disable closers in some historic years

WestCoastGuy · 08-18-2020, 12:48 PM

As I explore the early 20th century in OOTP, I've discovered that oftentimes teams will name their best or one of their best pitchers as a closer despite the league settings for that year listing "use of closers" as "very rarely" in addition to "use of relievers" being "very rarely." A team wouldn't realistically put a high-quality pitcher in a "very rarely" used position, but the AI seems to be doing that quite often in these years.

Perhaps a fix for this would be to remove the position of closer from all rosters for any years that have a "use of closers" setting of "very rarely" or "rarely," particularly if "use of relievers" is also "very rarely" or "rarely."

joefromchicago · 08-18-2020, 10:05 PM

For leagues in the pre-reliever era, take the following steps:

Pitching rotations should equal the number of pitchers on a team's staff or six, whichever is lower;
Rotation mode should be set to "start highest rested;"
Allow starters in relief;
Use of relievers and use of closers should be set to "very rarely;"
Read my threads on pitcher usage in the pre-reliever era here and here.

WestCoastGuy · 08-19-2020, 12:57 AM

Thanks for your response. I have to admit that I was basing what I said more on two other factors.

One was my simply looking at who the AI would put in the role of closer on any given day and often seeing somebody with 80 stamina and a star rating that should make them the team's #1 or #2 starter. However, it turns out that, in the end, the season-end individual statistics are not too far off of the real-life ones as far as games started and innings pitched go. Pitchers with those characteristics - high stamina and high star rating - ended up not being season-long closers. What I'm saying is that I was looking more at the trees than at the forest.

Second, I've experimented with a football-type one-game-a-week schedule for the 1901, 1902 and 1903 seasons. Had each team have a 1-man pitching staff and, other than that, didn't change any related settings. I also had real-life transactions and injuries turned on. So, in this world, especially in those years, a team would normally be expected to throw their ace week after week after week and have him rack up nearly all of that team's innings pitched for the season. What happened instead is that I have, for example, the Giants usually putting Christy Mathewson as its closer and him barely seeing any action when he should be the team's ace. Specifically, over three 14-game seasons, he threw 56-2/3 innings, averaging 19 innings a season, when he should have averaged around 126 a year. He started six games, two each season. Conversely, one area where this setup did mostly work was that Boston did start Cy Young in nearly every game. In three seasons, he racked up 369-1/3 innings, an average of 123 a season. He started 41 out of 43 possible games (Boston had a tiebreaker game, a 15th game, in 1901).

But this issue is not just with the Giants. Right now, on opening day in 1904, the Boston Beaneaters have all four pitchers on their staff with 80 stamina, but the two-star pitcher, the worst of the four, is the team's lone starter. The White Sox have a 2-1/2-star pitcher as their starter with two 3-1/2 star throwers in the bullpen instead, all with 80 stamina. And Christy Mathewson, his team's closer, is a four-star pitcher while the other three on the Giants staff are three stars or lower.

But I know that in playing a one-game-a-week setup, I'm going against how OOTP is designed, going against teams playing nearly every day, so I suppose it's understandable to run into issues like these. And when I looked more so at the big picture, end-of-season stats and how they compared to real-life ones for 140- and 154-game seasons, the issue wasn't nearly as significant as I had thought it was. But, even if this isn't as big of an issue as I had originally believed when regular schedules are used, it is essentially game breaking in my created one-game-a-week world, so, for that reason, I would still like closers to either be removed entirely or have AI treat relievers as unimportant in years where closers and relievers are used "very rarely" or "rarely."

joefromchicago · 08-19-2020, 10:56 AM

Any pitcher on an AI team who is not in the rotation automatically becomes a reliever. So if your rotation size is one and your staff size is four, then you'll end up with one starter and three relievers, even if all of the pitchers have 80 stamina and have "starter" as their expected roles.

