Bullpen Coach Very Obedient
By Dave Scott

Hal has a new pitching coach: You.
Version 4.0 has a computer manager improvement for the bullpen that puts you on the dugout bench. The decisions are yours and the results have a lot to do with how well you make baseball decisions.
The Super Hal improvement is not just an attempt to give the computer more information and lead it to better decisions through "artificial intelligence.'' Version 4.0 takes its instructions directly from you and follows them carefully.
Even the Super Hal name is a little misleading. It might be better to call it Super Obedient.
This might be the most complicated computer function ever added and it requires more thought and time than any one I know of. Many managers, me included, had to scramble to get it running in time for league play and I would anticipate many changes to the strategy as our experience builds through the season.
SOM says that if the feature is popular, it might expand the concept to other game features. Let's hope they do.

Here's how it works.
Set up your computer manager the way you always did it. Take particular care to make decisions for every player. For example, go to TEAM/UPDATE COMPUTER MANAGER and double-click on a player's name and choose whether he should be allowed to face lefties, get a quick hook or stay in until the seventh inning. Also make selections in the main screen like picking a closer and set-up men.
At the lower-left of this box is a button called Super Hal. Click it and just take a moment to look at the format.
There are three areas, the Orders, where you set the pecking order for the bullpen; Logic, where you describe the circumstances in which players will be brought into the game and a section where player stats are listed.

ORDERS
Think of this as a place where you can keep lists. You may have as many as 15. Your entire bullpen appears and you can alter their order by dragging them around with the mouse. You change the order to fit various game situations.
For example, you might want to save your best relievers from being used in hopeless situations. So one of the important lists will have your WORST pitchers on top. You might label this list Blowout or Early blowout.
Simply naming the list does not complete the task. From the computer's standpoint, the list's name is A or B or whatever letter you gave it down the left margin (A to 0).
The selected player has his stats listed below, but this might be a good time to get the player cards out and shuffle through them as you make decisions.
The process will require some imagination. Think of the ways you manage your bullpen and the situations that prompt you to make moves.

LOGIC
You have four basic sections to set the logic: Score, Outs, BatType, and ID of the lists you set in the orders section.
For example, if you want to establish your closer, you might set the score to 1 to 3, which would mean when you are ahead by three or fewer runs. For outs, you might include 24, meaning after you have two outs in the eighth inning. Bat type is about your opponent's lineup, lefty, righty etc. The ID section is to pick the list with the order you want relievers to appear in this situation (A through O).
To make selections in this section, double-click on the line you want to change and fill in the blanks in the section that pops up. Try to be as complete as you can, thinking of every possible game situation. You can make as many as 50 situations, so you should be able to handle anything.
It is vital that you get some practice in before sending these instructions off to an opponent. That's because the lefty-righty instructions might be a little foreign to your way of thinking.
L=Lefty, R=Right
l=reverse lefty
r= reverse righty.
That all seems simple enough, until a few practice games reveal that the batter being considered varies according to the circumstances. On occasion, the computer looks ahead for a batter who might present more of a threat than the man at bat. Let's say you are facing the White Sox, your pitcher has reached his point of fatigue and Mike Caruso is up. The computer might look ahead and see Frank Thomas and Albert Belle coming up behind him and choose a right-hander.
The best way to learn these tendencies is to play practice games and frequently go to Check Information and then the Miscellaneous section. There you will see the situation and player Hal has chosen to "Watch" under those circumstances. You also might see "No Match Found in Logic!" That means your Super Hal programming has some gaps. In those cases, the computer seems to fall back into its old routines for the computer manager, judging the game situation and those fundamental decisions you made by double-clicking on individual players.
SOM also recommends that you program Super Hal for a catch-all circumstance using a score range of -99 to +99 and outs from 0 to 99 etc. These codes should go at the very bottom of you Logic Section. But don't put in the catch-all until you have everything the way you like it. If you do it too early, you won't get those "No Match Found in Logic" that point out gaps in your planning.
Perhaps the weakest point of the new system is that you have little control over when Hal makes a move. The old instructions for Quick Hook or Max 1 or 2 innings of relief still apply, but there are no new choices offered with Super Hal. The Point of Weakness rules remain the same and it seems Hal waits for that moment most of the time to bring in a reliever.
It is also important to remember that the ranges Super Hal asks you to make are inclusive, which is to say that +4 to 0 means four or fewer runs. The next range would have a +5 in order not to conflict.
What's Next? Pinch hitters would seem to be a likely candidate. If you have other ideas, take a look at the STRAT FAN Poll on Page 9