Detroit Tigers MLB 2K10 Franchise

[rudyjuly2]

I’m running with my Detroit Tigers in MLB 2K10 and it will be a full 162 game season that I don’t expect to finish as I never have. I play every game and I’m lucky if I play 100 games lol so we will see how far this goes. This will be a fairly simple blog and a nice way for me to keep track of some of my stats, sliders and thoughts on the game. I’m using custom sliders that are a mix between Pro and All Star for the most part. See the slider table further down for reference. Also, I didn’t realize that I could check the game summary after a game to get the real pitch counts. By game four and five I smartened up and started tracking them better with the strikes thrown in brackets.


The one thing that sucks is that my first three series are against KC, Cleveland and then KC. Playing two teams that are among the worst teams in baseball isn’t a great measuring stick for sliders or results. I do get Seattle and Anaheim after that.

Early on I can tell walk totals will be poor. I’m a hacker and if I had a better eye this would be better but I got three walks in my last game so not bad. About the only time I will walk the cpu is when I don’t want to give in to a big HR hitter which is rare. So I typically throw strikes. This means I need to consider the cpu hit totals more of a combination of hits + walks which should be around 13 total per game (3.5 walks and roughly 9.5 hits).

Strikeouts and hits are on the high side but I think the overall HR totals and runs will be good. I’ve probably hit too many HRs and not given up enough but I think that’s mainly due to my lousy opponents. As I improve and see how the game plays against better teams I might make some more tweaks to my sliders but I like my base set. My gesture pitching still needs work. Many people find pitching too easy but I still get hit pretty hard from time to time.

As for rosters these are basically the initial rosters with a few Tiger edits I downloaded from someone that gave me CF Austin Jackson and 2B Scott Sizemore. They weren’t in the game due to them being rookies but they are the Tiger starters.

I will also be editing a Wishlist below for things that I’d like to see improved. I’ll try to only mention the substantial ones besides, “better graphics, animations, etc.”.

[rudyjuly2]

WISHLIST SECTION:

• Gesture pitching is a lot of fun but it overrides pitcher ratings too much. They need to factor the pitcher’s control ratings into this more. Perfect gestures shouldn’t lead to pinpoint accuracy for wild pitchers. User issued walks are too low because of this. A slider would help for 2K11.
• I think composure is overdone. Furthermore, you shouldn’t be able to automatically un-rattle a guy with a simple mound visit. I prefer the confidence system of the Show along with the individual confidence levels of each pitch. However, I don’t like how the Show punishes your confidence for throwing balls (or simply boosting confidence with a strike). Trying to get a batter to chase an 0-2 pitch out of the zone is a good thing. Confidence should simply be tied to the outcome of the at bat – hit, walk, HR, strikeout, etc.
• Way too much opposite field power. Medium (15 to 20 HR guys) home run hitters should not be hitting opposite field bombs to the power alleys. They should have to pull the ball to hit them out most of the time. Either tone down the opposite field power or give us a slider for it.
• Fielding needs to be much less automated. I don’t feel like I am in control. They need to give us more camera options here as I would definitely prefer a more zoomed out angle. More sliders are needed for reaction time, fielding errors, throwing strength and throwing accuracy. There are virtually no errors in this game. The stadiums feel a bit small and this is compounded by the fast fielders on default settings along with how shallow both the infield and outfield play. They should be positioned deeper. Easily the worst thing about this game.
• CPU base running AI. Runners hesitate WAY too often on balls that will clearly drop in. Also, the runner behind the play needs to take advantage of balls thrown to bases rather than the cutoff man. Right now they don’t advance and don’t make you pay for missing the cutoff.

More Minor Stuff

• DH fatigue is messed up. They should not be getting tired at the same rate as my outfielder. The Show 09 was screwed up like this but was fixed. One at bat = one inning of playing time.
• Hit variety could be better but one of my pet peeves is the dead giveaway on HRs with the arrow at the wall. Please let us turn that off as it ruins the suspense.
• Little stuff. They need to let me pull up quick menus to check my pitch counts easily (both me and cpu). I’d also like to see the fatigue of my bullpen from the quick menu and the hand of the opposing lineup (lefty vs. Righty) for situational subs.
• I love the end of the game presentation stuff and signature highlights. But let me save those things! They are there but I can only watch.
• Stat Exports. This is getting greedy but I would love to be able to have the game e-mail my all my stats from my game as well as tons of stats from my franchise. Make it a comma delimited text file for easy imports into Excel. That would be great to track stats.

[rudyjuly2]

SLIDER SETTINGS

After game two I increased cpu pitch success from 50 to 55 and boosted fatigue to 65. I also lowered cpu steal success from 40 to 35 at some point in the first few games. Seems good there. While the cpu hit and run totals seem to be pretty good, I’m not walking anyone and my control is too good. I anticipate having to increase user pitch meter speed and break influence over time.

