Out Of The Park 14

[Nefaro]

It depends on the extra SP.

I'm playing with a 6th SP right now, due to one of my originals getting injured (2 months!!) but still using a 5-man rotation.  Thing is.. my extra MRs weren't as good as this 6th SP so he's in as an extra reliever who can also swing longer relief due to his better stamina, if needed. 

I haven't been piling up a lot of good extra relievers, past the first five or six.  Mediocre relievers just aren't worth much IMO, and they're easy to come by on free agency or trades if you really need to dig so deep.

As for 'Player Option Years', I do take those into consideration when signing depth players or deciding just when to bring the younger talent up as replacements.  Those 3 option years are a precious commodity on non-starters who have to temporarily fill in.  Just remember that once you've brought someone up (as a replacement) that they're "optioned" the whole year, so you can move them between your active roster and the minors for the rest of that year without having to Waiver & DFA them.  Use these players that have already been optioned as your fillers for that year so you're not blowing all of your players' options in the same year.  This is especially helpful on position players on the secondary (40-man) list who can play more than one position.

[Arctic Blast]

One other somewhat related point for you, JD...do not confuse player option years with signing a free agent to a contract with a season (or multiple seasons) being tagged as 'player option'. Totally different things.

-The first one has already been explained.
-The second one means that, for every year you sign a player to as a Player Option, he decided whether or not to come back for that salary. He can outright declare himself a free agent and be gone if he wants to. On the other hand, you can be stuck paying $22 million for a fading vet who sticks around because he knows he isn't going to make that anywhere else.

[JudgeDredd]

Thank you all.

I wasn't playing a 6 SP rotation - I had 6 SPs but on a 5 SP rotation. I probably did what Nefaro done (but by accident).

I'm going through my roster now and looking at waivers and free agents and there's not a great deal out there!

[Arctic Blast]

Once the season is underway, free agents are going to be very scarce. You can find a guy to maybe be a defensive sub on the bench, but that's it. The waiver wire is constantly in flux, so it's good to make a habit of checking it regularly.

[Nefaro]

Thank you all.

I wasn't playing a 6 SP rotation - I had 6 SPs but on a 5 SP rotation. I probably did what Nefaro done (but by accident).

I'm going through my roster now and looking at waivers and free agents and there's not a great deal out there!

Make sure you don't miss out on the first day of the new season's free agency, when it pops.  That's the time to start haggling for the vets whose contracts just expired.  I recall accidentally resolving a couple days & missing out on the first bids before I remembered that I needed to check the new FA list.  :-[  Getting sidetracked can be easy, even with the Mail notification. 

My situation with the non-starting SP was because I didn't have much in the way of decent backup MRs to replace the injured one.  But I did have another game where a bunch of relievers played, and they all became tired for the next game so that starter's extra stamina helped out.  I've only been keeping 5 MRs lately so that can occasionally happen (I auto-resolve games).