Contents - Index

Lineup Generator

Here's a brief description of how the Lineup Generator Works:

Pitcher's Spot 

The pitcher always occupies the 9th slot in the order. There are no exceptions to this rule.

Who Starts and Who Sits the Bench

All active players assigned a starting role compete directly against one another for playing time. For example, if your starting second baseman starts 140 games at 2B and you have a utility player who started 25 games at 2B then (assuming both are assigned the "starter" role) each player is eligible to start. The everyday second baseman would have a 140/165 (or 85%) chance of starting on any given day, while the backup man would have a 25/165 (or 15%) chance of starting any given day. After placing the pitcher in the 9th slot, the generator then applies this technique to each defensive position to determine who will be starting on a given day. Naturally, if you have only one player eligible to start at a position, that player will be forced always to start. 

There are two additional items to note with regard to deciding who plays and sits: 

• the moment a player begins to exceed his RPL limit, the generator gradually tries to suppress him from starting.  Often, however, this proves impossible because owners have not activated enough players to give the generator the need flexibility. You cannot depend on the generator to bench your overplayed personnel. 

• If the Platoon Bias (see Batting Roster ) is applied to a player, the generator tries to achieve the optimal left-right configuration against the opposing pitcher. Using the example given above, if your everyday second baseman were a left-hander with a platoon bias and your backup were a right-hander with a platoon bias, then in almost all cases you would achieve the platoon advantage over the opposing pitcher.  However, you must be careful when applying the platoon bias because each defensive position in a player's profile is opened up to the bias. For example, if our utility player above were permitted to play 3B, then using the platoon bias may achieve the undesirable result that he replaces your everyday  third basemen on occasion. Our advice is to tweak your settings and experiment at will, but watch closely the actual results achieved by examining the box scores after each game set. The observant owner will learn from experience how to get the most satisfactory results.  

Filling Out the Lineup Card

After the generator decides who's playing at each position, the lineup card gets filled out in the order 4-1-3-2-5-6-7-8. This ensures that the two key slots in the lineup (clean-up and lead-off) are filled by the highest caliber players. 

Criteria for Deciding Who goes Where on the Card (not applicable when Lineup Bias is in use)

In order not to reveal the real-life season you have for your position players, the precise criteria for filling slots 1-8 is not disclosed. However, you may rest assured that the generator follows conventional baseball wisdom in this regard, and incorporates certain statistical studies which show the effect of batting order selection on run production. If you do not like the lineups you are getting, then you can apply the lineup bias (see Batting Roster) and, under most conditions, effectively override the generator.

When the Generator Fails to Build a Lineup

The generator will make 300 attempts at building a suitable lineup from the players you've made eligible to start. If a lineup is not found after 300 tries, then the generator begins to create more "elbow room" for itself, overriding some of your settings. If you carefully manage your franchise, the following emergency measures should never be necessary.  

First Emergency Measure

Beginning with the first roster spot, the computer will assign a starting role, make another 300 tries, then move down to the next player on the roster, assign him a starting role and so on, repeating the procedure until all active players are classified starters. If after the first emergency measure a lineup still cannot be built, then a second measure is applied.

Second Emergency Measure

Beginning with the first roster spot, the computer will make active an inactive player under contract, make another 300 tries, move down to the next player, make him active and so forth until finally a lineup becomes possible. 

The diagnostic checker built into the software tries to anticipate these kinds of problems before they happen, but it doesn't catch everything.  It's a good idea always to have at least one outfielder specified for each of left, right and center fields. It's also a good idea to devise a substitution strategy for your everyday players early in the season so that you are not forced to rest them in bunches later on, which often leaves the generator without the personnel necessary to build a lineup. 

Final Emergency Measure

If all else fails, personnel will be taken automatically from the old timers fraternity to fill in gaps as needed.