Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

do you have better luck setting your own lineups or letting HAL do them ?

Never let HAL do anything you cannot do yourself.

Agreed. There is a theory that HAL knows your best players and will put the best ones in the lineup, but I don't buy into that.
The only time I ever let HAL make a decision for me is if I can't decide on who to use for my closer, I may leave it blank and let HAL decide who will close. Even with that I've had mixed success.

HAL doesn't know didley squat. Set your order the way you think it should be and tweak it as results start coming in.

Unless you know all the settings TSN has imported from SOM's CD-ROM (e.g., PA limits), you shouldn't bet on HAL knowing squat.

You can check my blog on the recent TSN league where I blog on a team that allowed HAL to work his cards for three or more series

Take a look at the PAs to date / season and you'll see the outcome (for now)

Billy Martin, tried to make the point that lineups don't matter. To do that, he would walk into the clubhouse, once a season, and pull the batting order out of a hat.

Stienbrenner, probably didn't like that, since he demanded Reggie bat fourth, and Reggie, couldn't hit, according to the situation. An old Yankee warrior, like Martin, couldn't tolerate Reggie. Reggie refused to bunt, when he was ordered to. To make it all worse, Reggie bunted, when he wasn't ordered to. Popped up.

It really doesn't matter in a 3 game series. When you are allowed to set specific settings for a single game, against a single pitcher/catcher/outfield, in a single ballpark, in the playoffs, It begins to matter. Managers create teams, around the ballpark.

Martin said, a manager, at his best is worth making a difference in 3-4 games in a season. You waste time worrying about it, because, it is card flips, and begging the gypsy card reader, that gets you into the playoffs.

Otherwise, you just beg and pray.

In a recent league, I got off to a 9-18 start, so I wiped my lineups clean and let how set the lineups. I ended at 85-77, 1 game out from the playoffs.

HAL used different lineups for LHP depending if the LHP was balanced more toward RHB or LHB, same for RHP. Since it seems HAL pretty bases a lot of his decisions based on the strengths of the batter (e.g., 6R or 3L), I got a batter indication of 2 or 3 guys cards.
- Sometimes Jose Cruz started against LHP and some times he didn't. So you compare to the LHP the opponent had with Cruz's card and the stats each had compiled to that point, and you can get a better indication of which year Cruz was.
- HAL started Bob Bailor over Richie Zisk against RHP, and my home park was the Kingdome. The only for that to happen is if it was the one year Bailor could hit RHP and if it were one of Zisk's worst years. Turns out, that was the case.

You still need to pay attention to what Hal does. He kept batting Oberkfell leadoff, and it turned out it was his worst year. HAL had Butler batting 2nd. I adjusted quickly and set Butler as leadoff to force that to happen and subsequently dropped Oberkfell.

Basically, I think it is worth trying early in the season to pick up trends, but I ultimately set my lineups for the last 40 or so games based on the knowledge gained about what seasons I had.

I still think HAL uses "Eanie-Meanie-Miney-Moe" logic for most of his decisions. 8-)

in general HAL likes

1. OBP and speed
2. Speed and bunter
3. Avg
4. power
5. power
and more power

I agree with the basic premis that if Hal knows squat, he is not sharing...
Watch the use of relievers early in a season, also I find Hals concept of
replacements are usually based on power and nothing more, just OMO...