Quote:
Originally Posted by Marinersfan51
It seems to be handling this much better in 24. The AI will use a spot starter for the last few games of the season after clinching if the only rested starters are the #1 or #2.
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While this may be true, I believe it's also gotten incrementally better over the last several versions.
In fact, Matt confirmed back in 2016 that it's essentially hard-coded to skip a team's top two starters in the last days of a regular season if a playoff birth is clinched. And I found where Markus said a year two before that, that AI will skip the top starters IF another starter is available. So that's likely the issue here. IOW, if, say, your number starters 3, 4, 5 are all fatigued, and even with expanded Sept rosters there are no scrub call-ups who are SP's, the AI simply has no choice but to start the team's #1 and #2 starters to end the season...
It really comes down to available players. In a more modern historical environment, AI will have more pitchers to choose from (to start meaningless end-of-season games). Not sure if that was the case with the OP'd scenario - not enough info - but it could be...