[fhomess]

I haven't seen exactly what the AI is doing, but I'll throw my thoughts in anyway. The ability to hit against the handedness of the pitcher should be taken into account, certainly. Defense and baserunning ability also need to be considered. Even if those balance out, from a strategic standpoint, if you have a player who's slightly worse against the starter's handedness, but significantly better against other handed pitchers, it still makes sense to start him because you won't have to use a substitution later in the game. It's about anticipating future game situations. It's highly likely that the opposing manager will replace his starter with a pitcher of the opposite hand to force you to use your bench players when the situation is less than ideal.