Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

21 games, one week into my season, and HAL has yet to use Tim Burke.
I have a six-man pen and has targeted Burke as my closer.
He's used everyone else in the pen at least five times and is going to Eichhorn and Kipper as the closers, which is fine.
Other than innings, I never set my bullpen until around now.
Is HAL telling me that Burke is the worst guy in the pen and perhaps I can free up his salary and use it elsewhere?
Any experiences like this?

maybe you haven't had any closer situtations. When he is marked as the closer HAL will save him to close.

No, he's not marked as the closer. To date, I've let HAL manage the bullpen.
He's just not being used.

If the other RP's are doing well then drop him. But remember HAL is a bonehead, so you never really know. I had him not use guys, but then use him later like a crazy man.

Thanks for the tip

I had a similar situation with Eichhorn on one team--HAL was just ignoring him, even though he obviously has some great seasons. Instead, HAL was featuring Bill Dawley (in what turned out to be his best year) and Roy Lee Jackson (in a pretty good year.) I decided after about 50 games that I wanted to give Eichhorn a try and stuck him into the setup or closer role. I can't remember which.

Eichhorn pitched really well, ending up with a 2.75 ERA, a 1.31 WHIP and 16 saves in 68 innings. Dawley finished the year with 152 innings and Jackson with 112 IP because HAL kept using them too, and they had a head start. Eichhorn turned out to be in one of his two big years, 1985, so it was definitely worth finding out. I can also ruefully state that despite his excellent pitching, Eichhorn had a 0-7 WL record, sadly typical of the snake-bit season endured by this particular team.

But painful personal history aside, the inferences I'd draw from your situation are these:
1. You've got a good bullpen! Kipper (who can be really good or pretty bad) and Eichhorn are in excellent seasons and HAL is spoiled for choice. For some reason, on teams like this, with many good possibilites, HAL seems to get locked in on a couple of options.
2. Burke has some monster years too.
3. So I'd want to find out if Burke can pitch.
4. I'd temporarily put Burke in either the setup or closer role and see how he does.

It's worth a shot.