- Posts: 1436
- Joined: Thu Aug 30, 2012 4:17 pm
I can't explain it, but at least it didn't hurt you. Linzy has the most saves and save attempts, suggested that he pitched in the most critical situations, and Garman has a decent ERA and went 2-0. But why HAL does what he does with the bullpen remains something of a mystery, even to veteran managers.
I have a little story of my own. In a current 175M league, where I could afford four good RPs, I have a five man starting rotation including two LHP (Schaup and Snell). My team was headed, luckily for me, to top seed in the playoffs. And all three of the teams I was mostly likely to meet in the playoffs had all RHB lineups that kill LHP. And the league had a only a 5% drop penalty through game 142. So I decided to cash in a couple of 2M+ backup hitters to get a RH starter to pitch during the semis in place of Snell, who has tended to be shelled by RH dominated lineups. Len Barker, a 3.99M SP5/R3, seemed like the best available option. So I picked him up before game 142, and immediately HAL fell in love with him and started using him as an RP, ahead of my other RH RPs including Putz, Soria and Romo. Sort of surprising. Barker didn't do badly at all, posting a 2.45 ERA with one win and one save, while pitching 18 innings. But why HAL would feature him over my other guys was hard to figure. Barker is now pegged to start in game 5 of the semis against that all RHB lineup. We'll see how he does.
BTW, although I don't usually set roles for RPs, I decided to feature Romo, a 6R who gives up zip vs RHB, in the semis. I hoped to get a lot of innings out of him by giving him the Middle Man and Setup roles vs my all-RHB opponent. My team won games 1 & 2 and Romo pitched in both, covering 5.2 innings and notching a win (as middle man) and save (as setup). Games 3 & 4 play tonight. We'll see how that goes--for one thing, will HAL see Romo as fatigued and not pitch him in game 3? Still, it does seem that in specific situations, such as a RHB or LHB lineup, setting roles for RPs might be a good idea.
Here's the team:
https://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1709221