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Used to have them, but now I've basically tossed them out the window. My motto is now "just win, baby". Why? Because it can't last forever.

I just pulled off a trade with my second-place rivals, and took away the leading batter in the league, as well as one of their prime starting pitchers. The AI GM simply responded with "That's a fair trade". Good enough for me, as they have still won 9 straight and are closing in on me.

That's the way it works in real life, doesn't it? If a guy is blasting your pitchers, you go get him, if you can get away with it. That's exactly what I did.

Now, I won't go to the extremes that the Yankees used to do, with them pillaging the Red Sox and later the Kansas City Athletics, but I'm now realizing that my ultimate goal has nothing to do with achieving "competitive balance".

I'm finding myself turning into the baseball equivalent of Al Davis -- "just win, baby." [:D]

yeh, i usually have 2 different leagues running, one where I do my best to keep things fair and interesting and another where I take no prisoners and have no intentions of ever posting a losing season

But here's the thing -- every player on my managed team contributes, whether pinch-hitting or getting spot starts to keep the regulars healthy. In this, I try to be realistic. This helps keep things from getting out of hand.

I suppose this is a subconscious "house rule" -- the player usage. If someone gets tired, I rest them. To my mind, this is just common-sense managing. The last thing I need is for a valued regular to get injured because he's over-worked. Thankfully, my roster is deep enough that I can pull this off. So far, that's been my proudest accomplishment -- to always field a 100% ready-to-play lineup. I won't have a guy hobbling to the plate, no matter the circumstances.

I've had (knock on wood) no one placed on the DL yet. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the selective platooning strategy will pay off.

KG,

I completely see your perspective and I support it entirely. However, do you really feel that this manner of player usage is a "house rule" and not just reflecting what a real-world manager might do?

As you know, I too have a GBG simmed league, in fact I recently started another-- now I have my fictional league which started with an 04 season and is about 3/4 done with its 09 season and a modern-day season where I started running the Marlins in 06 and we're in 08 now. Anyway, my fictional team's pitchers have suddenly developed a horrible case of get-an-injury-easily-itis, where it seems that they're breaking down at least once a month. To fll in for them, particularly in cases where the pitcher may have to miss a start, but the injury isn't so bad that it would justify a stint on the DL, I've called on spot-starters and in a couple of cases where I've had 3 of my starting pitchers on the DL at the same time, call in some guys from the minors. I don't see this to be a house so much, as you put it, as "common-sense managing. I say this because I'm doing the same thing and I'm not mentally or subconsciously categorizing it as a "House Rule".

Another fine example of the above is my fictional association's LF. He's an all-around threat, hitting for power and average. We were entering a 3-game series with our division rivals who were only 4 games behind us. Going into the series he was already "A Little Tired". Where at any other time I would have subbed for him, I instead had a little "dream scene" in my head where I have a talk with him to see if he can keep it together and play the games. Even tired and exhausted, he pulled through and provided key hits and RBIs when we needed them the most. This I also consider common-sense managing because I can easily envision an MLB coach asking his star offensive player to play critical games even when he's getting a bit tired.

My version of a house rule is how I treat my fictional association's RF Simon "Jet" Brody. His speed is 95 right out of the dealer. I have found that he is actually very capable of stealing nearly every base he tries, and home is no exception. However, instead of pressing '2', '3', then 'O' every time he gets on base, I keep it simple and realistic, only stealing when it would be logical for him to do so (and a few extra times to account for player cockiness). I'm confident that with his 95 speed he could steal home from third... well... 95% of the time. Yet, that to me is exploiting a technical loop-hole in the game. I'm not saying that I would never steal home, just that I would do it as often as they do in the MLB... plus one occasion.

[:)]