Quote:
Originally Posted by joefromchicago
I have already told you what you need to do in order to cut down on the game's usage of relief pitchers as closers: in addition to setting reliever and closer usage to "rarely," set the rotation size to match your staff size and select "allow starters in relief."
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To clarify, I'm very happy with this game world's near-zero use of closers. My issue is with who the AI managers have in closer roles, roles that result in those should-be-aces barely seeing the mound.
Otherwise, I apologize. I'd assumed that your settings wouldn't work with my one-game-a-week, one-starting-pitcher-per-team setup, thought that your recommendation was intended for and would just work with play-nearly-every-day historic replays, but I just now did a test run of another 1901 one-game-a-week season with your settings, and the results were noticeably closer to what I am looking for. Teams with one far-and-away ace, such as Cy Young for Boston, had him start all 14 of its games. Conversely, clubs that had a few starting pitchers with similar star ratings fighting for that lone starting nod seemed to split up the starts amongst them, which I can understand for a team that doesn't have an easy choice when deciding on an ace.
Quote:
Originally Posted by joefromchicago
If you have a one-man rotation, the game will pick the pitcher with the best ratings to be that one starter.
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This is exactly what I want, but this was not what was happening although changing the setting from one-man rotation to six appears to have helped.
For what it's worth, the default setting for 1901 and many years beyond that point is to use relievers and closers "very rarely," and, once I change the starting rotation to a six-man one, it automatically changes all of the teams to starting the highest rested. (Allowing starters in relief is already the default setting for the teams, at least in 1901.) Plus, I don't think that there's any harm in choosing the six-man rotation for every club, even for teams that only have three or four pitchers on staff, but let me know if you think that could cause issues. (Since I have historic moves/injuries turned on, the size of each team's staff fluctuates throughout the year, and I'd rather just set the league as having a six-man rotation and leave it.)
To comment on your first point, yes, all non-starters are relievers. My issue was that those with 80 stamina *and* having easily the highest star rating and best ratings otherwise on the staff were often being placed in a very seldomly used bullpen. And, even if the star ratings are not all that accurate, Christy Mathewson, for example, was, in my opinion, easily the top pitcher for the Giants in 1901 and 1902 in real life. 1903? Sure, a very strong case could be made for Joe McGinnity instead. 1904 too. Still, in my world, Mathewson should have started much more than two of the team's 14 games in each of those three seasons. I should add that McGinnity only started three games with the Orioles from 1901-02 and three with the Giants from 1902-03 in this world. And the Giants are opening their 1904 campaign with Hooks Wiltse as its lone starting pitcher. Looking at the ratings - ignoring the stars - it still appears that Mathewson would be the club's best option.
But that last paragraph all referred to a world that I had played through three seasons with one-man pitching rotations. Conversely, in the 1901 sim that I just did with the six-man rotation setting, Mathewson started eight of his team's 14 games. Plus, he didn't exactly instill confidence with his 4.43 ERA, so it's understandable that his manager didn't stick with him throughout the season.
The bottom line is that I would still like to set a one-man rotation for every team and not have, for example, Christy Mathewson be rarely used as the team's ace in 1901, 1902 and 1903, but your suggestion is a good workaround for this one-game-a-week setup in addition to the normal play-nearly-ever-day one.