[Matter2003]

I played a game against Norfolk today and they trotted out a pitcher who became exhausted when he hit 40 pitches. I checked to see why and it turns out all but 4 of their pitchers are currently injured. Crazily enough the guy took a no-hitter into the 6th inning before being replaced by an equally tired reliever. I ended up winning the game 2-0, in large part because all of their pitchers were tired---equally in large part because I had my stud pitcher throw a complete game 3 hitter...

Anyways, I checked after the game to see if there was any reason why some other pitchers from either their AA or A teams couldn't have been called up temporarily to help them out. The AA team had some injuries of their own, so I could understand why they couldn't have helped. However there were either few or no injuries to pitchers on their A teams, so I really am not understanding why they couldn't have temporarily demoted a few injured players to A level and brought up a couple AA pitchers, who would have been replaced at the AA level by A pitchers. It is no way realistic to think that a human GM would allow a team to have only 4 healthy pitchers on its roster when there are plenty of replacement candidates at lower levels. Something really really needs to be done about this. Also, I am STILL noticing that injured players on AI rosters are starting games and then being pinch hit for immediately when they come to bat.

IMHO, the first focus on this game needs to be on GM AI in all facets to ensure it is making better decisions and actually acting closer to what a human GM COULD do. It doesn't necessarily need to do what YOU would do, but it should do something that is at least defensible by some standard of what a human GM might do. Leaving 4 pitchers to pitch every game on an AAA roster and doing nothing to help them is definitely NOT defensible. Neither is starting an injured player and then pinch hitting for him when he comes to bat, meaning that he is out playing in the field with broken legs, ruptured ACL, etc. How does the AI figure out if he is going to get to a ball or not? Obviously a guy with a broken leg is not going to be able to get to any hit ball and it should be an inside the park HR...i guess its possible its cosmetic, but it takes away some immersiveness when that happens.

Something else that I have noticed is the AI pinch hitting for a stud player with a crap player, which appears to be pinch hitting only for the sake of pinch hitting and not actually pinch hitting to increase their chances of winning. What possible reason could the AI have for pinch hitting for their stud player in the 4 spot who has a .330+ average, 15+ HR's(in a league with fewer HR's), and 60+ RBI for a hitter averaging .150 with little power? What manager in their right mind would be pinch hitting for a player like that? I was a little stunned when I saw it to be honset with you. These type of AI blunders really are hurting the immersive feeling of the game...its hard to get into it when the AI keeps making boneheaded decisions(even when I am only playing .500 baseball and am 8 games out of first).

Before anything else new gets added, these type of things need to be fixed and the AI needs to be overhauled to make it much more realistic...