RP's

i tend to get dallas green alot bc he is 9L and cheap...my question is, if i set him as a left handed specialist and avoid lefty hitters on preferences, does that mean he never pitches?

i thought i came across that on here once before

thanks for your responses in advance

No. Hal would use a LH specialist against anybody if he has to because of resource availability constraints
, especially if he's a pure reliever. I wouldn't be surprised if pitched 25 innings, even with that setting.

In low-leverage situations (e.g., a score that is not close), where the situation does not particularly demand the service of a specialist given the context, Green would be seen coming into the game or staying in the game against anybody, despite being a LH specialist who avoids left handed (or right-handed) batters.

The only practical way to get a pitcher to never pitch is to acquire a pure starter and leave him out of the rotation.

Kind of a silly question, no? Do you want him to never pitch?

in truth no i don't

You could also get any S/R and put him in the rotation, with the reliever avoids and quick hook, but then make sure to assign your starters by game. Not as foolproof as Paul suggested with a pure starter for what you are trying to accomplish, but sometimes an S/R could be cheaper option. Presumably, you are trying to minimize salary and usage of that last reliever roster spot.

If salary is that much of an issue, it must be low cap. If it is low cap, then it would seem that your intent is an inefficient way to do it, and contains some risk. Especially if you use a 4-man rot--because you now have another wasted slot there unless you have an S/R you use as a reliever in the 5th slot.

With the new bullpen rules, I have found it impossible to hide a "specialist" type reliever. The relievers are unavailable so often now that HAL is often reaching for guys in the complete wrong situation even when you have settings to try to avoid this.

I had Dave LaRoche on a team with Radatz, Wilhelm 3.87, and B.Y. Kim the other bullpen guys. LaRoche was set as LH specialist along with Dennis Bennett. There were several instances where Radatz threw 4 innings and then was unavailable for 2 games. HAL would then use Wilhelm out of the bullpen first and tended to save Kim for closing situations. So often times HAL was going to LaRoche, Dennis Bennett or Bill Swift for matchups that were horrible for all of those pitchers.

I eventually had to relent and get rid of LaRoche because he had several melt downs that cost me games and went to 4 fully "functional" relievers. I also dumped Dennis Bennett. I had put him on the team to match up for 4 or 5 starts during the season and be the LH specialist, but he was just being used too often by HAL in the wrong situation. This ended up helping a lot.

I held onto Swift because there are several RH heavy teams in the league. I try to pitch Swift in the 3rd game of the series as this makes him unavailable for the bullpen for several games following the start.

I will note, I tend to use the "slop ball" type starters like Frank Gabler, Heredia, Klipptein, etc. If you are willing to pay up for the S9 starters, I think you'll have a much easier time hiding the low end relievers.(This probably isn't news to anyone!)

I appreciate all the opinions...thank you..any other ideas would be helpful