Fatigue & Resting Players

Baseball players suffer from two types of fatigue: day-to-day (short-term) fatigue, and seasonal (long-term) fatigue.

  • Day-to-day fatigue occurs when players play continually without a day off. Position players recover relatively well after a day or two off; pitchers may need more rest depending on how extensively they played prior to the day off. All players suffer fatigue when they play, and all players rest with each day off.
  • Season fatigue is the overall wear-and-tear of the baseball season. The durability of a player (i.e. Endurance) determines how hard players can push themselves before starting to suffer adverse effects. A player with high Endurance may play nearly every day without adverse effect, while a player with low Endurance will be unable to play as many games at full-strength.

What does fatigue look like?

Each player has a Status which reflects how rested they are.

Rested > Good > OK > Tired > Fatigued > Exhausted

Performance penalties, in the form of reduced effective ratings, begin when a player is Tired and gradually increase until they are Exhausted. Players will not start, and pitchers will be removed from a game (if possible) when Exhausted.

All skills are subjected to performance penalties with the exception of EN and SY.

How quickly do players fatigue?

All position players fatigue when they play. Catchers fatigue faster than players at other positions, and designated hitters fatigue slower.

Pitchers fatigue based on pitch count, at a rate of about one point of Endurance for every two pitches. So, a pitcher with a 50 Endurance can throw 100 pitches before becoming Exhausted and taken out of the game (when possible).

How Day-to-Day Fatigue works

Each player has a current and maximum Endurance - when a player is fully rested these values will be the same, ex. 60/60. All players lose current Endurance points when playing; players with higher Endurance will fatigue proportionally more slowly than players with lower overall Endurance.

Example:

Player A: EN = 80/80 = 100% (fully rested)
Player B: EN = 40/40 = 100% (fully rested)

Both play a game and tire similar amounts

Player A: 78/80 = 97.5% rested
Player B: 38/40 = 95% rested

How Season Fatigue works

Season fatigue is the wear-and-tear a long season can have on a player. Season fatigue has two impacts:

  • It lowers player's maximum fatigue temporarily – resting a player can reduce or eliminate season fatigue to restore their maximum fatigue level.
  • It increases the amount of time it takes for a player to recover. Players with high season fatigue will recover less on a day off.

If a player, doesn't regain all his Endurance as expected, you can bet that he's suffering from season fatigue in some degree.

Note: Each game at DH causes less potential season fatigue than when playing a position. Toggle your use of designated hitters to extend low-endurance players.

How quickly do players recover?

A player will recover current Endurance at a rate of about 1/4 their maximum Endurance. That recovery rate gradually gets smaller as players accumulate Season Fatigue.

How can I rest my players?

There are a few ways keep your players rested, aside from manually adjusting lineups between games.

  • Platoon your players. Change up your vsR and vsL lineups – use RH hitters vs LHP and LH hitters vs RHP. About one in five starters are left-handed, so this is an easy way to rest players and maximize your righty/lefty matchups.
  • Set your manager settings page to automatically substitute players when they are below a given fatigue threshold. The further you set the 'rest player' sliders to the right, the sooner you will rest players when tired.
  • Players can rest in AAA where they are guaranteed to not play.