Number 2 Number 2
Bringing in
the Pitcher with High ERA Adjustment
I played my first game of EI back in 1978. A five inning practice game. It wasn't long before I dived into the ERA adjustment chart. Personally, I love it. I am well aware that others hate it. Hey- whatever floats your boat. The first project I did was a 1977 AL mini season. Fifty games per team, three divisions (I was way ahead of my time!), and four teams per division. I left out Seattle and Toronto, 'cause in my mind it was the right thing to do...Why a NL guy like me would choose to do an AL project is beyond me, but I soon began a separate project- a 1977 NL mini season- same format, and guess which one I finished first? In fact, to this day I am still playing a game from the AL project every once in a while. But let's get back on topic...
The '77 San Diego Padres had a pitcher named John D'Aquisto, and he gave up 19 6 3 8. Awful! In my mini-replay he pitched in 14 games, and ended up with a record of 5-6, 4.77. He struck out an even 100 batters in 88.2 innings. If I recall, I used him mainly as a starter. Yeah, I used him twice as much as he actually played, but I was a rookie gamer at the time. At any rate, he averaged six innings a start. I mention him only because although he gave up a bunch of lines, he managed to have a decent season, which leads me to strain my memory about how I felt about giving him all those starts. All I really remember is that he took some shutouts to the late innings that season, and then became a footnote in my last fifty years of gaming. I think my perception changed completely when I was involved with my buddies Eddie and The Veet in our five season long Nearly Professional Baseball Association. The Veet and I started it in 1979, and all we did was take players from the EI top 400, with The Veet taking five NL teams and I took five AL teams. The season was 48 games long, and this was a league where we had the best going against the best. No D'Aquisto's in this league...Walter Johnson took away 20 lines. Very, very few pitchers gave up hit lines. Most took away between six and fifteen lines. Five seasons of this and you get kind of spoiled. I did a solo replay of the 1908 NL, and again you've got guys taking away fifteen, eighteen lines. Mordecai Brown, Christy Mathewson, Ed Reulbach. You get the idea. Spoiled rotten! However, so far I've just been talkin' 'bout starters, and the topic here is relievers. So let me jet ahead to my first EI draft monster league, an eight team, 154 game season based on the 1987 season. All picks were random for each team, so it was during this project that I got a taste of having bullpens with bums. I had the same rule then as I do now with the 5Y League: players needed to hit their actual IP or AB before cutting them loose and replacing them with a ramdom pick. Suddenly things changed. Nolan Ryan goes five, and gives up too many walks, and he's due up to bat, so we pinch hit for him and bring in Tom Hume with his 5.36 ERA. I definitely remember what went through my brain during those types of games. I would cringe as I stared at the choices available. Oh man, this guy gives up eight lines...that one thirteen. The hell!
The thing is, once I made up my mind who to put in, the results demonstrated that it wasn't the end of the world, and that not every pitcher can be Jack Chesbro or Lefty Grove. I found the range you'd expect from dice-generated results. I had guys with big hit lines retire the side in order, and I'd have them get shelled worse than the crab legs at the local seafood buffet. Still, the overriding thing I do is cringe when trying to decide who to feed to the wolves.
Retro 5Y presents such a dilemma. I'll use the Bitters as an example. Their two best relievers are Hank Behrman and Tom Ferrick. Their ERA adjustment is NC (no change, for those not familiar with EI). Four of their starters take away lines, with Dutch Leonard the big dog, as he takes away 13 5 3 6. Every other pitcher on this staff gives up lines. Until recently, Billy Pierce was the worst of the bunch, giving up 13 5 3 6, the opposite of Leonard. The releiver with the next to worst rating was Paul Erickson, who gave up 7 2 1 2. He reached his IP fairly recently (17), and the Bitters brought up the reliever on their "farm" club, who happened to be Alex Konikowski. Good old Alex gives up 18 6 3 8, and will be with the club for at least 33 innings. You think this is bad? The Mutuals have Hugh Casey (+20 6 3 8) and Sam Nahem (+16 6 3 8) telling stories in the 'pen. The Spiders have Jackie Schwamb (+22), Alex Kellner (+19), and just recently brought up Gerry Staley (+15). Brutal! Here's what I've been finding...
The effect on the offense is seldom an extra base hit. It is usually a single. Even if you had a guy with a HR rating of 131 going against Casey, that first dice still needs to be a '1' to signal a circuit shot, or any extra base hit for that matter, unless you had a batter who doubles in the 1-6-x range, as Stan Musial just happens to do in this league. By the way, even Tri-Town has their share of bullpen splinter collectors: Woody Main (+21), Bob Savage (+12) and Al Benton (+9). For fun, let's see the matchup between "The Man" and "The Case-a-roo."
As mentioned above, Casey gives up 20 6 3 8. Musial's ridiculous line for 1948 reads like this: 132 142 166 316/324. You sure you want Casey to pitch to this guy? Not taking into consideration the ball park factors for each team, the right hand throwing Casey turns Musial's single's line into 356, nearly a 50% chance for a single. The good news for Casey is that if the second roll begins with a '4,' then Musial is retired. Of course, I may bring in Casey to face the right hand batting Cliff Aberson, who hit .188 that year. Cliff's single line is 214 against righties, and against Casey, this jumps to 246. If the second roll begins with a '3,' then Cliffy Baby is out. In case you're interested, as of this writing Casey has given up 34 ER in 24.2 IP (12.40). The Mutuals have him until he pitches a total of 36 innings- about twelve to go!
I remember talking with The Veet about this years and years ago, during one of the early 5Y seasons. My take was something like, "well bringing in a guy that gives up twelve hit lines is not so bad. After all, he only gives up two on the middle die, and in the scheme of things, that's not a whole lot. All you gotta think is that any roll of 4-x-x and up is a sure out." I don't recall his response, but I'm sure it was profound.
So...Have I put you to sleep yet?