Injuries Question - Less Than 9 Healthy?

[hugedude24]

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/stratomatic/team/team_other.html?user_id=213760

I have 10 healthy position players healthy right now, some of whom are very injury prone themselves. If a few more go down, would a pitcher take the field, or would HAL not allow that many injuries?

Thanks for any input.

Greg

[Detroit-Tigers]

pitcher- haven't seen it happen though but I remember someone answering this before.

[RICHARDMILTER]

I am totally guessing here but I have a strong suspicion that Computer Hal will only allow a certain amount of injuries at one time,.. on one team. And my theory can be backed up somewhat by the tens of thousands of games I have played both here, and on the CD-ROM(which uses the same computer Hal). For instance, we know if you only have two catchers, only one can be hurt at a time. Also, when I am doing replays of the 1980 season(on the CD-ROM) the rosters are smaller than today's strat rosters, and it seems like there are never so many injuries that you do not have at least 10 position players. I strongly believe the computer will limit injuries at a certain point, but I do not have the facts to back it up(except for the part about catchers).

[J-Pav]

I jump in and answer this question just about every year. The answer is that you [i:ca85215061]CAN[/i:ca85215061] have enough injuries so that pitchers [i:ca85215061]WILL[/i:ca85215061] take the field if necessary.

Back in the day (vintage 2003), all-injury teams were significant bargains. I originally built [url=http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2003/team/team_other.html?user_id=42898]this team[/url] based on the faulty concept that HAL might "injury-proof" the team once you dropped down to nine healthy position players. This turned out to be proven wrong, as pitchers played in the field when too many position players were hurt.

I remember having Wilson Alvarez play right field, go two for four with an RBI and then pitch a three-hitter in the following game. The team won the ring to boot.

As the salaries were more efficiently built over the following years, all-injury teams were not the bargain they were in the past, although the gimmick is still fun to pursue from time to time. I think there have been a few posts alluding to successful injury teams this year. But because they are not the monster bargains of yesteryear, less people try it, so you have less history to draw from.

Before we switched forums in 2005, there was a lengthy thread on this very topic.

Unless the game engine has changed somehow, pitchers will play the field when necessary and it won't necessarily be that bad a thing.

[b:ca85215061]J[/b:ca85215061]

[MARCPELLETIER]

Pitchers may definitively have to take the field. See

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/stratomatic/league/boxscore.html?group_id=77581&g_id=852

But, it is my firm opinion that your roster will NEVER get lower than 8 active players (8, not 9, as HAL does not consider DH as a position in its engine).

In the illustrated example, my roster was down to 10 active players, and moreover the injuries depleted the infield (see Alou and Galbraith playing out of position). Then I got two more injuries, putting my roster to 8 active players. To make things worst, Hal $crewed the dh by removing the catcher, so I ended up with 1 pitcher on the field and 1 pitcher dh.

However, once you get down to 8 active players, Hal stops injuring players. Playing with the CD-ROM, when you roll an injury result, the given player shakes up, but remains in the game.

In the strategy section, bbrool admitted that TSN's tagprice for injury-prone players are deliberately lower than what one would expect based on the value of the card.

So these players are among the best bargains in this year's set, although J-PAV is absolutely right that they are not the bargains they used to be. Also, it's almost impossible to have a fully optimal bench and to never have Hal $crew things up a little bit as the injuries accumulate, so the profit you make on one side is probably lost on the other side, evening things out.