Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

I have noticed in the past several weeks that the game engine is making defensive substitutions that are not being asked for. It seems to happen whenever a different change is being made.

Example:

Billy Martin pinch hits in the 8th inning for Nellie Fox to face a LH reliever. So Martin goes into the game at 2b, but then HAL replaces Maxwell (#3 hitter playing LF) with Delsing (a 1 in LF but can't hit....).

Of course we give up the lead and who is at the plate with the bases loaded in the 9th and 2 outs? Delsing, who proceeds to end the game.

Has happened in other leagues too where HAL decides to rearrange the defense for no reason or substitute a better defensive player and take a stud out of the line up.

I do not have these subs set as defensive replacements and do not have remove for defensive sub checked.

Anyone else seeing this?

I have had this issue for some time--I use defensive subbing on a lot of teams and what I have noticed is that HAL just is not very good at making decisions if some of the players are already in the game due to injury or pinch hitting, etc. I can think of multiple times where I have had guys like Duke Snider end up catching or other guys playing out of position to honor a def sub or pinch hit request. Hal will seemingly randomly switch guys from inning to inning from RF to LF and then back again for no apparent reason. Often times there is a much more rational option on the table (typically leave the defense alone) which Hal passes on for the odd substitution.

The ONLY explanation I can think of is that there is some variation structured into the algorithm to generate some level of "discretion" (really randomness) to HALs decisions which makes him think such decisions make sense.

It's always happened on my teams that HAL occasionally brings in defensive subs even if they're not specifically asked for. Same as he pinch hits sometimes even if you don't have a platoon counterpart identified. It usually doesn't bother me and I can generally find a logic to the subs. Delsing probably should be the in for the end of games where you have a small lead, strategically speaking.