wtf Hal.....worst ever i swear i am just getting turned off

[guardman9]

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/stratomatic/playoffs/boxscore.html?group_id=144689&g_id=973

thats the box score, game one playoffs (btt90s)

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/stratomatic/team/team_other.html?user_id=345895&stats=sim&onroster=1

thats the team

monster team, 103 wins, clemens on the mound against cal freaking eldred with a 5 plus era on the season and clem (sub 2.5 era, 1.00 whip, cy young winner) is used for 11 innings????

then, worst yet, with 4 other rp sitting in the bullpen and quick hook, max 1-2 innings selected for evrey rp, dumbass Hal keeps my 1 rp in for 3 innnings, giving up a double then homer in the top of the whatever inning (the rp third inning)

I am getting tired of this, 6 weeks of building great teams just to be blown by HAL dumbass moves over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again

Im seriously thinking about leaving this, here is another great example of wtf? this 80s team won 111 games, led league in off and pitching and didnt even mak eit past game 6 of the first round......

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/80s/playoffs/team_other.html?user_id=186823&stats=sim

stick a fork in me, im done with hal and strat

[The Senators]

I've been on both ends of those kinds of things many times now. The best advice I can give is as Bobby Knight once said, "Lay back and enjoy it."

[hallerose]

You need to remember you are normally matched up against other good teams (and managers). So even with a 100+ win team you aren't going to win the championship every time -- instead of the 25% (1 of 4 teams), my guess you will be closer to 50%. I looked back at my best mystery card teams and I'm 75% (3 of 4) with 110+ win teams and 42% (3 of 7) with 100-109 wins.

[Hakmusic]

Since 1998, there have been 15 teams to win 100 or more games in major league baseball. Guess how many of them won the world series?


1. the '09 New York Yankees. that's it.

as far as the game, Clemens had 1-2-3 innings in the 9th, 10th, and 11th innings, not bad, and McElroy pithced well for you during the season and was cruising along, 1-2-3 innings in the 12th and 13th. I don't see a problem with what Hal did. hal didn't lose the game for you. In fact, you wouldn't have made it into extra innings if Hal didn't halp manufacture a run in the bottom of the 9th. that was pretty good.

[guardman9]

i have every rp on the team with a quick hook and max 1-2 innings clicked.........so why is he pitching 3 innings in the first game of the playoffs when i got 4 others, 2 studs?

[djkalle]

I feel your pain and do get very frustrated with HAL.

It is like you are the owner and HAL is the manager. You have sent instructions to HAL. But HAL watches McElroy mow down 6 straight batters and thinks, "the owner really doesn't want me to pull him when he is pitching this good." The trick is HAL's contract says he can never be fired. You can only complain to the media - that being the rest of the SOM players and people who run SOM.

Obviously, the quick hook is not a hard setting. It is a most of the time that will happen setting. I think there should be an option to make our choices hard settings. But giving the manager no flexibility may actually be worse than what HAL does now.

Does anyone feel that HAL manages differently in the playoffs than the regular season? To me it seems he does but maybe I am just paying more attention to each at bat.

Everything balances out in the end. Win a championship with 82 regular season wins and it wipes out losing with the 100 win team. Have fun!

Chuck

[phillyhemp]

I had the same problems. 30 playoff teams, only 3 champions. I had a bunch of suspicious moves by HAL. I sent copies of the box scores to tech support as well as posting them here. No one could provide me with any answers and made no apologies about it.

I haven't played a team since. I used to spend over $1000 a year on strat. Until I know the glitch is fixed, I am not wasting any money on a 100 win team just to watch my mop-up reliever come in in a 1 run game. I miss it, but the lack of an explanation was the last straw. It is inexcusable for HAL to ignore RP settings and providing me with an explanation would have been the appropriate customer service. Hopefully, SOM will care more about their customers than SN did, but it looks like the same outift.

[mightyquinnj]

I hate to be the one to say this, but HAL didn't do such a bad job managing your pitching staff in this game. I have seen worse, but since it was your team and you were emotionally involved in the outcome, I understand your frustration.

However, concerning your first gripe of the post: Clemens going 11 innings, to which you replied "wtf", I would argue that him going that long is a great thing, especially in the playoffs. He's your best pitcher, why wouldn't you want him going as long as he can? HAL pulls him when he reaches a F0, totally fatigued, but going 11 will not tire him out for his next start.

Next, in which you describe as worse then Clemens going 11, is Chuck McElroy going more than 2 innings when you had him set for a quick hook. First off, your relief pitcher breezed through his first 2 innings of relief so why pull him if he is doing great? The quick hook setting only kicks in when a pitcher is getting roughed up, which Chuck is clearly not. He gets the first guy out then gives up a double. It is only out of hindsight that he should have been pulled and another pitcher put in to face the Big Hurt.

Lastly, it is a tied game in extra innings, HAL is going to try and extend all pitchers in this situation to make sure that if it goes 13+ innings you have enough pitchers to cover the extra frames. HAL did exactly what was appropriate in this scenario, but since you lost, it was HAL that made the mistake. Therefore, I believe that your argument is weak at best.

But I get it, you would have made all the right moves and won the game. It is so easy to blame HAL, and sometimes the moves defy all logic, but in this case, your "wtf" moment doesn't hold water.

Q