Let's revisit Friday lineup changes for P

[Daren E]

I am in favor of the Friday rule proposed to allow a pitcher that hasn't pitched yet during the week to be replaced with another pitcher who hasn't pitched yet. The benefit of eliminating random and unforeseen zeros outweighs the potential small benefit someone else may gain by playing the system.

[Sebadiah23]

What was the reasoning behind eliminating streaming of pitchers in the first place? I've been playing for many years now, but I can't remember.

I am guessing it is simply that it wasn't how the NFBC game was created.

However several of the longtime players here will remember the WCOFF format (which NFBC HOFer Shawn Childs wrote most of) that had M and F lineup changes for all players. We thought that was an excellent format.

"We" did?

Being able to swap RPs out on Friday who didn't pitch yet for a SP is like the "Monty Hall" problem. It seems like a fair/zero sum switch on the surface, but it really turns a one-start SP week into a virtual two-start week for that time slot, in a very arbitrary/random way, rather than strategic-based. To me there is nothing appealing about getting rewarded for a negative event (closer not being used).

Using Odorizzi or not this week was a risk-reward decision, as he was tentatively slated for Saturday - get a potentially better start from him or take a lesser but more set-in-stone start from somebody else.

Please don't take these interesting strategic decisions away in exchange for Nancy Kerrigan "Why Me?" Whoopsies Mulligan switches. "We" like strategy. Strategy = fun. It's nice to discuss ideas but please, please don't flush strategy down the toilet (IMHO).

[GetALife]

Good timing for this thread to re-appear.
Brandon Beachy is starting his first game of the season on Saturday.
But most of us are going to have to wait, before plugging him in the lineups.
Changing over to a Friday deadline for pitchers, seems to make a lot of sense.

According to a certain web site player caption on Beachy.........he is NOT to be picked up yet; just "watched" for now. I can't believe people went against that before this said site even posted that statement. I'll make sure to cut Beachy today then because they said it's too early to pick him up yet. LMFAO! Seriously though, where do they find these writers at?

[Cocktails and Dreams]

What was the reasoning behind eliminating streaming of pitchers in the first place? I've been playing for many years now, but I can't remember.

I am guessing it is simply that it wasn't how the NFBC game was created.

However several of the longtime players here will remember the WCOFF format (which NFBC HOFer Shawn Childs wrote most of) that had M and F lineup changes for all players. We thought that was an excellent format.

"We" did?

Being able to swap RPs out on Friday who didn't pitch yet for a SP is like the "Monty Hall" problem. It seems like a fair/zero sum switch on the surface, but it really turns a one-start SP week into a virtual two-start week for that time slot, in a very arbitrary/random way, rather than strategic-based. To me there is nothing appealing about getting rewarded for a negative event (closer not being used).

Using Odorizzi or not this week was a risk-reward decision, as he was tentatively slated for Saturday - get a potentially better start from him or take a lesser but more set-in-stone start from somebody else.

Please don't take these interesting strategic decisions away in exchange for Nancy Kerrigan "Why Me?" Whoopsies Mulligan switches. "We" like strategy. Strategy = fun. It's nice to discuss ideas but please, please don't flush strategy down the toilet (IMHO).

There is far more strategy in the contest that Perry was talking about than this one. Not following you at all on this. I would argue that you are completely hamstrung here. Complete luck of the draw who your guys face when going twice. And streaming occurs here, just like it did there. Here we simply pick up bums that are pitching twice to do it. There we picked up bums that were pitching in a given period, where we needed an arm. Differentiating relief slots from starters and having flex pitching spots created tons of strategic decisions. I don't know who Perry was talking about when he said "we" but I am most certainly in that camp. Gave us all the power to win or lose based on decision making. And obviously, what we are discussing in this thread did not come into play there, as we were not hamstrung by rules that try to prevent streaming, even though there is still streaming. It just makes it a luckbox to a degree on who your pitchers face when going twice, another thing that did not occur. It also made pitching as important as hitting.

That being said, Greg is never changing it. He hates that for some reason. So I think the best we can do is allow for pitching moves on Friday only on unlocked pitchers. Unlocked pitchers are whoever has not yet put up a pitching stat that week. Seems very simple, very clean, and very fair.

