[Prodigal Son]

We're in the era of the specialist reliever. MLB bullpens have their closer, their "eighth inning guy," their "seventh inning guy," and their "LOOGYs" and "ROOGYs." Some of these roles overlap. Some managers are ok with using some relievers for more than one inning, others not. Some are fine with having several relievers pitch in a setup capacity if needed, whereas others don't have that confidence in more than one or two pitchers.

OOTP, in its current state, doesn't model this particularly well. What if a team has three or four pitchers it is fine using in setup roles? What if it has a lefty who it uses in high-leverage LOOGY situations, but otherwise only uses him in long relief?

Attached is my proposed model for OOTP bullpen usage. I hope it is as intuitive to you all looking at it as it is to me. The leverage bar on the left could even be adjustable with a slider, so you can move it up or down to indicate more or less confidence in your lower-leverage relievers.

The OOGY option can be selected if you would like that player to be considered / used regularly as a one-out platoon matchup specialist. The 2+ IP option can be used if you are ok with that pitcher throwing more than one inning with some regularity (I should have called it 1+, I suppose).

If the developers were then to code the AI to make use of this, I think it'd be a much better model to reflect modern bullpen use.

Edit: Just to clarify about functionality, the pitchers would have drag-and-drop functionality, so you would move pitchers in and out of your "bullpen" from your master roster, enabling you to leave your starters out of the bullpen assignments module and have the decision of whether to include any spot starters in bullpen assignments, and you could order pitchers in the module how you'd like, from lowest leverage at top to highest leverage at bottom. The values in the Preferred Inning Usage and Special Instructions columns would obviously be selectable / able to be toggled.

Also, a slider would exist in the "Leverage" box--a horizontal slider that you could move up or down. If you move it up, it shades more of the bar red and indicate that more pitchers toward the top of the list can enter in higher-leverage situations. If you slide it down, it indicates that you have fewer pitchers--just those near the bottom--who you trust in high-leverage situations. This would make a difference in many borderline situations. For example, 7th tie game, one out. The GM may bring in a pitcher that's higher up the list (say, I. Prettygood) if you have the slider set a bit higher, or else may bring in one of the Setups if the slider is set lower. Theoretically, these decision could even be influenced by how rested the pitchers are, so if you set the slider higher, the AI would be more likely to give your setup man the day off if he's pitched in two of the past three games, whereas it'd be more likely to work your setup man to death if the slider was set lower.