HAL's bizzarro lineup

[ClowntimeIsOver]

So Guillan gets hurt and John McDonald is subbed, in the 2007/2006 set. OK so far. The opposing SP is Schmidt, who's a R/E. Guillan, with a 400 OBP that year and an A steal rating, is leading off, and McDonald can't hit, so McDonald's put ninth and lead-off is open.

But ... what changes does HAL make? He puts Kendall, a R/3L, at lead-off (I'd had him 8th or 9th). FWIW, Kendall's hitting .246 .329 .272 vs. RHP in this league.

And he puts Ryan Howard 8th.

That's right: Howard. Who's a L/3R, went .313 .425 .659 in 2006, and was in the top 5 in my league in OPS through 84 games. And HAL thinks it's a good idea to put THIS guy 8th and Kendall 1st.

On this board, there's always a small percentage of rationalizers. You could say "HAL batted nine of my pitchers in the starting line-up" and SOMEBODY would rationalize it (there's a fair amount of toadying to SOM, let's admit it). So ... is anybody seriously going to justify this revised line-up?

J.Kendall C
M.Giles 2B
R.Ibanez LF
M.Cameron CF
J.Gibbons RF
N.Swisher 1B
M.Derosa 3B
R.Howard DH
J.McDonald SS

here's the game

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2007/league/boxscore.html?group_id=11708&g_id=517

here's the team

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2007/team/team_other.html?user_id=42609

[Sykes25]

I got this.

*RESERVED FOR FULL BREAKDOWN*

*EDIT* Sorry I did not do the best job I could. Bit busy at work today...

Based on what I can see, your regular line-up vs RHP is:

1- Guillen
2- Howard
3- Ibanez
4- Cameron
5- Gibbons
6- Swisher
7- Derosa
8- Kendall
9- Giles

Guillen gets hurt, McDonald goes in for your next game vs RHP. McDonald really has no business leading off and since his OBP is the lowest of your active lineup choices, HAL defaults him to 9th.

1- TBD
2- Howard
3- Ibanez
4- Cameron
5- Gibbons
6- Swisher
7- Derosa
8- Kendall
9- McDonald replaces Giles

HAL needs somebody to hit leadoff. Two highest OBP remaining are Swisher and Kendall. Swisher has more slugging than Kendall, so Kendall slides up to leadoff.

1- Kendall
2- Howard
3- Ibanez
4- Cameron
5- Gibbons
6- Swisher
7- Derosa
8- TBD
9- McDonald replaces Giles

Now the fun part. Giles needs a home. HAL’s CD-ROM program logic check goes in and must account that all position players are placed in the line-up accordingly and once determined, the DH goes into the empty spot. Where does Giles fit in without disrupting most of your line-up? The number 2 spot, since the DH is not a “required” fielding position when this program logic condition check is made.

1- Kendall
2- Giles
3- Ibanez
4- Cameron
5- Gibbons
6- Swisher
7- Derosa
8- Howard
9- McDonald

For non-DH leagues, this is not as common. If Howard was playing 1B and Swisher was DH, Swish would have slid to 8 with Derosa and Giles at 6 and 7 respectively.

There is a difference between LOGIC and Reasoning when looking at HAL “the program”. People use reasoning, implement logic and verify with a check back to reasoning to see if what we did makes sense. A computer program is given conditions of “reasoning” and then implements LOGIC. Given the same conditions, humans may change the line-up after looking back at it and seeing a DH out of whack.

How do you avoid this? Ensure that EVERY PLAYER in your line-up has a back-up designated, and be sure to slap your DH as the first back-up to whatever his primary position is.