[Cocktails and Dreams]

Good timing for this thread to re-appear.
Brandon Beachy is starting his first game of the season on Saturday.
But most of us are going to have to wait, before plugging him in the lineups.
Changing over to a Friday deadline for pitchers, seems to make a lot of sense.

According to a certain web site player caption on Beachy.........he is NOT to be picked up yet; just "watched" for now. I can't believe people went against that before this said site even posted that statement. I'll make sure to cut Beachy today then because they said it's too early to pick him up yet. LMFAO! Seriously though, where do they find these writers at?

Keep in mind the writers aren't necessarily writing their opinions based on 15 team NFBC leagues. A vast majority of the leagues around the country there is no way Beachy would be even remotely close to a good player to have on a roster. I don't see how the writer was wrong at all.

[TParsons]

I'd much rather have Monday and Friday lineup changes for ALL pitchers, just like we do for hitters, rather than something that needs to be coded around DL stints, playing/not playing a game, etc. I know it's unlucky to have a pitcher go on the DL or be skipped, but the timing of that player's start is also an element of luck. You have to be lucky enough to have a pitcher on your bench that has not pitched yet in order to replace that pitcher. If the "skipped" pitcher is supposed to go during the weekend series and isn't scratched until after the deadline, it's still an element of luck that is not unlike the variance that occurs under the current set of rules. If we're going to make changes, let's just go to M & F changes for hitters and pitchers. Doing this really forces more strategy.

Another thing that needs to be considered is what the masses of potential customers would prefer. Does a new player want to come in and drop 1k+ to play under a quirky set of rules that they are not used to playing in their home league? I'm not sure. I think most are used to weekly, bi-weekly, or daily changes though, so that shouldn't be an issue.

[Sebadiah23]

Both sound more like gamebot grinding rather than strategy- yuck.

[marknym]

As several others -- including Greg -- have said, Friday pitcher swaps would just make for a contest that is weighted too heavily toward starting pitcher streaming. I think this is a bad idea. I personally don't think I'd play with those rules.

[DOUGHBOYS]

Just to get us back on track....
The proposed rule change is to have the ability to exchange a pitcher who has no stats with another pitcher who also has no stats for the Mon-Thurs period.
No streaming.

[marknym]

Just to get us back on track....
The proposed rule change is to have the ability to exchange a pitcher who has no stats with another pitcher who also has no stats for the Mon-Thurs period.
No streaming.

True, but I don't see that anyone has suggested a non-wonky way to do that. And several people have said to just allow Friday swaps for pitchers as a compromise. To me, that circle of thought just brings us back to the old "it'll all even out in the end" solution. That's how we've been playing anyway, I don't think there's anything wrong with how it's been.

[DOUGHBOYS]

True, but I don't see that anyone has suggested a non-wonky way to do that. And several people have said to just allow Friday swaps for pitchers as a compromise. To me, that circle of thought just brings us back to the old "it'll all even out in the end" solution. That's how we've been playing anyway, I don't think there's anything wrong with how it's been.

There's not anything wrong with how it has been. Its been that way since the start.
There was also nothing wrong with hitters on Monday only. But now that we have hitters on Friday as a change, it makes for a better game.
I believe it will be the same way with this proposal.
It allows more freedom in our lineups. More control. I believe most want more freedom and control over our teams.

For those that have pitchers on paternity leave or miss a start at a Manager's whim, or something else, it offers relief and a choice in our pitching staff for the week.
For a fella who rostered a prospect since the draft and that player gets called up surprisingly, he'll get to insert him in his lineup over the weekend.

There are now 2-4 pitchers missing starts each week for one reason or another. That will, most likely, escalate in the future with how clubs baby their pitchers. The rule in place now does work fine, but our game and the game on the field is changing.
This is a rule change that is simple, flows with the future, and allows for changes without streaming.

[Navel Lint]

I guess we can pretend that the last 8 pages of this thread didn't exist, or the thread from 2013 or the one from 20whatever.

I'm still not sure why people want to "fix" a problem that randomly effects different teams, and fix it with a solution that selectively effects different teams. Feel free to read the last eight pages for further explanation.

