Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

You have recently run a thread about strange pitching decisions made by the computer, aka HAL. Here is a very strange nonpitching decision. In a theme league I have the Cardinals/Cubs franchises. Randy Hundley is the starting catcher and Joe Torre is the DH. Hundley went down. As Torre is the only other catcher on the team, HAL obviously would insert Joe be the catcher, right? Wrong. HAL made Jim Hickman the catcher, even though that position isn't even listed on his card. I believe with the scores of Strat teams I have owned, this is a first. I though it weird the time HAL made Mark McGwire a leadoff hitter, but this takes the cake. Any explanation for this?

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/1969/league/boxscore.html?group_id=3182&g_id=507

MLB Rule 6.10 [url]http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/mlb/official_info/official_rules/batter_6.jsp[/url]

States that a DH can enter the game to play defense (what you would like Torre to have done), but that a DH can no longer be used the rest of the game, thus requiring the pitcher to bat the rest of the way.

So it looks like the game engine made an odd choice of Hickman to catch, but if it had been done properly, you would have had a pitcher batting instead of Hickman.

As for your lineup questions, I gave up trying to figure out HAL's moves there a long time ago. :lol:

As a baseball fan for almost a half century, I know that rule, though I admit as an NL fan I hate admitting that I know anything about the DH. :wink:

However, this was not a game-in-progress substitution, so that rule wouldn't have applied here. For other teams, I have had HAL use my normal DH to fill a position left vacant by an injury. Torre should have been the catcher, and whomever HAL chose to insert in the lineup would have been the DH.

That is screwed up. Torre sounds like the obvious choice to catch. Anyone would do this even if it meant a "5" at 1B, which we've seen HAL do plenty of times.

This is out of Bernie's hands though. The program that comes from Glen Head has some serious flaws. Things like this are clear evidence.

I expect that is correct; only so much can be done. Oh well, it's still a fun hobby. 8)