Toughest reliever to hit...

Amused_79 · December 2014

I am curious on your guys opinion of the toughes reliever to hit. Star rankings and stat numbers aside, who do you find to be the most difficult to hit.

In my opinion it's Greg Holland R959. I've only faced him against the Legends, never faced a human player that had him, but I have the most difficult time hitting and definitely scoring on this guy. Every time I think I've squared him up I pop out weakly.

A close second is Aroldis Chapman R919 (I think) it's a pure guessing game with him. His fastball is either a ball in the dirt or a strike. There is no time to decide, and I swear for having a 50/50 chance , I guess wrong all the time. Leading to many strikeouts.

Anyway those two are my opinion. What about you guys??

QLDorigin · December 2014

i have got Chapman: 548 innings, 2.68 ERA, 11.9 k/9, WHIP 1.08. Reliable but he does have those innings giving up 3-5 runs like most relievers.

Holland is tough. I think a 959 or 919 is harder to hit than a 999 or 889.

Amused_79 · December 2014

I agree. Guys like Koji 999 Doolittle 899 and Melancon 799. I find a lot easier to string hits against and score runs.

~Lawman~ · December 2014

Amused, Holland is tough! Chapman is not! To be successful with Chapman, all you need is patience. Most of the time, once he gets two strikes on you, he will throw ***** until the count is full. Then a strike down the middle or he will walk you. My experience has been he will throw way more ***** than strikes. In fact, last night I put up 7 runs against him!

To me, some of the tougher relievers are:

Benoit 8/5/9
Grilli 9/6/8

There are many others that have dazed and confused me at times, but once you know their pitches, they can all be had.

Tatimus · December 2014

I always have trouble with Grilli for some reason. I was excited when I got him on my team then before I knew it he was getting blown up so I took him out. The legends team destroyed him. I've started laying off Chapmans fast***** early in the count and trying to let him fall behind. Once he falls behind I sit fastball. It has worked the last few times I've faced him.

jemic · December 2014

Firstly, this is not show off. I just want to share with u about how my 5 star relievers work for me. This statics can help people who has a "legend bullpen" and think their bullpen is strong enough to defense their last innings.
I finally come out a method to test my bullpen. The precondition to test the bullpen is
1. The opponent's batters must be strong enough.
2. My bullpen has to work ASAP.

I use legend playoff to test my bullpen. I replace all my start pitcher with 1~2 star pitcher so the pitcher can be blew before the first three innings and my bullpen can start to work.
The below picture shows the result after nearly 100~200 games in legend playoff.

You can see that two pitchers have the best ERA are KOJI and D.Betances. The other three G.Holland/D.Rob/K.Giles act like idiot. But in average, they all work like zhit right?

So my recommendation for the game strategy are
1. Blow the opponent start pitcher ASAP. Once if his bullpen starts to work, use auto play option to let computer work for u.
2. Prepare energy bar for your start pitcher if he performs well. This is very important. Any pitcher in the bullpen can let you lose your lead in any innings. I guess it is because of fatigue. It seems that relievers can only handle three batters so the stats of the relievers will drop down quickly if he faces more than 3 batters . You can observe the stats dropping once he gets roughed up or something.

~Lawman~ · December 2014

Hello Jemic:

As usual, thanks for the data. However, in my opinion, statistics against the computer will be different than those against a human.
The computer puts all of its emphasis on the skills or attributes of the player, this often does not translate into effectiveness against a real life player.

For example, Uehara seems to have the best stats by far with your test data. I can tell you from empirical data (actually playing against Uehara), that for me, he is easy to hit because he throws so many strikes.

Taking into consideration the "human element" is not something easily measured with statistics. I believe the most effective relievers are those with a high arm rating, say 8-9, a mid control, 5-6 and high stuff 8-9.

I have Perkins as a reliever, and his numbers are all 8s and 9s. Yet he has worse stats against human players than other relievers with lower skills on my team. Yet against Legends, he does the best. Like I said, the computer puts most if not all emphasis on player attributes.

Bottom line, if a player is getting you good results and fills a void on your team keep him. If the results are less than you would expect, regardless of his skills, drop him. Just make sure that you give the player an adequate period of time to establish his statistics.

jemic · December 2014

Lawman,

I totally agree with ur opinions and others' in this post.
Frankly speaking, G.Holland is doing quite well when playing against human players. I also have problem when facing G.Holland so I make some changes to my bullpen.
I drop some of the high CONTROL relievers and replace them with 9/5/9 or 9/6/9 ones but this decision let me have a problem in best of best league. All the teams in there almost have the same players as the legend team and my relievers usually get rough up and lost more than 3 runs in one inning.(Ken Giles and D.Rob highest ER is 6 and 7 in one inning)
This is why I turn back to enter the legend playoff again and conduct the experiment to see if my relievers are really as good at what their stats are.

I agree with the concept here that 9/smaller than 6/9 is hard to human players though the statics are hard to be quantized.
But this theory could have a big challenge when you play against computers.

~Lawman~ · December 2014

Jemic, your statements are true. The only computer generated results for me are when I play Legends. My winning percentage against them is .427, so I win less than half the time. Take away my early struggles against them, and I would say I win 60-65% of the time. I do not have a Legends pitching staff, just 3 total pitchers from their roster (that includes starters and relievers).

I never expect to out-pitch Legends team, I out-score them! I propose (easier said than done) out-hitting your opponent is the way to be successful in this game, as it is something you have more control over, as pitching is a wild card.

Good luck with your stat gathering, as I always look forward to the results.

Slickr4 · December 2014

I almost exclusively play humans now that I am in Legends and Uehara is by far my strongest pitcher...he's at like a 2.37 era with 300+ saves. Betances is second by a close margin at like 2.71. Everyone gets hit hard by the Legends, I hate when I get to them because they bloat all my pitchers stats.

Amused_79 · December 2014

I have Kenley Jansen 979 as my set up man now closer. and he has been very solid. Plus ,facing him I know how tough he can be to hit. He seems to do equally well against human players and CPU. (Even the Legends more times then not. ) currently at just under 1000 innings, his ERA is 2.09 with .219 BBA and a Whip 0.97.

Toughest reliever to hit...

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