I don't use it.
Nothing against it- think it's a great idea for those who love to play out their games in a managerial role. Although I do play out all the Denver Brewers games, controlling only substitutions, I just don't feel the need for the granularity and added complication of using the warmup rule.
And so here we are, 16 games into the 1983 Brewers season, sitting at 8-8 and with a bullpen that is ranked 8th in ERA at 4.10. One of our owner's directives this year was to improve in this area. And since we were 12th last year, we have somewhat accomplished that so far.
But our left-handed stopper Jeff Mariani is off to a horrible start with a 10.12 ERA in his first 6 appearances. And others have seemed to struggle more than I expected as well.
Now, back to the title of this post.
Most of the way through our latest loss, while going in to substitute a pinch-hitter for our 2nd reliever in the game, it suddenly dawned on me that something looked different on the screen for some reason. And then it hit me, like a ton of bricks dropped from a giant crane that has been hanging over my managerial head for 15 plus games of the season- the stupid Warmup rule is turned on! Holy crap. How did I miss this until now.
My poor relievers- I've just been sending them out there cold, day after day, game after game.
I'd like to say rookie mistake. Except I am no longer anything like a rookie at this. So let's call it managerial senility.
Hoo boy.
Well, hopefully now that I figured it out our relievers will start to have better success.
(I wasn't going to say this yet- and it doesn't really have any direct connection to this silly mistake- but I have been thinking that this is the last season in which I will be both the G.M. and the on-field manager for the Brewers. I think it is time to hire a manager and just assume a more traditional G.M. role. Maybe I should have done that sooner, though.
)