TRHL has had our first use of the opener. I wanted to raise a question about how we give lineup instructions to deal with this, given the dumb computer manager.

If an owner is starting a RP, with a rested SP of the opposite in waiting, a human would not be fooled into getting wrong-footed with his lineup. He'd either start the lineup appropriate for the SP, or, something in between the regular platoons.

So, if this is going to be a thing, do we need to add separate lineups (vs RH RP, with lefty waiting, and vs LH RP with righty waiting ) to our MPs with specific instructions?

My basic point is I shouldn't be able to get the platoon advantage every home game simply by starting JA Happ every game (tired or not) for one batter, and then going to my RH SP.

I'm not sure it will make a big difference, given the way we sim, but I'm happy to use whatever instructions are requested by the opposition manager.

While the ability to manipulate the platoon advantage is part of the endgame, my real reason for doing it is that I have a lot of relief innings that are better than almost all of my SP innings, and 3 "SP" that averaged in the neighborhood of 20BFP per start, so I'm trying to stretch the SP to get to as close to a full season as I can out of guys.

I haven't done it yet, nor do I really have the lineup for it, but home/road platooning is probably how I'd go about facing an opener. Start Lemahieu instead of platooning with Riddle. Start Crawford instead of one of the OF who'd be platooned and/or start Almora more often. Specialize the batting order a little less.

Also, FWIW, I'm not sure the strategy is sustainable for a full season, given the amount of roster shuffling necessarily involved, although I do sort of have the right lineup if it is, given that my 13th best hitter at any given moment is pretty unexciting, and I can afford to not platoon at all at 5-7 positions for stretches, so eventually having to carry 13 pitchers for chunks of time isn't that big a deal.

Bullpening makes total sense in some circumstances, and I'm not objecting to it at all.

My issue is with the stupidity of the PC mgr. A human manager would look at all the pitchers available to the opponent, and decide his lineup based on that. If there were no rested SP, and 6 rested RPs, 5 of whom were RH, a human would not use his vs LHP lineup, just because the LH RP started. The PC will do that.

Likewise, if there was a rested SP, a human would likely guess that that guy is going to throw 5+ IP, so set the lineup accordingly.