Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

I usually don't complain about micromanagement moves by the S-O-M supercomputer. In fact this is the first time.

But I think I've got a legitimate beef. I saw last night that Zach Greinke was hurling the final game of the three-game set and I didn't look forward to it. This morning, I open up the results and Greinke beat me in GAME ONE.

I did a double-take and thought, "Maybe, he's a starter/reliever and I just didn't remember." My second thought, "If he's an S/R, how come I didn't draft him." (I had him in my last league, but he was no Felix Hernandez, so I didn't draft him again.)

So I look inside the box score and it's a 14 inning game. My opponent used TEN PITCHERS, some of them hurling 0 innings. So what reward do they get for insanely stupid pitching management?

In the 14th inning, they get to bring in "Zealous" Zack Greinke, he pitches a shutout inning, Hal leaves Heath Bell in for his third consecutive inning on my team, Bell gives up a run and I get rung up for a loss.

NOTE: My team has used only four pitchers at this point and I have good relievers in the bullpen who have gone unused. And why the hell does my opponent get to run non-reliever Greinke out there, who's like the greatest reliever in the league if they allow this, when "Peachy" Pete Moylan had only been in the game for TWO innings? My guy had been in the game for two innings, and he had to run back out there. Let's face it, my opponent simply should not have been allowed to pinch-hit if he had no true relievers on the bench. Case closed.

OK, that's bad enough. But then in Game 3 of the series, my opponent still gets to run "Zealous" Zack Greinke out there and, of course, he goes nearly 8 innings, gives up 1 run and beats me again, adding insult to ignominy.

Now, I don't expect simulation to be any more fair than real baseball, but I do expect the management of this thing to be semi-logical and reasonably fair.

FIRST, Greinke should never have been allowed to relieve. Suffer the consequences with your final fatigued reliever. That's only fair.
SECOND, the team should have at least been penalized by losing Greinke's spot in the rotation two games later. They should at least have had to bump him into the next series.
THIRD, if Hal is going to pull all these hokey shenanigans, the least he could do is have Greinke blow up with an awful performance in his start. I could have used a little sense of fair play, if the game is going to go outside the lines.

CASE CLOSED. (Sorry for rambling, but I think I have a legitimate beef).

Junior Guidry
Beauregard RedStix
The Official Enzo Hernandez Triple Crown League

I happen to be in this league........if it is any consolation Greinke came into the game with a F0 rating for the relief appearance.

This reminds me of an old, pre-humidor Rockies game where one of our starters had to go out and throw an inning in a long extra-inning game. And I believe he got the win. So, if it's any consolation, what happened in your game has a real-life precedent.

Also, If Grienke came in relief at F0, had a day to recover from pitching the one inning, I don't see a problem with him starting normally in game 3.

Sometimes late inning or extra inning moves force a position player to play out of position. Bringing in a pure starter under the conditions you describe seems similar and even reasonable.

Where HAL falls short is "his" inability to look at the big picture. At some point a human manager would/should be a less quick to pull a reliever in extra innings.

Actually, every year, we see a few starting pitchers getting used in the relief in similar fashion. It's not exactly a rare event.

The bottom line is that this is an imperfect simulation game, and it really is impossible to address every single imperfection. Obviously, one of the most egregious of the imperfections is that pitchers don't have season-ending injuries as they do in real MLB. This event does occur, but in the end, it does not make or break a team or a season.

[quote:447dc8c122="coyote303"] Also, If Grienke came in relief at F0, had a day to recover from pitching the one inning, I don't see a problem with him starting normally in game 3. Sometimes late inning or extra inning moves force a position player to play out of position. Bringing in a pure starter under the conditions you describe seems similar and even reasonable.

Where HAL falls short is "his" inability to look at the big picture. At some point a human manager would/should be a little less quick to pull a reliever in extra innings.[/quote:447dc8c122]

You missed the point(s), plural. It's the totality of the situation that's vexing. I'm not talking about Greinke in isolation. Any manager, in a simulation game, should be forced to suffer the consequences of stupidity. In this case, HAL opted to change pitchers in slap-dash fashion, running out five pitchers -- count 'em FIVE, four relievers and Jamie Moyer -- who were yanked at five or fewer pitches each.

The game goes 14 innings, you should be stuck with Peter Moylan until the cows come home. I think you deserve a fatigued Peter Moylan, not an F0 Zach Greinke. But if you do get Greinke, you should have to move his start further down the line.

And I'm not saying other managers don't get bad breaks from Hal. Or even that those bad breaks aren't likely to even out over the course of a season. All I'm saying is this is weird and it can be fixed.

You can write code for these situations, it can be fixed, and there's no reason to constantly fall back on the pat explanation of "Well, golly gee whiz, this is a gosh darn imperfect simulation game. But what can a poor boy do? We're at the mercy of Almighty Hal."

That's all I'm saying. Make it better. And I think the effort to make it better is consistently there. This is an admittedly emphatic suggest to make it better again.

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/stratomatic/league/boxscore.html?group_id=112525&g_id=83

Here's another interesting case. In the previous game (my) Cain was the losing pitcher - throwing 11 innings. In the following 19-inning game, he was also the loser - pitching 1 inning (@F0). Pettite won this game in a 1-inning relief stint (@F4), then started (at F9) and won the following game. The one-inning stint was just a warm-up for the next day - Pettite probably didn't go to bed.

:roll:

[quote:1d52425dd4="Junior Guidry"]
You missed the point(s), plural. It's the totality of the situation that's vexing.[/quote:1d52425dd4]

You just summed up why people expect too much from HAL. HAL is not true artificial intelligence. He is totally incapable of looking at the big picture. HAL's programming consists of "this is the situation, what do I do now?" Saying he should be penalized for not planning ahead is silly.

Also, if this were real life and this last reliever who "HAL should be stuck with" was totally fatigued, then in real life the manager would relieve him. And if the starter pitched one inning, he might not lose his next start after a day of rest.

I saw a doubleheader long ago where Sam McDowell started the first game and was totally ineffective, getting relieved almost immediately. Guess who started game 2 of the doubleheader. It's funny because at the time my reaction was "he can't do that!"