[Greg Ambrosius]

I think we could go another 8 pages of posts and there would still be a very strong difference of opinion when it comes to Friday pitcher moves. Some people just don't get why it's not perfect for our game and others will keep pushing for it no matter what. And neither is a bad thing.

I'm not against finding a way to replace a pitcher late week who was scheduled to pitch Monday-Thursday and for whatever reason was skipped in the rotation. I have no problem with alleviating that if we can. I want our game to be realistic and it's why we came up with the Friday DL rule several years ago because we saw so many hitters going on the DL on Monday night or Tuesday when reports said they were okay to play that week. It was a problem we could alleviate and we did with hitters.

Pitchers are a slightly different beast, but one that is still worth looking at without turning it into a streaming game. It's very important that we make this a very simple move if we do anything at all. I have my own idea on what could work and we're discussing it with IT to see if it's feasible on our back end or not. We'll see.

I'm making this post because it almost seems like people are posturing to get their thoughts heard on this subject and it's not needed. Of course we always want to improve our game and again if we can do that here we will. We said we thought Glenn's idea had some merit six pages ago. Nothing was going to get changed for 2015, so we had plenty of time to talk this through with our IT department before the 2016 NFBC season. But I can say that we are keeping an open mind when it comes to pitching.

We are against full pitcher moves on Friday, that's for sure. I can explain that separately, but it's not hard to figure out why that doesn't lead to growth of our games. Thanks for the feedback all.

[Cocktails and Dreams]

The beat goes on. Gray last week. Leake this week. Nothing we can do. Is it fair? Yes. Should there be a better set of rules? Yes.

[DOUGHBOYS]

The beat goes on. Gray last week. Leake this week. Nothing we can do. Is it fair? Yes. Should there be a better set of rules? Yes.

Along with the ability to move players freely in and out of the U, CI, and MI spots without being 'frozen' there, I believe those are the two largest 'fixes' for next year.

[Cocktails and Dreams]

The beat goes on. Gray last week. Leake this week. Nothing we can do. Is it fair? Yes. Should there be a better set of rules? Yes.

Along with the ability to move players freely in and out of the U, CI, and MI spots without being 'frozen' there, I believe those are the two largest 'fixes' for next year.

Yeah agree even more on that. Should have been done well before the season after the constant reminders and at least ten K changing hands because of it last year. It is ridiculous to have to jockey your lineups around for no reason. It is not a fantasy baseball skill. And wastes insane amounts of time throughout the season. And furthermore, it is kind of annoying when analyzing your team to have some Billy Butler type guy at first base and Goldy at utility. And there are some rare instances where there is nothing you can do about it even if you ordered your lineup correctly. This situation bit me last year for 10k. Drives me crazy. It certainly does not seem to be a priority, even though they already have the technology in place for football.

[lrr]

I agree. Jockeying around the utility spot takes way too much time. I had to make sure Duda was in my utility spot just in case he was scratched.

[Greg Ambrosius]

The beat goes on. Gray last week. Leake this week. Nothing we can do. Is it fair? Yes. Should there be a better set of rules? Yes.

Along with the ability to move players freely in and out of the U, CI, and MI spots without being 'frozen' there, I believe those are the two largest 'fixes' for next year.

Yeah agree even more on that. Should have been done well before the season after the constant reminders and at least ten K changing hands because of it last year. It is ridiculous to have to jockey your lineups around for no reason. It is not a fantasy baseball skill. And wastes insane amounts of time throughout the season. And furthermore, it is kind of annoying when analyzing your team to have some Billy Butler type guy at first base and Goldy at utility. And there are some rare instances where there is nothing you can do about it even if you ordered your lineup correctly. This situation bit me last year for 10k. Drives me crazy. It certainly does not seem to be a priority, even though they already have the technology in place for football.

I hear you folks loud and clear on these two points. It's something we are talking about, but it's not a simple fix. In football you have three positions that can switch out of the Utility spot and in baseball there are more positions and more factors involved. That will be a top item for 2016 and we agree it needs to be part of our game, just like it is in football. We have already discussed the Friday pitcher possibilities as well. Again, that isn't just an easy flick of the switch to do everything that we're asking for on a Friday, but we've started the discussion and will have an answer before the Rules are released for 2016 whether we think it's a good addition or not and if it can be done for 2016.

Both are being looked at, but for 2016 not for this season.