Putting Together a Pitching Staff

[KHarmo88]

Just curious how everyone pieces together their pitching staff. Do you go by OVR's, real life staffs, etc?

[eyeamg0dly]

depends on what your style is. I prefer pitchers with control who can throw a lot of pitches. I want at least one power pitcher in the rotation though, preferably a lefty, but honestly it really depends on my division and who the major threats are. play to your own personal strengths and build your team around them.

[HighCmpPct]

More this year than any year past I'm really looking past overalls.

Mainly this is my range of importance:

1st: A ace to lead my rotation, this is key for me as it's vital to help stop losing streaks.

2nd: a lefty/righty number 2 starter whichever hand my ace pitches with I pick the other.

3rd: I actually have my 8th inning guy here, this is because I've found you're more likely to lose it in the 8th than the 9th.

4th: here's my where my closer comes in. I want a hard throwing K machine that's what matters here to me.

5th: two left handed pen men, one as my lefty specialty guy, and another
for mid-relief.

6th: finish off my rotation, at least one more lefty just so we don't have three straight games with a righty starting.

7th: just finish off my pen with some not great but ok arms, and usually a young starter for long-relief/injury/bad performance guy.

[KHarmo88]

HighCmpPct - how do you go about calling up pitchers in the minors as to when they're ready? For example, if your rotation is doing good but you have a AAA pitcher blowing AAA away, would you call him up for the pen, insert him in rotation, or keep in AAA?

[HighCmpPct]

Quote: Originally Posted by KHarmo88

HighCmpPct - how do you go about calling up pitchers in the minors as to when they're ready? For example, if your rotation is doing good but you have a AAA pitcher blowing AAA away, would you call him up for the pen, insert him in rotation, or keep in AAA?

If all of my rotation guys are having good years I'll keep him down till September, then call him up for some starts. Then in the off-season I'll trade/let walk one of my starters and call him up for the next season.

However if were having a bad year and are out of it but my starters are still having good years, I'll probably call him up to replace my long relief guy. Then if he does good in that spot I'll replace one of my starters with him.

Last scenario is we're in a playoff race and all my starters are doing good but we could use some offensive help. Then I would move one of my lower starters for some offensive help and call the young guy up to replace him.

[KHarmo88]

That makes a lot of sense. I appreciate your in depth feedback. This is my second year doing a franchise (of all 162 games) and last year I felt as if I didn't really control the pitching staff/minors the proper way.

[HighCmpPct]

No problem man, yeah it can definitely get a little hectic lol.

Also I really don't go with overalls or potentials with my minor league guys, I pretty much go buy how they perform. Like with my Braves test chises so far this year. Even though my vault downloaded Simmons is a A potential, Pastornicky has beaten him out for the job in spring training in two out of three chises I've done.

[kmoser]

I am going to focus on pitching and minors more this year. I want to get a good solid pitching staff. Probably sign some good pitchers in the offseason.