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My questions primarily are centered around pitching changes. It appears to me that the manager ignores my settings.. Comments and then question.

I have closers maximized, I keep getting complete games with starting pitchers throwing 130 IP.

I have relievers listed as don't pitch opposite, and RH specialist will throw to 5 or 6 left handers. I had a pitcher I expected to pitch to 1 batter give up 8 ER.

My 2 best relievers have 1 game pitched in 9 games and my 3rd best reliever has yet to pitch.

The don't relieve before seems to be my biggest complaint. 1st series I had it at F8, and now I switched it to blank and pitchers are staying in longer than I want. Personally I want this aspect of the engine to have as little impact in my decision making as possible. I would prefer the engine to never keep my pitcher in until its reached F-anything. What can I do to get rid of Fwhatever so I can control my own team?

Thanks in advance.

Okay, this is a biased answer (because I think I know what team you are talking about).

I believe that if you set your relief usage for your team at aggressive you will see your relievers used more.

Also, If you want your starters to be pulled late in games regardless, you CAN set them individially to do not pitch more than 7 or 8 innings per start and or set them to quick hook.

BUT watch out what you ask for. I'm not so sure that you really want Hal to make all the moves you are considering. If I am correct about this team, one of the reasons you are not seeing your ace relievers much is that you have had very few situations where your team was ahead or the game was on the line late and your starter was not doing fine.

Hal WILL preferably use those scrub relievers and specialists in my experience when he thinks the game is out of hand (mop up role). You can designate a better reliever as your mop up guy if you wish (again, you may not like the result you get from this). But the logic is "why use up your ace relivers arm in a 8-2 losing battle. so the scrub loses 16-4 it is still a loss either way"

hope that helps,
:?

I think you'll discover it takes quite a bit of "trial and error" tinkering with the reliever settings to see what works best for you. Luckily, it's a long 162 game marathon, not a sprint, so there's still plenty of time to perfect your settings that will allow HAL to manage your team closer to the way you'd do it. Good luck.

Maximizing closers saves the designated closer(s) for save situations. This generally limits the innings pitched by the closer, who is typically your best reliever. I don't think it's a good setting until you've been around a bit, even though it's the default.

I agree with PKB. Maximize DOES NOT maximize the [b:cd6e04f4e4]usage [/b:cd6e04f4e4]of your best reliever; it holds that reliever in reserve for oly a save situation. The only thing it maximizes is his save opportunities. I would rather win than get some reliever 45 saves. :D Might should be relabled somehow.
In 100m or so caps, if I have spent 4-5m on a big dollar reliever, he is set to Close, Setup, Behind and Late, Tied and 9th, Tied and 9th+, Avoid using in Blowout, etc...............

I cut the one reliever I only wanted to pitch to 1 batter. To me its not acceptable that a reliever I only wanted for a occasional batter gives up 8 ER in 1 game. He pitched to more lefties in 1 inning than I would of given him in 10 seasons.

It sounds like I will just have to go through some growing pains on figuring out how to make the engine coach the way I want it to coach.

[quote:55c20dd02b]He pitched to more lefties in 1 inning than I would of given him in 10 seasons. [/quote:55c20dd02b]I certainly don't claim that HAL is a master chess player, but, sometimes people's expectations in this regard are a little unrealistic. Look up the real-life stats of some LOOGYs (lefty one-out guys) -- Pedro Feliciano, Boone Logan, Trever Miller, etc. -- and you will see that they rarely face more than 50% lefties in a season. ROOGYs will face a higher percentage of righties, because there are more righty hitters, but they are still going to face about 30% lefties at the very least.

If HAL has more relievers in the bullpen to use, he will do a better job of spotting the specialists, and of course you can try fine-tuning your settings to improve it. In general, though, I tend to believe you are better off paying a little more per reliever, perhaps carrying fewer relievers, and getting guys who can get both sides out. You get what you pay for ;)

[quote:42fd9b73fa="DeanTSC"][quote:42fd9b73fa]He pitched to more lefties in 1 inning than I would of given him in 10 seasons. [/quote:42fd9b73fa]I certainly don't claim that HAL is a master chess player, but, sometimes people's expectations in this regard are a little unrealistic. Look up the real-life stats of some LOOGYs (lefty one-out guys) -- Pedro Feliciano, Boone Logan, Trever Miller, etc. -- and you will see that they rarely face more than 50% lefties in a season. ROOGYs will face a higher percentage of righties, because there are more righty hitters, but they are still going to face about 30% lefties at the very least.

If HAL has more relievers in the bullpen to use, he will do a better job of spotting the specialists, and of course you can try fine-tuning your settings to improve it. In general, though, I tend to believe you are better off paying a little more per reliever, perhaps carrying fewer relievers, and getting guys who can get both sides out. You get what you pay for ;)[/quote:42fd9b73fa]

Full agreement with Dean. But I know some people who love the Loogys.

yes the key is having enough of them, especially when you are no-DH

[quote:3e9a768d25="DeanTSC"][quote:3e9a768d25]He pitched to more lefties in 1 inning than I would of given him in 10 seasons. [/quote:3e9a768d25]I certainly don't claim that HAL is a master chess player, but, sometimes people's expectations in this regard are a little unrealistic. Look up the real-life stats of some LOOGYs (lefty one-out guys) -- Pedro Feliciano, Boone Logan, Trever Miller, etc. -- and you will see that they rarely face more than 50% lefties in a season. ROOGYs will face a higher percentage of righties, because there are more righty hitters, but they are still going to face about 30% lefties at the very least.

If HAL has more relievers in the bullpen to use, he will do a better job of spotting the specialists, and of course you can try fine-tuning your settings to improve it. In general, though, I tend to believe you are better off paying a little more per reliever, perhaps carrying fewer relievers, and getting guys who can get both sides out. You get what you pay for ;)[/quote:3e9a768d25]

I had plenty of relievers. Gossage and Hiller had yet to pitch all season, 12 games in and Hiller still has not pitched. Sutter and Percival only pitched 1 time each in 7 games. I had put down avoid left handed batters for that reliever yet he pitched to about 8 lefties. I don't think a shortage of relievers or quality of relievers was the problem, it came down to the engine used the reliever differently than my intentions, and those intentions were based on the settings I put into the computer.

I am at this point trying to get the engine to manage the game how I would manage the game, and I am struggling with that task. I have been tinkering with the settings to get closer to my style of coaching.