Defensive Substitutions

[statfreak]

I use them a lot in online leagues. One of the things that frustrates me though is OOTP's insistence defensive replacements are brought in to the game in the 8th inning.

Invariably the better hitter they replaced is due to bat in the bottom of the 8th or top of the 9th with the game on the line.

Why?!?

I understand it may take 100s of lines of code to check if the player being replaced is due up in the next half inning so get why OOTP doesn't check that and just substitutes the player regardless of the score and when they are up next.

But why does the game insist on bringing players in at the start of the 8th inning?!? This makes zero sense to me. Replacements should be brought in at the start of the last inning only, whether that is the 9th inning or in extra innings after my team has gone ahead.

I don't watch as many baseball games as I used to, but I don't think defensive replacements start flooding the field in the 8th inning. It is always the last inning of the game if memory (and logic) serves me.

Anecdotally, I probably end up losing more games because of the AI bringing in a defensive replacement than I would have if it hadn't.

Am I the only one that thinks the AI logic when to bring in defensive replacements is flawed?

I really like using defensive replacements; however, it is probably best not to given the way they are currently implemented. It would be nice to have a slider or box in the Team Strategy setting when defensive replacements should enter the game. The default could be the current logic with an inning number (7, 8, 9+) as the options.