HAL Failure

Normally, I don't get to bothered by some of HAL's mismanagement. I understand that it's a computer program and it can't be perfect. However, this is one of the larger failures I've seen HAL commit against one of my teams in one fell swoop.

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/game/431670/419

So in the bottom of the 8th HAL made some frantic moves to try to tie up the game and possibly take the lead. He decided to pinch run for Eddie Mathews(3B) with FranK Tavares(SS Only). Harold Baines(RF only) then pinch hits for Jose Oquendo(my SS at the time). The barrage of moves continues and Stan Lopata(C only) pinch hits for Rickey Ferrell(my catcher at the time)

Ok, so looking logically at what happened in that scenario, Oquendo left the game so Frank Tavares obviously goes to SS, Ferrell left the game, so Lopata has to go in to catch since he's the only other catcher on my team. Harold Baines is an understandable problem. He doesn't qualify at 3B. Fortunately, Tim Teufel has not been used yet, he qualifies at 1B, 2B, 3B, I also have Harmon Killebrew playing 1B at the time who plays third, poorly, but he does qualify there. Jack Clark is in RF, but he also qualifies at 1B. So HAL also has the option to put Baines in RF, Clark at 1B, and Killebrew at 3B. All 3 of those moves make your defense worse than just putting Teufel in, but at least those moves put guys at positions they at least play.

So you're probably wondering what madness HAL unleashed? First off, HAL decides to leave Teufel firmly on the bench. Perhaps Tim had a dress code violation before the game and HAL was not playing him for violating team rules. HAL then decides to go ahead and place Baines at 3B and not move Clark and Killebrew. Possibly understandable, but HAL continues to make things worse. He then decides to put Lopata, C only remember, in at SS! He then put Tavares in at C! These are probably the worst combination of moves I've ever seen HAL make. He puts Baines at 3B where he doesn't qualify when he had 2 other qualifying players available and then puts 2 guys out of position when the two guys coming into the game qualified at the positions he had to fill. Why reverse Lopata and Tavares to have them playing out of position when they each qualified at the position that the other went into?

Of course, the defensive alignment ended up paving the way for the winning run as the speedy John Kruk decided to steal against Gene Packard with a -3 hold rating. Tavares then commits a throwing error and Kruk moved to third and was driven home on a single by Gallego, lights out.

Wow, major failure, as you wrote.

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Why reverse Lopata and Tavares to have them playing out of position when they each qualified at the position that the other went into?

There is obviously no logical explanation to this, but I wonder, do you have any of Lopata or Tavares set (on the hitter preference page) to be removed defensively?

Just a wild guess that some glitches happen when this feature is used.

Yes, I had it set to remove Lopata late in the game since Ferrell is the better defender in my platoon. That was kind of my suspicion of what caused HAL to use that positioning as well. I went into the Team Strategy page and listed Ferrell as the defensive sub at catcher and unchecked "remove 4 def sub" on the Hitter Preferences page. That won't remove Lopata as regularly as the other setting, but it should avoid a recurrence of the noted catastrophic situation.

As an aside, looking at Tavares's defensive stats after that play, he now has 3 errors in 4 opportunities. Small sample size, but that is some rough defensive work by Frank!