Gap Power Rating

[VideoTyrant]

What are your guys' thoughts on a separate rating called something like "Gap Power"?

It would basically be how good a hitter is at lining into gaps and directly impact how easy it is to get doubles and triples with that player......the reasoning being for players such as Starlin Castro who is currently leading the NL with 21 doubles, but only has 1 HR so obviously in game his power isn't going to be very good, but if you make his power too low in the game you turn him into just a singles machine and give him an "empty" batting average.....and conversely you have some HR hitters that are not good at finding gaps because they are fly ball hitters and not line drive hitters such as Carlos Pena has only 6 doubles so far this season but since his power is so good in this game it's actually easy to hit a lot of doubles with him in game. (Clearly you could probably guess I'm a Cubs fan with these examples but other players similar to Castro are: (2bs,HRs) Chase Headley (20,2), Chris Coglan (20,5), Jose Reyes (20,3) Michael Young (19,3).

Also if the game broke power into HR power then Gap power like this it would also open the options for even more slider options as you could have a HR Power slider and a Gap Power slider.

And I know one of the arguments against having this rating is that people may say that this rating could get skewed by fast players as they may have a lot of doubles each season but aren't necessarily hitting a lot of gaps they are just legging out a lot of doubles, but I think if they do this rating correctly they can take that into account and make sure to not inflate speedy players Gap rating.

[MisterNugNug]

Re: Gap Power Rating

Instead of adding an additional stat, perhaps implement hitting tendencies?

[berenjena]

Re: Gap Power Rating

I agree! I was thinking the exact same thing the other day! they have to do something about it for MLB THE SHOW 12.

[Antec]

Re: Gap Power Rating

I believe I have read before that something like this wouldn't be possible with the hitting system. The game doesn't do a dice roll and choose if you get a single/homer/out/gapper. It just crunches the numbers and determines with this swing timing on this pitch type and the pci in this location the ball will do this. Then power determines how hard/far it'll go.

[Bobhead]

Re: Gap Power Rating

I believe I have read before that something like this wouldn't be possible with the hitting system. The game doesn't do a dice roll and choose if you get a single/homer/out/gapper. It just crunches the numbers and determines with this swing timing on this pitch type and the pci in this location the ball will do this. Then power determines how hard/far it'll go.

And in my opinion that's the best way to do it. There is no intrinsic gap hitting ability anyway, it's just a matter of reading the pitch well enough to swing at the right time. People who swing with more precision (higher Plate Vision), eg Jose Reyes, Ichiro, etc... do it more. People who swing with more power and less precision, eg David Ortiz, Adam Dunn, do it less.

If there was an actual "gap hitting" skill in real life, someone would have it. But they don't, and that's where slumps come from.

[VideoTyrant]

Re: Gap Power Rating

I kind of disagree with you that Gap Power isn't a skill in real life.....I'm not implying if this rating existed that it would just be a pure chance dice roll to implement for how often they hit a gap. It would simply be how often they hit well driven line drives.....Which obviously the more you hit the more likely you will eventually find gaps......I'm not sure exactly how this game implements how likely a guy is to hit a line drive in this game. I know it is a combination of things such as your swing timing, PCI location, and then rating driven things like Contact, Power etc.....I think maybe a better solution to the Gap Power rating would be to make player tendency sliders similar to what NBA 2k has.....Then you could have a ground ball/line drive/fly ball tendency slider along with some other possible ones like Swing Aggression on first pitch of AB, etc.

[Bobhead]

Re: Gap Power Rating

It would simply be how often they hit well driven line drives.....

In a nutshell, that's what Contact is.

[moemoe24]

Re: Gap Power Rating

I like it the way it is. Dont want them trying to fix something that isnt broken. There are other issues that could use some work, but hitting is definitely not one of them.

[nomo17k]

Re: Gap Power Rating

Some scouts do use the terms alley/gap power to distinguish from HR power, but these really aren't separate skills. If the outfield fences are far back, even HR hitters are reduced to players with gap power. Batters cannot selectively hit in the gaps... it just happens.

To create batters with gap power in the game, I'd do what Bobhead implied. High contact, mid to low power ratings. That should do it.

[TripleThreat1973]

Re: Gap Power Rating

What are your guys' thoughts on a separate rating called something like "Gap Power"?

It would basically be how good a hitter is at lining into gaps and directly impact how easy it is to get doubles and triples with that player......the reasoning being for players such as Starlin Castro who is currently leading the NL with 21 doubles, but only has 1 HR so obviously in game his power isn't going to be very good, but if you make his power too low in the game you turn him into just a singles machine and give him an "empty" batting average.....and conversely you have some HR hitters that are not good at finding gaps because they are fly ball hitters and not line drive hitters such as Carlos Pena has only 6 doubles so far this season but since his power is so good in this game it's actually easy to hit a lot of doubles with him in game. (Clearly you could probably guess I'm a Cubs fan with these examples but other players similar to Castro are: (2bs,HRs) Chase Headley (20,2), Chris Coglan (20,5), Jose Reyes (20,3) Michael Young (19,3).

Also if the game broke power into HR power then Gap power like this it would also open the options for even more slider options as you could have a HR Power slider and a Gap Power slider.

And I know one of the arguments against having this rating is that people may say that this rating could get skewed by fast players as they may have a lot of doubles each season but aren't necessarily hitting a lot of gaps they are just legging out a lot of doubles, but I think if they do this rating correctly they can take that into account and make sure to not inflate speedy players Gap rating.

MVP baseball had the following splits in their players' ratings/splits:

[1] GB/LD/FB
[2] RF/CF/LF

Line drive hitters tend to be the "gap power" guys.