GAME SETTINGS
Pitcher Fatigue	65
Strike Zone	Off
Batting Camera	Default
Pitching Camera	Pitcher 1: 5,2,6
USER BATTING
Batting Contact	30
Batting Power	45
Bunt Contact	50
Bunt Success	50
USER PITCHING
Pitch Meter Speed	70
Pitch Speed	55
Pitch Break Influence	75
Pitcher Composure Influence	30
USER - FIELDING
Throw Meter Influence	0
Fielder Speed	25
USER - RUNNING
Base Runner Speed	50
Pickoff Success	35
Catcher Throw-Out Success	50
CPU BATTING
AI Batting Contact	35
AI Batting Power	80
AI Bunt Contact	50
AI Bunt Success	50
CPU PITCHING
AI Pitch Success	55
AI Strike Zone Tendency	45
AI Pitcher Composure Influence	30
CPU FIELDING
AI Fielder Speed	25
CPU RUNNING
AI Hit' n' Run Tendency	80
AI Sacrifice Bunt Tendency	65
AI Squeeze Tendency	30
AI Base Running Aggression	75
AI Steal Aggression	65
AI Steal Success	35

[rudyjuly2]

Game 1: Detroit @ Kansas City

TEAM	RUNS	HITS	Ks	BBs	HRs	2B/3B	ERRORS
Detroit	4	8	13	0	2	1/0	0
Kansas City	2	7	9	0	1	1/1	0

STARTING PITCHER	IP	PITCHES	HITS	Ks	BBs	ER
Justin Verlander	8 2/3	n/a	7	8	0	2
Zack Greinke	9	>110	8	13	0	4

WP: Justin Verlander (1-0)
LP: Zack Greinke (0-1)
S: Jose Valverde (1)
HR: Alex Avila, Scott Sizemore, Billy Butler

Notes: Scott Sizemore was player of the game. Went 2-3 with a two run HR. Almost two complete games (Greinke obviously) as Verlander went 8 2/3 IP although my pitch count was unknown. I know he was in the 70s in 7^th inning.

(sorry for the poor formatting but the code kind of sucks when pasted from Word)

[rudyjuly2]

Game 2: Detroit @ Kansas City

TEAM	RUNS	HITS	Ks	BBs	HRs	2B/3B	ERRORS
Detroit	10	16	8	1	4	5/0	0
Kansas City	2	9	8	0	0	1/1	0

[rudyjuly2]

Game 3: Detroit @ Kansas City

TEAM	RUNS	HITS	Ks	BBs	HRs	2B/3B	ERRORS
Detroit	3	6	18	1	1	1/1	0
Kansas City	5	13	3	0	0	0/1	1

STARTING PITCHER	IP	PITCHES	HITS	Ks	BBs	ER
Scherzer	4 1/3	n/a	10	2	0	5
Meche	7	>100	6	14	1	2

WP: Meche
LP: Scherzer
S: Soria
HR: Damon (4)

Notes: Well the cpu certainly pitched better with pitch success boosted one notch. Combined with my hacking, it wasn’t a great day for my hitters although Damon is certainly hot. I do notice Steve Phillips incorrectly talking about a fastball as though it’s a breaking ball once in awhile. KC performed a SAC bunt with their DH (not a huge power guy) in the 2^nd inning. I’m questioning my sac bunt slider which I just use from Bigfnjoe at OS. Meche got in a bit of trouble when he walked a batter and then booted a comebacker (tough play but ruled an error). Damon then hit a 3 run HR. Only offensive highlight of game.

[rudyjuly2]

Game 1: Cleveland @ Detroit – 14 INNINGS!

TEAM	RUNS	HITS	Ks	BBs	HRs	2B/3B	ERRORS
Cleveland	4	20	22	0	1	2/2	0
Detroit	3	8	22	1	1	0/0	1

STARTING PITCHER	IP	PITCHES	HITS	Ks	BBs	ER
Laffey	7	89	3	9	0	0
Bonderman	6	64	9	7	0	3

WP: C. Perez
LP: Galaragga
S: n/a
HR: Sizemore (CLE), Guillen (1)

Notes: This was a 14 inning game that I didn’t deserve to win. Still had a chance to tie in the bottom of the 14^th. Had one man on, zero outs and struck out with Cabrera on a 3-2 pitch way out of the strike zone. Didn’t have a good eye obviously. Nobody on Tigers had more than one hit.

Bonderman committed a throwing error to first (pulled Cabrera off bag). The computer did not bring in Kerry Wood to close with a 3-0 lead in the 9^th but they did bring him in when the other reliever got in trouble. With two outs, Carlos Guillen blasted a fastball into right field to tie the game at 3-3! That good Wood yanked. Tigers still lose in 14 innings though.

[rudyjuly2]

Game 2: Cleveland @ Detroit

TEAM	RUNS	HITS	Ks	BBs	HRs	2B/3B	ERRORS
Cleveland	6	11	7	0	0	3/2	0
Detroit	11	18	12	3	1	2/1	0

STARTING PITCHER	IP	PITCHES	HITS	Ks	BBs	ER
D.Huff	3 1/3	49 (36)	11	4	1	8
Willis	7	79 (51)	4	5	0	1

WP: Willis
LP: Huff
S: n/a
HR: Cabrera (2)

Notes: The game was 11-1 when I pulled Willis after 7 innings. Zach Miner sucked hard in the 8^th (4 earned runs in 2/3 of an inning) but still an easy win. Willis was too dominant (only rated 68 but this could be the beauty of baseball fluctuations) and I still haven’t walked anyone yet.

Walking someone in the game will simply be about giving in. Nobody on KC or Cleveland really scares me enough to do that. Gesture pitching overrules pitcher ratings a bit too much. Hopefully that can be patched or fixed with a slider for accuracy next year. I got 3 walks though.