Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

I just began play in my first non-DH league (1969 season) and I am a bit perplexed by the pinch-hitting strategies and late-inning substitutions that HAL has chosen to make. I was under the impression that the pitcher always batted ninth, but the reality appears to be different. Is there any logical pattern as to when HAL decides to keep a pinch-hitter in the game defensively in the #9 slot and place the relief pitcher elsewhere?

Much like the strategy in a real game, I assume.


If HAL decides to pinch hit and bring a reliever in, he might shuffle your lineup around, remove a guy or 2 and place that RP in a slot in the lineup that would not be coming up to bat soon.

TSN on-line Strat-O-Matic, the 1969 version. Give it a shot! You'll love it!

If anyone know of a way to make HAL stop making these idiotic double switches I'd love to hear about it.

Probably remove, in the manager strategy section, your pinch hitters?

In the only ATG team I ran my entire lineup with do not pinch hit for vs L & R checked in all 1-8 slots, then I had a bench with 1 LH PH (vs R) and 2 RH PHs (Vs L) that served as subs in case of injury. It seemed to work since I rarely got double switches, my PHs were used almost entirely as such.

I tried it in the only no-DH '05 league I played but the pool of players didn't give me the flexibility to have the right bench. MY PHs were Sierra and Giambi...If memory serves me well only twice was Sierra left in the OF and only once for Giambi.

[quote:5ef61b43ea="stlouisnathan"]If anyone know of a way to make HAL stop making these idiotic double switches I'd love to hear about it.[/quote:5ef61b43ea] Yeah I know a way..............play in a DH league :shock:

I have a team in the 69 league and have set my reserve catcher as PH vs rightys. I did this to try to get HAL out of making PH decisions because he is so darn stupid. What does HAL do? HAL ignores my selected PH and goes for my high-priced LF (Yaz), PHing for a pitcher. Yaz was the first PH off the bench.

So, Yaz then is unavailable both for defensive sub and for platooning with the cheap LF that I have for left-handed pitching, leaving me totally screwed.

Any suggestions on what I can do to force HAL to use the PH that I have selected to face righties?

As an aside, I'll also mention that my attempts at platooning (yes, I set avoid right-handed pitching) have been failures because HAL will not substitute for moderately-priced hitters.

Last night, it was the bottom of the 9th, 1 out trailing by 1. Tons of good hitters on the bench. HAL lets Nettles bat against an ace left-handed reliever with a 4L rating? Why? Nettles is a lefty with a 5R rating, a 0.55 mil player with a check-mark on avoid left-handed pitching. Why do you do this to me HAL, why?