Position Player Fatigue

There is a simple formula I use for position players to determine how many plate appearances a player can have during a season. If a player plays the entire season it is about 730 plate appearances, plate appearance is not the same as an AB by the way. If you take 730 and multiply it by the players durability as a percentage, it will give you the approximate number of plate appearances a player can have during a season. EX: 730 x .84 = 614. Player fatigue occurs when the number of player PA's start exceeding the number of projected PA's left for the rest of the season. I will use Karim Quevedo as an example as he went to 99% recently. His durability is a 75, so his seasonal PA is about 547, he has already had 441 actual PA's already this season. There are 45 games left in the season, that equates to about 202 PA's left, much more than the 100 or so he has left. I can play him every other day or I can put him on the bench and use him as a substitute for a few games until an off day comes around. Then rest him every 4th game after that. Doing this I can squeeze a few more PA's out of him and probably push him to about 570.

The rule of thumb I try to use this during the season to rest a player periodically like so:
Durability:
90 or above - rest once every 15 to 20 games. Equates to about 10 playing days off.
80 to 90 - rest once every 10 games. Equates to about 16 playing days off.
70 to 80 - rest twice every 10 to 15 games. Equates to about 32 playing days off.
below 70 - rest once every 5 to 8 games. Equates to about 40 or more playing days off, normally for catchers or low durability bench players.

Also, players in the top half of the batting order will see more plate appearances and fatigue more quickly than the bottom half. It is better to rest them more during the season because they are needed most at the end of the season especially during a playoff run. If the fatigue level drops below 100%, I try to rest them til I get the fatigue back to 100% and use them as a bench player for 4 or 5 games before using them as a starter again.

Adverse effects on fatigue is a player will not play as well and is more susceptible to injury. For the minors it says that fatigue will help increase a players durability during rollover, but do you risk injury to a future superstar player for that reason? I try not to allow minor league players to drop below 95% as a rule, it just isn't worth the risk. Another thing I don't pay much attention to in the minors is playing players out of position. Maybe not the coolest thing to do, but it is better to rest a player than being forced to do it anyway because of injury.

If you are wondering how you can find out the number of plate appearances a player has: Go to Stats/Awards in the World drop down and click on Player Statistics and use the Extended function in Batting.