my first computer manager rant

Caliengr,

It's the difference between being a GM and being a coach. In this stratomatic online game, you're only the GM. I'm sure the feeling you had is a feeling a lot of GMs have experienced.

If you want to be a coach and play Strat on line, there's a way: you have to buy the Windows game and either get into a league or play an individual game (there's a forum where you can set a face-to-face game against another coach...or at least this is how it used to be).

To come back to the initial post of this thread:

Here is the situation in a game last night; 9th inning and my team is behind by 3 runs and there are two out in the bottom of the 9th with the bases loaded and my team is facing the best closer in baseball, Aroldis Chapman. The hitter that comes up is Ryan Goins. Goins came in as a defensive replacement in the top of the 8th to play 2B. I still had 3 players on the bench including my pinchhitter vs lefties, Tommy La Stella. Lefthanded hitter Goins vs lefties = .158 BA, .158 OBP%, .237 SLG%

Hal works with a logic that I don't fully understand, but here is some guidelines---and let me hear from you all if you have the same experience as I do

1-Hal never makes a ph substitution when leading, only when trailing or when the game is tied.

2- Hal is most willing to make a substitution when the opposing pitcher has just been brought into the game. When the pitcher has already faced at least one hitter, Hal is much more conservative in doing a move.

3- Hal is also more willing in the 9th inning, when a critical situation occurs, than in other situations, but as the example above shows, Hal not always makes that move.

4- Slugging, rather than on-base, seems to trigger Hal to bring in a pinch-hitter. Clutch with two outs seems to help too.

5- Hal is more conservative when removing a player that has been brought into the game, but this could simply be an artefact of having less players on the bench

6- It seems to me that some players are easily removed by Hal, and some others are NEVER removed. In a 200M league, I had ss 6.08M Escobar. A 2L right-handed hitter, weak vs rhp. Hal NEVER EVER removed him for a pinch-hitter vs rhp, and believe me, I tried everything to incite him to do so. I put 17 players on the roster. I had a very solid slugging card vs rhp on the bench (Duda, then Vargas). I had 2 players that could cover ss, and then I dropped them and picked up 2 natural ss (ss was the first position on the card). Nada. In another team, I had Phillips, a 2R right-handed hitter, a bit better than Escobar vs rhp--a bit more on-base, more power, more direct homeruns, and Phillips was almost always removed by Hal when trailing and facing a right-handed pitcher--at least thirty times I would say (team overall had close to 70 pinch-hits PA).

So my conclusion is that there is a programmation line in Hal's logic that, if the pricetag of the player is above a certain amount (5M?, 6M?), you never remove that player from the lineup for pinch-hit. Perhaps it could be because Escobar had a 0 injury rating

All of those things are true.
And on pinch hitting, I don't know where the cutoff is, but Hal will never pinch hit for a "star player".
Once in awhile I'll play unlimited live draft, and there is ZERO pinch hitting. I don't care if you have Dick Allen on the bench and Willie Stargell is facing a lefty reliever, it's never gonna happen.

Well, #4 was certainly not true in my instance, that's for sure.

Steve F got me thinking about a "cutoff" for star players and where it might be---I went hunting through my older teams for PH and found this (2012 teams)


http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/game/347287/654

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/pl ... 012/347287
http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/pl ... 012/347287
http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/pl ... 012/347287


Here, Pierre pinch hit for Ruggiano (a 7.48M player with a good RH side even though he is much better vs. LH) when a 9R pitcher was brought in---I'm guessing that pricing doesn't drive the pinch hitting as much as the combined L/R odds.

BUT----I haven't found a single instance yet where a low injury player (green rated-3 game or less guy) was pinch-hit for.

Edit 9/19---In Marcs example, Phillips is a 3 injury guy (I'm assuming the 2014 version) so I'm wondering if the low injury rating effects the PH logic.

I've always hoped that SOMO used the same game engine as the CD-ROM game, and that the online game was the interface to set the manager options and handle gm functions. That would be a way to do it.

If it did, the in game HAL logic wouldn't have visibility of salary. It would have l/r split, injury, avoid l/r, don't pinch hit vs l/r, and pinch hitter vs l/r settings.

This is one of those black box things we won't be able to get a firm set of rules on. Like bullpen logic and base running decisions.

Like Marc said, We're GMs, not bench managers in the SOMO game.

I appreciate Strat & Hal in general. However, if they aren't at the point where Hal can ACTUALLY CARRY OUT the strategy .... then just eliminate the option for any such strategy until Hal catches up!!!!!