I'm not sure why you're complaining about unrealistic results when you have a one-game-a-week schedule. As you note,that's unrealistic, so you should expect other unrealistic results to flow from it. If you have a one-man rotation, the game will pick the pitcher with the best ratings to be that one starter. If you think somebody else should be starting instead, you may want to take a glance at the ratings (not the stars - those can be misleading). In 1903, for instance, Christy Mathewson wasn't the best pitcher on the Giants - Joe McGinnity was.

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." So, for instance, if your pitching staff consists of four pitchers, set the rotation size to four, even if you have a one-game-a-week schedule and expect that the top starter will start most games. The other pitchers will pick up relief work on an as-needed basis, rather than having any of them designated as the team's closer.

WestCoastGuy · 08-19-2020, 01:01 PM

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."

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.

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.

joefromchicago · 08-19-2020, 04:14 PM

I'm glad my recommended settings are working out for you. I don't think there would be any problem in setting rotation size to six, even if pitching staffs have fewer than six pitchers. I think five is a reasonably accurate size for a staff in 1901-04. That number would increase to six for 1905-14.

Yes, OOTP can do a much better job of handling pre-reliever pitching staffs than it currently does. And I agree with you that there should be a "never" setting below "very rarely" for closers. Unfortunately, the developers really haven't shown much interest in making even minor changes to this aspect of the game, which is why I've posted my findings and recommendations in the threads that I linked above. Given the limitations of working within the game's rotation model, which is not suited to the way pitchers were actually used prior to around 1940, the best we can do right now is to expand the pitching rotation to encompass as many pitchers on the staff as possible and fiddle with the usage settings.

08-19-2020, 10:56 AM	#4
joefromchicago Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2011 Posts: 3,691	Any pitcher on an AI team who is not in the rotation automatically becomes a reliever. So if your rotation size is one and your staff size is four, then you'll end up with one starter and three relievers, even if all of the pitchers have 80 stamina and have "starter" as their expected roles. I'm not sure why you're complaining about unrealistic results when you have a one-game-a-week schedule. As you note,that's unrealistic, so you should expect other unrealistic results to flow from it. If you have a one-man rotation, the game will pick the pitcher with the best ratings to be that one starter. If you think somebody else should be starting instead, you may want to take a glance at the ratings (not the stars - those can be misleading). In 1903, for instance, Christy Mathewson wasn't the best pitcher on the Giants - Joe McGinnity was. 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." So, for instance, if your pitching staff consists of four pitchers, set the rotation size to four, even if you have a one-game-a-week schedule and expect that the top starter will start most games. The other pitchers will pick up relief work on an as-needed basis, rather than having any of them designated as the team's closer. __________________ American-Ethnic (and Canadian) Namesets Historical Minor League Schedules 1870s City/Team Nickname Randomizers "It's Usually Sunny in Philadelphia" weather mod Negro League Schedules

08-19-2020, 04:14 PM	#6
joefromchicago Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2011 Posts: 3,691	I'm glad my recommended settings are working out for you. I don't think there would be any problem in setting rotation size to six, even if pitching staffs have fewer than six pitchers. I think five is a reasonably accurate size for a staff in 1901-04. That number would increase to six for 1905-14. Yes, OOTP can do a much better job of handling pre-reliever pitching staffs than it currently does. And I agree with you that there should be a "never" setting below "very rarely" for closers. Unfortunately, the developers really haven't shown much interest in making even minor changes to this aspect of the game, which is why I've posted my findings and recommendations in the threads that I linked above. Given the limitations of working within the game's rotation model, which is not suited to the way pitchers were actually used prior to around 1940, the best we can do right now is to expand the pitching rotation to encompass as many pitchers on the staff as possible and fiddle with the usage settings. __________________ American-Ethnic (and Canadian) Namesets Historical Minor League Schedules 1870s City/Team Nickname Randomizers "It's Usually Sunny in Philadelphia" weather mod Negro League Schedules

