Pitcher Preferences

In my mystery league, I have Goose Gossage as my closer and tied and late preference. Tonight I had two games tied in the 9th inning. Gossage never pitched. The system pitched my two worst pitchers in those games. Why?

My best guess would be overall usage (IP for the Gossage season in question) along with possibly heavy recent usage in previous games. Was Gossage used heavily in previous games to the exclusion of other pitchers? That, I believe, might cause HAL to pass on Gossage to get work for others more in line with their actual season in play usage.

Does HAL make pitching decisions based on the pitchers cards, based on salary or card itself?
Do better pitchers cards get used more (automatically) in leverage situations?
At times, it sure seems like the worst pitchers get used when other options available.

Curious to hear what vets have to say

To be honest, I have no idea. I've been meaning to revisit here and retract the previous post. In single season replays, HAL will make players unavailable for rest as overall player usage based on PA or IP is attempted to be controlled.

However, in mystery card leagues, as somewhat of a veteran, I still have no idea about HAL's usage decisions. All I know is whenever I think I have a set of bullpen roles figured out, my pitching nosedives - presumably because HAL "disagrees" with my choices.

Then again, I may just be overly suspicious and treating personal correlation as causation.

I hope this cures my current slump which it seems I suffer after every community/league post; and why I have avoided the discord chat.