Last night I played a team where all his possible shortstops were injured. So, HAL decided to play Tommy Goodwin, Jacob Cruz, and Manny Martinez as my opponent's starting shortstops. All of them were outfielders and none of them were rated as shortstops. My assumption was that HAL would rate them as 5e88 at short, meaning nearly every gb-ss(X) would result in either a hit or an error.
So, in a three game series, I only managed to hit four SS-x rolls, but amazingly the Goodwin/Cruz/Martinez trio made the play three out of four times!
1 1 B.Ausmus 6-4 Ground Out (SS) 1-2 b-0 gb(SS)x F9
0 F.Santangelo 6-4 Ground Out (SS) b-0 gb(SS)x F9
1 J.Lieber 6-5 Ground Out (SS) b-0 gb(SS)x F9
0 D.Glanville 6-4 1 Base Error - SS b-1 gb(SS)x F9
So, I guess the penalty for having no backup shortstop isn't all that bad. :)