08-18-2020, 12:48 PM	#1
WestCoastGuy Minors (Double A) Join Date: Nov 2018 Location: American in Europe Posts: 196	disable closers in some historic years As I explore the early 20th century in OOTP, I've discovered that oftentimes teams will name their best or one of their best pitchers as a closer despite the league settings for that year listing "use of closers" as "very rarely" in addition to "use of relievers" being "very rarely." A team wouldn't realistically put a high-quality pitcher in a "very rarely" used position, but the AI seems to be doing that quite often in these years. Perhaps a fix for this would be to remove the position of closer from all rosters for any years that have a "use of closers" setting of "very rarely" or "rarely," particularly if "use of relievers" is also "very rarely" or "rarely."

08-18-2020, 10:05 PM	#2
joefromchicago Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2011 Posts: 3,691	For leagues in the pre-reliever era, take the following steps: Pitching rotations should equal the number of pitchers on a team's staff or six, whichever is lower; Rotation mode should be set to "start highest rested;" Allow starters in relief; Use of relievers and use of closers should be set to "very rarely;" Read my threads on pitcher usage in the pre-reliever era here and here. __________________ American-Ethnic (and Canadian) Namesets Historical Minor League Schedules 1870s City/Team Nickname Randomizers "It's Usually Sunny in Philadelphia" weather mod Negro League Schedules Last edited by joefromchicago; 08-18-2020 at 10:33 PM.

08-19-2020, 12:57 AM	#3
WestCoastGuy Minors (Double A) Join Date: Nov 2018 Location: American in Europe Posts: 196	Thanks for your response. I have to admit that I was basing what I said more on two other factors. One was my simply looking at who the AI would put in the role of closer on any given day and often seeing somebody with 80 stamina and a star rating that should make them the team's #1 or #2 starter. However, it turns out that, in the end, the season-end individual statistics are not too far off of the real-life ones as far as games started and innings pitched go. Pitchers with those characteristics - high stamina and high star rating - ended up not being season-long closers. What I'm saying is that I was looking more at the trees than at the forest. Second, I've experimented with a football-type one-game-a-week schedule for the 1901, 1902 and 1903 seasons. Had each team have a 1-man pitching staff and, other than that, didn't change any related settings. I also had real-life transactions and injuries turned on. So, in this world, especially in those years, a team would normally be expected to throw their ace week after week after week and have him rack up nearly all of that team's innings pitched for the season. What happened instead is that I have, for example, the Giants usually putting Christy Mathewson as its closer and him barely seeing any action when he should be the team's ace. Specifically, over three 14-game seasons, he threw 56-2/3 innings, averaging 19 innings a season, when he should have averaged around 126 a year. He started six games, two each season. Conversely, one area where this setup did mostly work was that Boston did start Cy Young in nearly every game. In three seasons, he racked up 369-1/3 innings, an average of 123 a season. He started 41 out of 43 possible games (Boston had a tiebreaker game, a 15th game, in 1901). But this issue is not just with the Giants. Right now, on opening day in 1904, the Boston Beaneaters have all four pitchers on their staff with 80 stamina, but the two-star pitcher, the worst of the four, is the team's lone starter. The White Sox have a 2-1/2-star pitcher as their starter with two 3-1/2 star throwers in the bullpen instead, all with 80 stamina. And Christy Mathewson, his team's closer, is a four-star pitcher while the other three on the Giants staff are three stars or lower. But I know that in playing a one-game-a-week setup, I'm going against how OOTP is designed, going against teams playing nearly every day, so I suppose it's understandable to run into issues like these. And when I looked more so at the big picture, end-of-season stats and how they compared to real-life ones for 140- and 154-game seasons, the issue wasn't nearly as significant as I had thought it was. But, even if this isn't as big of an issue as I had originally believed when regular schedules are used, it is essentially game breaking in my created one-game-a-week world, so, for that reason, I would still like closers to either be removed entirely or have AI treat relievers as unimportant in years where closers and relievers are used "very rarely" or "rarely."