how to change size of pitching rotation

[bobsayah]

I just had my team make the playoffs and I want to change my pitching rotation size from 5 to 4, but even though I know it's there, I can't seem to find the option to do this. Can someone please point me to it?

[DandricSturm]

It is the Rotation Size button on the Modify Roster and Lineups screen.

[redeck]

is there anyway to set rotation size to smaller than 4 for use in say deadball era?

[DandricSturm]

I think the best you can do is set it to 4, then use the player usage button to set the #4 guy to "Skip this pitcher's turn often"

[Amaroq]

redek, what I found myself doing was 'manually' starting my most rested pitcher.

I edited my puresim.xml to let pitchers 'recover' more quickly, in a way that was ideally suited to pitching every fourth day, but could let players pitch every third day if they had to.

I used the real schedules from, for example, 1901.

I set the game to 'rotation size 4' - this is global for the entire league, so AI teams used a 4-man rotation.

Then, I manually chose my pitcher, and I learned somewhat where that '3 man rotation' came from: its not like teams played 30 consecutive days, and three pitchers pitched every third day. I found myself with 3 'regular' starters, a fourth 'spot' starter, and occasionally needing a fifth starter for double-headers, etc.

With an average of 6 days on and 1 day off (Sundays), I would typically pitch something like this:
123412-
312431-
231423-

So after three weeks, pitchers 1, 2, and 3 each had 5 starts, and pitcher 4 had 3 starts. There were enough irregular off-days in the schedule that this got my starters up over 40 starts each, out of a 140-game schedule.

I also manually adjusted things to keep my 'starters' available out of the bullpen in an emergency.

It was a bit of a pain, a lot of manual changes and no 'sim' period longer than about 6 days, but it worked very well - enough so that I started to feel like it was too significant an advantage over the AI (which was religiously pitching its #4 starter every fourth day), so I decided not to do it anymore.

[redeck]

Amaroq,

Thanks for the input. Ive not had much success in editing the xml files so i decided to let that kind of fixing rest.

your simple rotation shuffle though looks interesting and i may try it especially when my Tigers are in a pennant run. my 1901 season the bengals led the american league for nearly the entire season with Phi. close on out heels. with 4 games left, Boston came out of 3rd place winning all 4 games to win the division from games behind! yes PHi and Det both lost all 4 games.

then Boston had the nerve to get swept in the World Series by Pitsburgh.

Myabe if Det had went with 3 starters the last 2 weeks of season we could have won one more game....sigh

thanks for the ideas Amaroq

[Amaroq]

You're welcome.

I found it was particularly effective in the tag-end of the historical 1901 schedule, as by September it diverged well out of the 'six games every seven days' pattern, and there were little 2- and 3-game clumps with several off days between. So, yeah, a manual jiggling of your rotation at that point might have gotten you one or two more starts out of your top pitchers. [:(]

The 'pattern' I used was to order my rotation for the next three or four games, and then find my next 'double-header' or 'off day', and simulate until the day before the 'double-header' or the last of any consecutive 'off days'; juggle rotation, sim again. If I had a double-header with a string of consecutive games after (e.g., Mon-Mon-Tue-Wed-Thu-Fri-Sat), then I'd sim through the fourth game (Wed) and rejuggle my rotation then.