking ass. But do we really want LESS CONTROL, when (and this I can promise you) it will not even end the super reliever, it will just curb him.

Besides, if you look at it logically and realistically, even in real life relief pitchers can obviously pitch in more than two situations. Any reliever can pitch mop up, behind and late, middle relief, etc all in the same series. Even closers pitch when tied and late, or tied and extra innings, plus closing situations. It's just common sense to let the relievers be used in 3 to 4 roles, not 2 and not 6 or 7.

In real life teams use 18 or more pitchers in a single season, not at the same time, but the innings are spread over larger staffs. Also now with specialists and openers teams carry as many as 13 pitchers at any given time during the season, we can only carry 12 and almost no one would do that because of the hit to their offense! The game is geared to hitting, pitching takes a back seat and the game would have to change (game by game player settings and movement, inactive list or some way to hold replacement players, etc.) to accommodate larger rosters. We sacrifice some control to play a season in 2 1/2 months. More settings (I have no idea exactly what) and different roster requirements might "realistic-ize" it, but seriously, not sure that's what anyone who plays ATG is after. This is more of a "what if" scenario and super relievers seem to be on most people's "bucket list" that they want to fix.

In real life teams use 18 or more pitchers in a single season, not at the same time, but the innings are spread over larger staffs. Also now with specialists and openers teams carry as many as 13 pitchers at any given time during the season, we can only carry 12 and almost no one would do that because of the hit to their offense! The game is geared to hitting, pitching takes a back seat and the game would have to change (game by game player settings and movement, inactive list or some way to hold replacement players, etc.) to accommodate larger rosters. We sacrifice some control to play a season in 2 1/2 months. More settings (I have no idea exactly what) and different roster requirements might "realistic-ize" it, but seriously, not sure that's what anyone who plays ATG is after. This is more of a "what if" scenario and super relievers seem to be on most people's "bucket list" that they want to fix.

For me, definitely not looking for ATG to play like the modern game. Baseball has only been played with 13 pitchers on a roster for the last few years. No desire to have to carry any more relievers than what we are now. Allowing a third bullpen role per reliever would be a plus, in my opinion.

I would love more roles, and if I had a choice I'd go for three.

But two seems reasonable. I'm still figuring things out with the new BP mechanics, or trying to. They are still unclear to me.

Bill, if you don't want it to play like the modern game you need a pitchers park (I mean bp singles and bp homers both low) and very strong starters with 8 or 9 endurance ratings. You know this, but all the other parks are gonna tax the pen to the point where the back of it has to be strong and you have to sacrifice some settings. Relievers will all pitch 100+ innings with a weak starting staff and 4 relievers, almost none will pitch 200+. If you allow 3 roles per reliever, they can be set for middle, setup and closer. Then Sutter or Murray or Burke or Arroyo et. al, and maybe even a very good 2 inning guy will approach 300 innings. I'm not necessarily opposed to this, but it seems the community mostly is.

You mean people had been using EVERY role? I was pretty minimal in using roles in ATG8. The more orders HAL is given?’c the worse he performs.

I used Sutter on AT LEAST 200 different ATG 8 teams. I managed to get 230 innings out of him ONCE. I managed to get 200 to 230 innings another 5 times. That means that 97% of the time I got LESS than 200 IP out of him.

I know that there are guys out there that got Sutter to get close to 300 innings out of him on occasion. But for MOST of us we typically got 150 to 180 innings out of him on a consistent basis.

If you pay $7.75 million for him, I have no problem with other owners getting 180 to 200 innings out of him. Based on the current 2 role limit, I think it will be possible but very difficult and rare to get more than 160 IP out of Sutter, thus making his current price point unplayable at caps below $150 million.

Therefore, I feel being able to use an RP in up to 4 different roles is a fair compromise given that the good RPs went up 35% in ATG9.

As it is now, I don't believe the successful managers will be using the Sutter at caps below $150 million (at least I won't be)

Maybe the point of the bullpen re-configuration was to force better managers to NOT use RPs above $5million at lower caps and if so, SOM has succeeded.

When "Mr. I Ain't a Racist but I'm really a Racist" said 22 rolls that meant every single roll being filled out twice and pretty much NO ONE EVER DOES THAT.

3 rolls per guy would be nice.

Another more complicated option would be to not allow closers to do mopup rolls that type of thing. You'd never see Eric Gagne come in in the 5th inning of a blowout and finish up the game.

Furthermore, mop up guys should be a minimum of maybe R3???

I’m fine with it the way it is. But if Brown is kicking so much ass, why does he care? (Man, the bragging...)