Ha, I am really looking forward to playing around with that part of the new game... just watching the clock now!

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, definitely some good ideas to consider when playing in different types of ballparks!

Thanks for watching! I'm really excited about the more granular ratings and the player development lab too. Definitely worry it could be overpowered, but hopefully they will get it straightened out if it is. I'm on Steam so I'm going to have to wait until 3/15, enjoy the beta!

Thanks for the ideas! I agree three pitches is the bare minimum for a starter, and I'd prefer four or five all else being equal, but it sounds like I'm a little more willing to run out a starter with only three pitches. Our current ace, Jim Lance, has just three pitches, and his stuff is "only" a 65, but he's been very successful, with a 141 ERA+ and 71 FIP- through his first 6+ major league seasons. Sincere Shazier is another HS pitcher we drafted in this playthrough with only three pitches, who was also well above average for nine years before we traded him away to save some money. So it can be done! I'm definitely going to look harder for some of those late round guys with a lot of pitches!

That's a great question. I think a true numbers person would probably just say to put the better pitcher into the role that would be pitching more innings (likely the Stopper). I still think I generally lean towards having the better pitcher in the Closer role, while using the Stopper to get a lot of important innings from a second reliever who is just a touch below the first guy. Trait wise, for Closer I'd probably lean towards a pitcher with better stuff, while for the Stopper I'd lean towards a player with more Stamina and lower Injury Proneness, all else being more or less equal. Good luck in the game!

Interesting! I'll have to keep track of how my minor leaguers are doing better and at what levels I have groundball-focused pitching coaches.

Definitely lots of big-time closers I failed to mention.... in addition to Smith, Jeff Reardon, Rollie Fingers, John Franco, K-Rod and Troy Percival could have made my list as well. And probably another dozen or so additional names I could add as well! I don't put a pitch limit on my Stopper, but I always set every MLB pitcher to the aggressive tiredness hook in the strategy settings, and the last couple seasons I have had Auclair set to sit if his rest status is below 65%. I think two Stoppers could work but I have not tried it. Lorne Walboure, the Traitorous Canadian, was the first guy I used in the stopper role in Buffalo, but then we moved on to Nate Ruckle for several seasons before Auclair took over. So it has been over a decade now. I want the Stopper to pitch as many innings as possible and in as many important situations as possible, which is why I have Auclair set to come in 7th inning & close game. And that's why I have the Setup guys available for the 6th inning or later. It probably is an inning early by traditional baseball strategy, but the way I draw things up my Closer should be pitching the ninth and sometimes the eighth, and the Stopper often the seventh and eighth. So if I'm going to use one of the Setup guys in those games, I think I have to be willing to bring them in in the sixth. I think if I had a Setup guy to come in 7th inning or later he might only get 30-40 innings pitched a season, since those last three innings would typically be going to my Stopper and Closer. That's my logic, but it doesn't mean it's right!

@@oldschoolsports Yes, lots of old Firemen of the Year,as it was called then I recall. Most with some personality that I think could be cool if OOTP add in as vital. I got that aggressive tiredness too, and I will give a stopper, maybe two, a shot in my ongoing save. So setup guys in the 6th then. I played around with 2 closers once to see the effect of shared duty, which is common now and then. Since I had the guys for it I got good results. But you need to trust your Manager 🙄

@@stanleyrosella7042 I definitely need to try the two closer or two stopper things one of these years!

That is a good point, at least in the game I often need to keep them in Rookie ball for 2-3 seasons, which is not quite how it would work with a top prospect in real life!

@@oldschoolsports so they’re in there for 2-3 seasons, surely I would imagine their potential and morale goes down. How do you deal with that? I’m asking this follow up cos I just drafted Levonas in my Marlins save 😈

@@FRDRD1 I just try to surround the real prospects with as many good personality players as possible, and the best players I can, to hopefully support their attitudes as best as I can and ensure the team is competitive. Only other option I can see would be to promote them to A ball too early, which I have tended to avoid, thinking that may just compound the problem. Basically I just suck it up and hope for the best, not a great solution I know!

Ha, if the contracts are cheap enough I don't mind! Two million a year for a three or four millions dollar a year player is still a bargain, but there's certainly also a school of thought to just fill a good chunk of the bullpen with minimum salary players and keep churning through them.

I see. I just downloaded the game and started watching your tutorials. I like everything to be as close to reality as possible. Great channel @@oldschoolsports

@@lisalopez8026 Hope you enjoy the game! Part of the reason I signed those players initially is that they were also both capable of starting or relieving, which I also valued. I figured if they ended up being solid fourth or fifth starters they would be very good value, but over time as my pitching staff got better they have been relegated to the bullpen, where I think their value is definitely not as high.

Great video. I would prefer the flexibility of shorter contracts to manage payroll flexibility (although those are cheap salaries) because I would think a 6-10 year contract would be harder to trade and since all that money is guaranteed if it’s a pitcher who can’t stay healthy he’s probably someone I can walk away from once their shorter term contract expires

@@alanansara2190 That's a fair point. If the dollars were big, there is no way I would have offered those ten year contracts. But given that one was about $20 million total and the other was about $30 million total, it was not going to be crippling if the pitchers didn't work out, and there was a low probability that the contracts would turn into a massive win. Normally I'm all about shorter contracts and team options to minimize the risk!!!