Thanks HAL...

[gorshar]

...for completly trashing my season. After yanking my 11.48 million dollar pitcher after three innings (again!) I see no point any longer in trying to build a team around ace starters (particularly Mordecai Brown and Addie Joss, support from Urban Shocker and Waite Hoyt). Really? What is the point of even having starting pitchers????

9 starts from Mordecai Brown for a total of 48.2 innings????????????????

Anyway, I solved the problem once and for and all and dumped 7 of my 9 pitchers (including Brown and Joss), keeping the two cheapest. Of course I lost millions in the 80% salary deal but what the heck? I was losing games all over the place because HAL kept replacing guys with 0.90 WHIPs with guys with 1.65 WHIPs.

This of course will no longer be a problem for me as I don't intend to play another team here until HAL can be tweaked to respect my manager decision to leave my starters *IN* the game.

I know, I know, don't let the door hit my you know what on the way out...

Sorry for the rant, this has just turned into a real frustration and complete waste of my $25 because I couldn't play the team I made the way I made it.

[gorshar]

I had done all of that already and more. But nothing seemed to prevent HAL from yanking my starters for pinch hitters as if it were 2008 and not 1908.

All I expected was that the players I drafted would be played like the cards they were based on. If the pitcher is a 9* with a 0.90 WHIP then there is no reason to pull him for a 1.65 WHIP when he's far from his POW. No reason for it.

But it doesn't matter, they're all gone now and I can never afford to get them back. And I picked up two better bats in the purge. C'est la vie.

[the splinter]

If by chance this is a non-DH league Hal will pull pitchers for more favorable hitting matchups. Hal always like scoring over preventing scoring wether it be pulling a pitcher or subbing an inferior defensive player....Hal just wants to score! Limit your bench to defensive back ups who offer little O and Hal will not be so tempted to PH with them.

[gorshar]

So basically what I've learned is that this game is not about who can draft and manage the best baseball team, but who can best manipulate a computer program (and a flawed one at that)?

[ArtemusRex]

Give that rookie his second star. That's the cost in all of life though. The sting of losing innocence and ideals when exchanged for stars, money, and/or experience. As the 50's song goes, "C'est la vie say the old folks... I guess you really never can tell."

[SGTD]

I would like to see your team posted, here is my team and I dumped only Ted Williams to try and jump start the pitching staff. SGT D

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/atg2/team/team_other.html?user_id=47298

[gorshar]

Here's the current version of my team:

[url]http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/stratomatic/team/team_other.html?user_id=106233[/url]

My original pitching staff was Mordecai Brown, Addie Joss, Urban Shocker, and Waite Hoyt with the expectation I'd get 80-85% of my innings out of these four guys. The five scrubs behind them were Guy Morton, Bill Burwell, Johnny Morrison, Dave Danforth, and Carroll Yerkes. When things weren't going the way I planned I dumped Waite Hoyt for Lee Meadows and Guy Morton for Art Fowler. Well Fowler didn't work out and then HAL gave Brown something like 8 innings over his next two starts so I decided enough was enough and I dumped the entire pitching staff except for Yerkes and Morrison with the rationale that there was no point in keeping 11 million dollar pitchers if HAL was going to keep yanking them several innings before their POW. A total waste of money. I've accepted the reality that I need a bullpen since HAL seems to put more weight in relievers than the starters (bizarre, huh?) so I have Jim Konstanty and Wilcy Moore in there now.

And with the money I saved I replaced Bob Meusel and Ray Schalk with Paul Waner and Mickey Cochrane. If things continue to go south (I'm already 13-26) I'll dump seven pitchers again and replace them with the seven cheapest I can get and put the money towards bats and see what I get.

Although I'm a rookie in this game I am a veteran Strat player, both C&D and computer, however I always manually manage all my teams and never leave it up to HAL.

I must be doing something right as my first foray into this game resulted in a 101 win team and a championship - a team that I successfully built around pitching, defense, and the long ball. I had one of the lowest OBAs in my league but my entire pitching staff managed a quite remarkable 1.15 WHIP! My second foray started out abysmally (much like my team here) but I made some good changes and after a 17-34 start I finished 78-84.

Anyway, my beef was and still is not with Strat but that the opportunity to experiment with different strategies doesn't really exist the way HAL is programmed. I wanted to see what kind of success I could get riding a team on four HOF iron arms and well, HAL had his own ideas and so much for that fun. Yes, c'est la vie.

[cliffbuck]

I love the guy for inventing the game , but this on- line deal is flawed.

Not so much for stategy. Study a players stats over 3 seasons in any league and the inconsistentcies are mind boggling.

[the splinter]

[quote:08a8d507c4]Not so much for stategy. Study a players stats over 3 seasons in any league and the inconsistentcies are mind boggling[/quote:08a8d507c4]

perhaps...but study them over a more statistically qualified 10/20/100 seasons and they are spooky good.