Putting a cap on pitching

[Reds GM (Pat H.)]

I would like to get feedback on changing the rules to:

Per weekly match-up:

6 games started maximum

&

14 relief appearances maximum

Each team in real life plays 162 games over 26 weeks. That equals 6.23 games per week. (6 starts)
6.23 games per week equals 56 or 57 innings. (50 innings pitched)

We have 30 teams just as in real life. If some teams carry 8 to 10 starters and 15 back of the bullpen relievers, it just doesn't give enough players to go around. Every team needs to be able to have access to pitching.

[Guardians GM (Matt)]

I would go 7 at least (possibly 8) to not punish people who have multiple pitchers end up on two start weeks but otherwise it looks good.

[Rangers GM (Victor)]

Why would we cap the pitching as we already altered the tie breaker to be more fair? Like Matt said, so if you have 4-5 starters and they happen to get 2 starts that week, you want to punish that team now?

[Deleted]

If this is to stop owners from having 10 to 15 sp or whatever this wont do it. owners will still stock pile pitchers hoping to get 5 aces. if u want to stop people from doing that your gonna have to limit pitchers owned. And i dont know how u would do that.

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[Guardians GM (Matt)]

Given that starting pitching is the limited quantity that you are trying to diffuse out amongst the league. I am not sure any rule change is going to really accomplish that to a great extent because teams will still look for depth and quality driving quantity (unless you put in roster caps).

If the goal is to combat the number of relievers a team is deploying I think the answer is to cap the number of relief spots. If a team wants to carry 14 relievers, that is fine they can only start say 3-4 a night or something like that. Relievers for the most part in this league are a way to fill in the innings gaps and add cheap strikeouts and hopefully ERA and WHIP with the occasional hold. But in reality there are less than 30 saves guys and probably about 40-50 guys who reliably get holds. Everything else is just innings and those are innings that can help a lower team make up for a lack of starters.

[Deleted]

Look im all for trying to equal league out so it is competive but limiting pitching isnt gonna work. no way at this point in a league like this can u tell an owner that has stocked piled pitching that he can no longer build his team that way and limit him or her. Teams that are short pitching need to build it up through minors and FA. Im totally against limiting roster spots or innings as i think we are to far into this to do so and make it fair for everybody and this is coming from an owner that is limited in pitching right now. Just my opinion and would love to hear others on this.

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[Deleted]

Nov 27, 2013 11:58:56 GMT -8 @indianaman5774 said:

Look im all for trying to equal league out so it is competive but limiting pitching isnt gonna work. no way at this point in a league like this can u tell an owner that has stocked piled pitching that he can no longer build his team that way and limit him or her. Teams that are short pitching need to build it up through minors and FA. Im totally against limiting roster spots or innings as i think we are to far into this to do so and make it fair for everybody and this is coming from an owner that is limited in pitching right now. Just my opinion and would love to hear others on this.

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I do see your point. If it's a serious enough issue, though, I say change it. This league is here for the long haul (hopefully). If there's a systemic issue, we should fix it.

IF we do go with a pitching maximum, I say just give a max of 40 or 50 IPs, leaving the choice of how to use those innings to the GM.

[Reds GM (Pat H.)]

I see the arguments both ways. We just have to remember that we are playing in a 30 team league. I wouldn't even bring it up otherwise.

I had first thought about having a 25 man active roster each week, real life teams only have 25 men to play in games each day. Unfortunately, it would be hard to keep track of all the players being moved on and off the 25 man each week.

We could put a cap on the amount of starters and/or relievers that have appeared in the majors. You could still stockpile minor leaguers.

It just seems we will always have a few teams that cannot not meet the innings minimum, let alone compete. I don't know how many owners will want to take over teams in this predicament.
If nothing is done, the price for pitching will continue to escalate just due to supply and demand. I'm just trying to find a way to increase the supply of pitching.

[Phillies GM (Robin)]

I took over a pretty poor pitching team last year. I struggled to make the IP cap all season. While I don't feel my staff is totally solid now, it's far from the terrible it was. I don't think that I can compete this year, but I've got two solid starters who have top of the rotation stuff, prospects in the minors with the same, young guys with big question marks but upside in the bigs now, plus a couple of guys coming off Tommy John who may be solid innings eaters at the least.

Pitching had to be a huge focus for the year starting with the draft and including a great deal of trade talk that came to nothing and some that did. I made stupid mistakes, passed on players who turned out to be great (see Liriano among others) and I gave up a whole lot of offense to do what I did. This is done for better and worse and I've got all kinds of tinkering yet to do. All that said, if things go well then I've remade a staff in just one year. We've yet to hit RFA, FA, or the draft for this off season too.

That's what dynasty leagues are about in my opinion.

You're right in that teams will struggle to make the limits. Pitchers will not be readily available and will cost an arm and a leg to get. You'll have to decide how much you're willing to pay for it. Pitchers will go for outrageous prices. In the other dynasty league I play in Kershaw just went for $41M AAS for 3 YEARS in RFA. His owner couldn't match that ridiculous price. Still, that's how prized a player like him is. You'll have to draft and trade with this in mind.

I'm not trying to convince you that I'm a fantasy baseball genius and I'm sorry if all this sounds preachy, but this is the fun of the game to me. I don't want the challenge mitigated.

I say let's not try to administrate the scarcity of pitching out. It's real. The RL Twins just gave Ricky Nolasco $49M over 4 years and it was arguably A GOOD THING!. He's no Ace. He's a passable #3 who's just turned 30. Pitching scarcity is real. The Twins are spending something like an eighth of their payroll on a number #3. They're paying Phil Hughes too! 3 years for a career 4+ ERA guy with a bit of upside. Let's suffer like real GM's do trying to find guys. That's the game. Players fall apart fast. Dynasties don't last forever, even with nearly unlimited funds like the RL Angels, Dodgers, and Yankees. We're already removing that set up with an even salary cap in two years. That should eventually balance things out. The smart (and lucky) teams will guess right and manage their payroll correctly to succeed. The bad (and unlucky) ones will fail and their teams will need to be scrapped and rebuilt. The RL Astros are doing this right now. That's the game.

I vote no changes, no cap. We can certainly look at it again as time goes on but it seems to me that it's just the game we're playing.

Well that's my argument. I'll climb off my soapbox and put my Liberal hat back on. I've inexplicably lost it.

[Guardians GM (Matt)]

I think the pitching thing gets overblown because it is easier to make the position player holes look better. The team I inherited was literally one player deep across the board. I essentially had to punt a OF spot and my Util spot because there were not start position players out there. On the pitching side I hung on to Roy Halladay and his injury made me have to spend money on Joe Saunders and Freddy Garcia to even make the innings cap. That is life in a 30 team dynasty league.

I realized this and have drafted/traded/signed a ton of minor league pitching, of which I can now use as a commodity to acquire hitting. For all the grumbling about pitching I picked up high end pitching in Danny Salazar, Eddie Butler, and Tyler Glasnow during minor league Free Agency.

Just like real life teams are going to need to overpay in money and prospects to get innings to fill out their rotation.

[Padres GM (Amy)]

How are we doing finding GMs? has there been specific concerns about pitching availability from new GMs?

[Deleted]

Limiting us to a 25 man roster would solve all problems. Does Fantrax have a setting where u can limit the 25 man roster and then still have MIL players not eligible to start? I believe CBS has this...

[Z-Former Angels GM (Mike C.)]

you have a min innings, just put a max innings also if your going to do it.

[Deleted]

I agree with what Vic said and I disagree 100% having a max innings pitched limit...