When we pick a Pitching Staff for the day, we base it almost entirely on the starting pitcher. At least I know I do. Buffy always figures that Gagne is gonna save her Dodgers somehow, and factors that in, but I never even think about a bullpen. Maybe the truly great players in this game look at things like "Did the closer pitch the last two nights and is possibly unavailable tonight"?, and factors that in if he's hung up between two pitching staffs, and maybe I/we should too if we want to take our strategy and study to the next level, but if I'm correct, the starting pitcher is all we really think about.
So here's my idea:
Why not have each starting pitcher carry his own salary cap value? Wouldn't that make for a better game?
The way it stands now, nobody would spend 7.6 on the Cubs when Glendon Rusch or Sergio Mitre is pitching, and we all seem to hop on Cleveland for 4.5 when Sabbitha is on the mound.
Then, they would just list every single pitcher, just like they do with the position players, and it would be up to us to figure out who was supposed to pitch that day, just like we have to do for catchers. If you picked Ben Sheets the other night, and he was a game time scratch, too bad; you'd get no points.
For scoring purposes, you'd get only the pitching points earned by the pitcher you select. If he gets the win, you get 5 points. If a reliever picks up the the win, you get nothing. But if he gets bombed and the bullpen gets bombed for more (see Lopez, Baltimore), at least you would only be minus your starter's points. Or if your starter pitched 8 good innings, and the bullpen gave up four runs in the 9th, those points wouldn't get subtracted from your total.
Maybe they could even add another position for closer, and you could pick one of those each day and get his points too, if he pitched. If he didn't, too bad.
The result would be that unless the pitcher threw a complete game, which, of course, is quite rare these days, there would be fewer points scored for pitching, which would be a good thing since I think pitching is overvalued in this game anyway. We pay 43 or 44 points in cap value for an offense, and usually get somewhere between 20-40 points, and then spend 6 or 7 on pitching and can get 20-40 more. Doesn't make sense to me.
Wouldn't doing it this way add a couple of additional strategy elements to the game and make it better?
The only drawback would be for the people who play the old JG "Set it and forget it" method. Four days out of five, they'd have no pitcher. But people who play that way have absolutely no chance of winning the league they are in anyway, unless everyone in that league plays the same way. I say, let 'em play the right way, or suffer the consequences. Or start a different game for the set it and forget it crowd, with a couple of spots on a disabled list that you could use to replace someone who was injured.
Whaddaya think? About the idea, not whether or not I'm nuts to be spending 15 minutes writing this.
