Fielding a team with 8 men

[jeffdoh]

I have 15 men on my position player roster and currently have 4 guys out with long injuries. I realize I'm still 3 injuries away from this problem, but i'm just curious-- anyone know what happens if you only have 8 guys to field a team? Does HAL put one of your injured guys in at that point? Does HAL forfeit the game for you? Does Hal put a pitcher in to play the field with an awful field rating and pitcher's hit card? Does HAL explode?
Has this happened to anyone?

[LMBombers]

I have fielded teams in the past with lots of high injury guys and never got down to only 8 position players.

You can never lose your last rated catcher to injury and I am sure you cannot lose players to injury where you only have 8 players left.

[visick]

I can recall a time with the 2003 cards where HAL inserted Darren Driefort into the OF a few times because of my teams injuries.

Scary but true...

[jeffdoh]

Thanks for your responses, guys. So which one is it-- does HAL prevent injuries if you are down to 9 healthy guys, or does strat field a pitcher for you!?
By the way, how did Dreifort do? And was he inserted because you were down to 8 men, or did you actually have position players available?

[visick]

I was without position players. I can't recall how he did.

[FRANKMANSUETO]

Didn't he go 3 for 3 w/ 2 Hrs and 5 RBI?

[J-Pav]

I experienced this situation many times in previous (2003) versions of the game, when injury players were very underpriced. Although your second catcher is unbreakable (given that you obeyed all the caveats about the second catcher), the rest of your team is [i:4f5dcf555d]not[/i:4f5dcf555d]. [b:4f5dcf555d]HAL[/b:4f5dcf555d] [b:4f5dcf555d]will place pitchers in the field[/b:4f5dcf555d] when the rest of your position players are depleted by injury.

[jeffdoh]

what caveats are you referring to?
and if your 2nd catcher is unbreakable, it would seem wise to draft a 2nd catcher with a very high injury # to maximize your value there. there must be some catch.....

[J-Pav]

The backup catcher cannot be in the lineup (at another position or DH). I am not sure if you need to [i:fccf6888e0]completely[/i:fccf6888e0] leave him out of the manager strategy section (pinch hitter, pinch runner, etc.) but that is the conventional wisdom.

Drafting a high injury backup catcher has always been a sound strategy (his card has both more value as the injury roll is built into the price somewhat and he protects your starter by making him unbreakable when he goes down for a stretch).

[jeffdoh]

thanks for the explanation J-Pav but by definition, if you have 1 back-up C, he will presmably go in to play C once your starter is injured, so is he protected as of the moment he moves to C, even if he has been playing a position previously?

say i have tom haller catching and blanchard playing rf. haller gets hurt.
if i have no other catchers, HAL will presumably move blanchard to C and stick someone else into RF. is blanchard unbreakable until haller returns?