It is unfortunate that when a player’s MLB team is scheduled to play a doubleheader, we must choose whether to start that player in both games or neither of them that day. As @k_lof put it over on Slack, “it’s a killer when a guy starts one game and pinch-hits another and burns two starts.”
Also, if my hitter is scheduled to face a tough pitcher in game one and a lousy pitcher in game two, ideally I would be able to bench him for game one and activate him for game two.
Both of these situations would be improved if the two games of a doubleheader were decoupled on the Lineups page. The implementation might get a little tricky, but I envision it working something like this: If a player whose team is scheduled for a doubleheader is placed in an active lineup slot, the position’s row would be split into two rows, each of which would show the applicable matchup info. Each of those rows would also include a radio button or something similar so I could bench or activate the player separately for each game.
Admittedly, this is not a common feature in the fantasy baseball universe, but it would make sense in Ottoneu, where game caps are extremely important and some owners try to thoughtfully manage every sit/start decision.
Above seems to be the only mention of this. And I don’t see a reply so I thought I’d bring it back around. Admittedly, I’m new to Ottoneu (and rotisserie BB, in general) but I too would like to see a “decoupling” of the doubleheaders. Getting a player locked in for the whole day, even though they may not play both games loses a team’s AB (how often do catchers catch both games?). In a perfect world, there are 162 starts for 162 dates. Locking a position in for the day risks not giving an equal number of starts. I realize it’s unlikely that there is a perfect season, but that should be the goal.
Just a thought, but is it possible that this could be accomplished with a combination of the solution that was used for the GS issue with SP’s in H2H leagues plus the way that the game handles SP/RP appearances depending on which slot the player is in?
I’m thinking of a setting where owners can specify whether they want to “limit” a positional player to one start on any given day, and so the game not only “filters” out any appearances that weren’t in a game started but could also make the player ineligible for the second game of a double-header if he already started in the first. But managers could change the setting to allow for multiple starts and/or pinch-hit/relief appearances as well.
It seems that any ‘fix’ for this issue would also be tied to the issue of whether a player should be credited with a game played (double-header or not) if he never had a Plate Appearance, like in the case of defensive replacements or perhaps an early-game injury/ejection removal.
I agree that “decoupling” would be extremely helpful. In addition to @ballnglove82 suggestion above, I have seen other options that might work. baseballpress.com basically duplicates the player on a doubleheader day. Freaked me out the first time I saw it, but it makes sense. I’m not sure how easy the coding is, but it would either allow you to put Rizzo in in two slots on a doubleheader day (with the games start time marked), or there might be a possibility of temporarily having two 1B slots for him to fill?
This would also have impact on the 162 GS limit, which I feel is appropriate and fair when a player starts twice in a day. Although, truthfully, I’m not sure how the count is treated currently on a double header day in which a player starts twice.
A significant hurdle is predicting which game the player will start. If you slot him in for the first game, but he gets benched, and then pinch hits in the second game, how is that handled?
Each game played (MLB official stat) is counted when considering the positional caps. If a player plays in one game in the DH and not the other, that will be 1 game against your cap. If they play in both, that’s 2.
I can mess around with some implementation ideas for this, but I am worried that the interface on doubleheader days would get a little unwieldy. That’s my main concern about this request - I think on its merits it makes sense, but it is a question of making it work in a way that is accessible to everyone.
I guess the idea would be to allow the owner to treat the player and the game the same way it is regularly treated if the games occurred on separate days. Each game the player is possibly in locks 5 mins before it starts. Just like a normal game- if he gets pulled at the last minute or comes in a a pinch hitter the owner lives with it. Starting lineup information is harder to come by on double headers, it is true, but if the lock time is decoupled, it is usually published in time to edit the lineup if it’s unlocked.
Then you’d have 1 positional spot and two versions of the same player, yeah? And you’d have to pick which of the 1B you’d want to play, Rizzo at noon or Rizzo at night (to carry through the example from earlier)
I’ll have to think a bit more about the suggestion ballnglove82 made up-thread, as it seems to try to avoid this kind of a situation.
Yes, that’s one way to do it. I suspect it is the easier way to implement.
But ideally a double header would allow a double slot (1B twice for Rizzo) in the example above. Not sure if it is possible. But given the SP slot automation now implemented, maybe?
What if there was some sort of drop down menu for a player with a double-header with three options once they were moved into your lineup: start first game; start second game; start both games
Looks like Partial-Season-2020 might have a doubleheader every week.
I wonder if the " Bench position players that are not in their MLB starting lineup" feature could be augmented with a “Swap players” option. That would allow a manager to designate an alternate player for a benched player – very useful for double-headers.
That moves towards a depth chart mode of setting lineups that I’m not sure makes sense. I’m also not sure it makes sense to change core gameplay components due to an extreme circumstance, which this season will be.
In a year such as this, when teams are going to be playing a ton of double headers, it is really important to decouple the games. If you own a catcher on one of those teams, it is bad enough that they only play 7 innings but its a disaster that those 7 innings , most likely at the bottom of a line-up counts for 2 games.
The doubleheaders are especially tricky this year. I understand the frustration about these 7-inning games and how they can burn down position caps while not returning as many PAs per game.
In the short-term, we’re already almost 1/3 of the way into the season and everyone is in the same boat. Making a change mid-stream in 2020 would go against a lot of the now-established practice of giving lead time for rule and gameplay changes. Since we wouldn’t be able to retroactively address the number of doubleheaders that have already happened, any change at this point would feel a little unfair or reactionary.
Looking beyond 2020, there’s a concerted effort by MLB to reduce the number of doubleheaders across the board. While I’m intrigued by some of the suggestions in this thread (especially @damgagnon’s idea of an additional interface to optionally select a portion of the doubleheader), I wonder if any solution would only be for a really limited number of games and would add more clutter to the lineup page for only a marginal improvement.
Given how much emphasis people put on managing their daily lineups, any improvement here might be worth it, so I’ll experiment with some ideas and revisit this in the offseason. I’ll use this thread to share some ideas as I prototype them out, perhaps?
For this season though, I think we all have to collectively play the hand we are dealt.
I don’t have all the answers here so please let me know if you have any other thoughts about decoupling doubleheaders in the future.
I would like the relevant lineup position(s) to unlock after the first doubleheader. This would permit me to swap in someone from my bench or bench whoever started the first game – assuming they’re not playing in the second game, naturally.
I think with double headers lasting 7 innings now, it’s not unreasonable to expect to have a bench option you could swap in before the start of the second game and to have lineup information in a timely manner.
Why would a position completely unlock after locking? Why would you get extra games played on a day you have players playing double-headers? I’m not sure this suggestion aligns with how lineups are set.
Yeah, in hindsight that solution wasn’t anywhere close to bulletproof.
I suppose what I’m after, more broadly, is the ability to opt in or out of the second game of the doubleheader.
The following is a rehashing of what has already been discussed, but… most commonly the player I want to include in my lineup will start the first game. He’ll be benched for the second game but may come in for a single at-bat. If he does nothing productive in that at-bat, I’ve effectively squandered a game of eligibility in Ottoneu. That irks me.
It’d be great if this facet of Major League Baseball could be a component of the platform where you could make a strategic decision. As it stands, I can’t do much outside of not play the player in question or play him and risk wasting an entire game of eligibility.
Yes, this is a good summary of why people want decoupled doubleheaders.
However, MLB openly wants fewer doubleheaders and basically never schedules true doubleheaders anymore. While in theory it stinks to waste a game on a player pinch-hitting in game 2 of a doubleheader after playing a full game 1, in practice it rarely happens.
So that’s where we are and where we have been since the original post.