Explain Hal's Reliever Methodology to Me!

All of this nonsense is why it's best to go with Four Aces and minimize the bullpen in the first place.

Max is just bluffing.
In the finals he plans to spend $5 mil on starters and $25 mil on stud relief pitchers so it doesn't matter which RP HAL chooses.
(is the Jedi mind trick working?)

I heard that from multiple sources now as well.

Also subtracts the pinchhitter choice by Hal in the Four Aces strategy. Don't want Hal to think too much!

PRECISELY why I don't understand that the rest of the Finals field doesn't vote for the opposite of what those juggernauts prefer (yes Lab, Max, cristano you know who you are).

Add some unpredictability. some fog of war. some intrigue. make it 80M no DH and watch it all explode. Read some Sun Tzu and vote appropriately people!

all in good fun of course

They could fix the bullpen at any time. All they have to do is let each reliever fill 4 roles ,instead of two. Even in real life if you look at the roles, most pitchers will be used in a half a dozen of those roles during the season, (even closers).


They went from allowing you to assign your reliever to 10 different roles, to 2 different roles. And it has been a joke ever since. Literally they took control away from the bullpen.

I just don't understand, who came up with that ridiculous system. Did they think having less control over your bullpen is better? I guess so.


One of the greatest things is all the retro leagues, and 4 of the 5 Mystery formants don't use this ridiculous bullpen system. It's been like this for years. I am not going to hold my breath for a change now.

Sadly this was all because a very small group of players didn't like Bruce Sutter pitching 250 innings. But for some reason no one has a problem with SPs pitching 350+ innings (or batters hitting 100+ HRs). It was as if the only unrealistic thing that bothered this small group of whiners was a reliever with "too many innings".

I have seen teams where the entire bullpen pitched less than 100 innings for the season. Is that supposed to be more realistic??

Worst of all, now everyone (who wins) has the exact same strategy for bullpens. There's no deviation, there's no reason for 3-7 million dollar relievers, unless it is a 250 million dollar team.


Why not just get rid of bullpens altogether and just carry 4 pitchers. What is the point if you don't have control over your bullpen? More than half of the roles go unfilled. No wonder Hal just makes it up, we aren't allowed to give him any direction.

I don't know but I would guess this is a rant on ATG bullpen logic and how the other game formats are better by a person who doesn't play ATG.
The mystery and other formats have their own forum.
If the post is not trying or related to trying to assist/answer the OP for the ATG game, then it belongs on a different thread.

Here's a good one. Opening night of a new season.


In game one, Red Lucas went 8 innings and Frank Linzy closed it out in the ninth.

In game two, the bullpen is essentially entirely fresh and available.

I have Tekulve, Linzy, Garman all set to quick hook, avoid lefties.
I have Roberts, Dipino, and Sambito set to quick hook, avoid righties.
I also have Garber set to middle man and setup, for what that's worth.


Up 7-1 in the top of the seventh inning, this is what HAL decided to do:

TOP OF INNING 7
0 I.Rodriguez 5-7 Strike Out b-0 F9
SUBSTITUTION at PH: Sandy Alomar (S)
1 S.Alomar 2-7 Single (RF) b-1 F8
1 1 J.Altuve 6-3 Single (1B) 1-3 b-1 gb(1B)x F3
SUBSTITUTION at P: Dave Roberts (L)
SUBSTITUTION at LF: Lynn Jones
1 1 3 M.Kemp 2-5 Strike Out b-0 F9
2 1 3 M.Cabrera 3-6 Single (LF) 3-H 1-2 b-1 F9
2 12 R.Kiner 3-6 Single (LF) 2-H 1-2 b-1 F9
2 12 A.Rodriguez 1-5 Strike Out b-0 F9

Why would HAL choose Roberts to pitch to four consecutive righties under these circumstances?

Thanks, Frankie and thanks, everyone I have had good success with not using too many bullpen roles. My main issue at the moment is high endurance/skill starters getting relieved for and HAL seemingly trying to reserve my best relievers as much as possible, to the point where they don't get played. This is a big problem as it essentially turns a 80M team into a 76m team. He loves to bring in the cheapest relievers and specialists as much as possible. There is no setting to prioritize the best relievers in the above example. Closer, setup, etc are not desirable in this case.

Thanks, Frankie and thanks, everyone I have had good success with not using too many bullpen roles. My main issue at the moment is high endurance/skill starters getting relieved for and HAL seemingly trying to reserve my best relievers as much as possible, to the point where they don't get played. This is a big problem as it essentially turns a 80M team into a 76m team. He loves to bring in the cheapest relievers and specialists as much as possible. There is no setting to prioritize the best relievers in the above example. Closer, setup, etc are not desirable in this case.

Don't set roles, HAL does a better job IMHO if you don't assign roles. Avoid Righty or Lefty is fine, Quick hook is fine. But roles seem to screw him up.

If I have 5 relievers: (2) 9L, (2) 9R & (1) Decent balanced reliever with R3 or better. HAL will choose that decent reliever first the vast majority of the time.

Here's an extreme example:
https://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1708221

Lown pitched more innings than the rest of the bullpen combined.

OK, I've removed roles and only using quick/avoid.

The middleman/setup for my good balanced reliever did work okay in the past with essentially this same staff, but I'm curious to try this out anyway.

@evgrich Ty. I have mostly stopped using roles. I think one thing that really confuses HAL is when your more expensive relieves have lower endurance than the cheaper ones. In your team I noticed Lown has R3 and that is as good as anyone else. If you had an R4 or R5 he would have been used a lot less. I believe so anyway

I think one thing that's clear is that SOM is now much better at handling offensive substitutions than defensive ones. The ability to designate a PH for a starter in a platoon situation was a real advance, and replicates what a real-life manager would be able to do. In the lineup lists, one can also designate sub players, for different positions, which gives a manager a lot of control in the case of injuries.

We have far more primitive controls for the bullpen. Arguably, SOM overcorrected when they attempted to limit the used of super-relievers by the combination of raising the price of long-endurance RPs AND limiting roles to just two. At the same time, I believe bullpen control is simply more complicated, since there are so many factors HAL has to consider.

Anyway, I now lean toward FrankieT's method of few-to-no settings for relievers in most situations, except for quick hook, inning limits, and don't use for cheap unbalanced relievers. I also tend to use R1 relievers, since in ATG9 they seem to be comparatively well priced compared to long-endurance guys. I don't think there's a magic bullet for bullpen management, though. Anyway, on a competitive level, we're all the the same boat.