I was surprised checking just now to find that my starters' ERA is 5th in the NL. But some are outperforming their ratings, and this is also due to some very heavy micromanagement on my part. I've assembled a very good bullpen (7th in the NL but that's inflated by a few guys I have left in to soak innings during blowouts) and I have a very quick hook.
Even so, this staff is not exactly amazing on paper. All the guys are 1.5 to 2.5 stars currently, and at least one is a converted RP. It was assembled from spit and bailing wire. When I started, I had a 1 star guy who never belonged higher than AAA in the rotation, for example.
As the thread says, the few good SPs were gone before I even got my first draft pick (Miami had the worst of both worlds: won enough games last year to get only 13th overall, then gutted their team). The IFA pool had no SPs worth spending money on. I've done a bunch of trading and tinkering but most of my decent SP prospects are a ways out.
I did just pick up Carson Fulmer, which the ChiSox for some reason decided they were done with. He needs a year and then maybe will be pretty good.
Trying to get a true "ace" SP is nearly impossible. There aren't even any slated to come up as free agents for next year in my game -- the only decent one is Keuchel and he's not exactly an ace. So we muddle through.
I'm swimming in good RPs and the AI seems to undervalue them so I may just go with "try to survive five or six" and then use lots of bullpen arms. But the long stretches without days off, and the weakness of the game when it comes to swing men, makes this a challenge.
The walks with these inferior pitchers are infuriating. I hate walks. Finding anyone with good stuff who can also throw strikes is so hard, SP or RP.
It doesn't help that my offense sucks. And the last few games we've been slumping, even when they hit the ball hard, it's all "at-ems".
ETA: And there goes my latest idiot starter, 1 1/3 in and already 3 hits, a home run and a walk. Meanwhile my guys are doing nothing against their SP, who has an ERA twice as high. No wonder managers have gray hair.. if they have any left at all.
And another game lost to fail pitching and no offense. I think I got spoiled when we had a win streak in early July. I should have known this team simply isn't good enough to stay more than within 1 or 2 games of .500.. or worse. Grr.
