Too Many "Pedro Martinez" Type Changeups?

[therewillbechud]

Re: Too Many "Pedro Martinez" Type Changeups?

The changeup this year is a more effective pitch than in the past, no question. But as Keirik pointed out Pedro had the arsenal to play off that changeup, he didn't make it to the HOF on one pitch. A lot of pitchers may have a great changeup in this game, but they're still not great pitchers.


If you're continuing to get beat by one pitch you're not making the adjustments. If the changeup is the bane of your existence at the plate and you're not hitting every fastball the other way waiting on the change, it's your fault the guy keeps using it to get you out. You're asking him to keep throwing it.


And generally in my experience, when you sit on the changeup, it gets hit somewhere hard.

[JoshC1977]

Re: Too Many "Pedro Martinez" Type Changeups?

Look....other people have advocated this and I didn't buy into it until last night....

Up the pitch speed slider....I went from 5 to 8 and am hitting much better and I am a guy that usually isn't so great at hitting (in past years, I have had to go lower than default). It's not impossible to get fastballs...in fact, I hit them better at the high speed. I think the default speed this year is just too slow and it makes you think too much about what the pitch is...throwing off your timing (and change-ups in particular are tough). The higher pitch speed setting doesn't give you time to think...you rely strictly on your ability to recognize the pitch quickly and react...you don't have to wait...and...wait...and...wait to swing at the changeup like you do on slow pitch speeds.

[Greencollarbaseball]

Too Many "Pedro Martinez" Type Changeups?

I agree with others that the speed differential is too high for a vast majority of the pitchers and if it plays like last years game, it will only get worse. Playing RTTS (my MLBTS 14 save) , I'm about 15 years in and it feels like I'm playing in the early 80's. About 90% of the pitchers in the league top out in the mid 80's, with a bunch of them between 82-84. I faced one dude that threw a 59mph change. 59 miles per hour.


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[Keirik]

Re: Too Many "Pedro Martinez" Type Changeups?

The changeup this year is a more effective pitch than in the past, no question. But as Keirik pointed out Pedro had the arsenal to play off that changeup, he didn't make it to the HOF on one pitch. A lot of pitchers may have a great changeup in this game, but they're still not great pitchers.


If you're continuing to get beat by one pitch you're not making the adjustments. If the changeup is the bane of your existence at the plate and you're not hitting every fastball the other way waiting on the change, it's your fault the guy keeps using it to get you out. You're asking him to keep throwing it.


And generally in my experience, when you sit on the changeup, it gets hit somewhere hard.

The problem isnt that the changeup is fooling the user, its that EVERY pitcher possesses a devastating one.

[QuestGAV]

Re: Too Many "Pedro Martinez" Type Changeups?

Up the pitch speed slider....I went from 5 to 8 and am hitting much better and I am a guy that usually isn't so great at hitting (in past years, I have had to go lower than default). It's not impossible to get fastballs...in fact, I hit them better at the high speed. I think the default speed this year is just too slow and it makes you think too much about what the pitch is...throwing off your timing (and change-ups in particular are tough). The higher pitch speed setting doesn't give you time to think...you rely strictly on your ability to recognize the pitch quickly and react...you don't have to wait...and...wait...and...wait to swing at the changeup like you do on slow pitch speeds.

I'm with you 100% on this. I'm a bad hitter but became slightly less bad when I bumped up the pitch speed. It feels much more instinctive to read & react at 7 or 8 than it did at 5.

[therewillbechud]

Re: Too Many "Pedro Martinez" Type Changeups?

The problem isnt that the changeup is fooling the user, its that EVERY pitcher possesses a devastating one.

Sounds like an excuse to me, it's not that you got fooled, it's that the pitch is better than what it should be? Well if you swung and missed at it then you did get fooled by it, how "good" the pitch is is irrelevant.

Everyone gets fooled by the changeup sometimes, and it has a more pronounced effect in this years game. But on the contrast breaking balls are much easier to read, sliders outside and high fastballs much easier to lay off than any previous version. If you take the change away against a lot of players, the CPU will not have much of a go to pitch to put guys away in this version of the game. You can't have it all.

And not every pitcher in the game has a devastating changeup, like I said, stop trying to pull everything and the changeup is not much of an issue.

[Tweeg]

Re: Too Many "Pedro Martinez" Type Changeups?

I've gone through and edited fastball and change speeds in my franchise. Unfortunately, halfway through is when I realized I should have done it in roster form.

I had to add 2-3 mph to almost every changeup. Also, found myself taking 1-2 ticks off most fastballs. The pitch speed data seems the slightest bit exaggerated.

[squadron supreme]

Re: Too Many "Pedro Martinez" Type Changeups?

Sounds like an excuse to me, it's not that you got fooled, it's that the pitch is better than what it should be? Well if you swung and missed at it then you did get fooled by it, how "good" the pitch is is irrelevant.

Everyone gets fooled by the changeup sometimes, and it has a more pronounced effect in this years game. But on the contrast breaking balls are much easier to read, sliders outside and high fastballs much easier to lay off than any previous version. If you take the change away against a lot of players, the CPU will not have much of a go to pitch to put guys away in this version of the game. You can't have it all.

And not every pitcher in the game has a devastating changeup, like I said, stop trying to pull everything and the changeup is not much of an issue.

Even if you look for the changeup and wait back its difficult to make good contact. The problem is movement, speed and pitchers not making mistakes with it. It's always tantalizingly at the knees and lower when thrown over the plate or on the corner at the knees. If more mistakes were made belt high and above with that would balance it out.

[Madden's Jowels]

Re: Too Many "Pedro Martinez" Type Changeups?

Add me to the "changeup is giving me fits" list. Especially on HOF or above. Even All-Star this year the change is probably the toughest pitch to hit.

And even when I look for it, I'll sit on it for an eternity and then unload on it and it's STILL foul to the pull side. Why can't you ever be a FRACTION early on a breaking ball in this game without it going foul? That's almost the more problematic issue with the tuning in this year's game for me. The timing window could use a few extra milliseconds towards the "early" side.

[Baseball Purist]

Re: Too Many "Pedro Martinez" Type Changeups?

Add me to the "changeup is giving me fits" list. Especially on HOF or above. Even All-Star this year the change is probably the toughest pitch to hit.

And even when I look for it, I'll sit on it for an eternity and then unload on it and it's STILL foul to the pull side. Why can't you ever be a FRACTION early on a breaking ball in this game without it going foul? That's almost the more problematic issue with the tuning in this year's game for me. The timing window could use a few extra milliseconds towards the "early" side.

I've been experiencing this as well. I would say 8/10 times I'm early on a breaking ball, it's going foul. It's not like i'm very early, but just slightly early, and more times than not it's going foul. I think this has tied into my challenge of hitting the changeup this year.

[ScouserHUN]

Re: Too Many "Pedro Martinez" Type Changeups?

[Keirik]

Re: Too Many "Pedro Martinez" Type Changeups?

Sounds like an excuse to me, it's not that you got fooled, it's that the pitch is better than what it should be? Well if you swung and missed at it then you did get fooled by it, how "good" the pitch is is irrelevant.

Everyone gets fooled by the changeup sometimes, and it has a more pronounced effect in this years game. But on the contrast breaking balls are much easier to read, sliders outside and high fastballs much easier to lay off than any previous version. If you take the change away against a lot of players, the CPU will not have much of a go to pitch to put guys away in this version of the game. You can't have it all.

And not every pitcher in the game has a devastating changeup, like I said, stop trying to pull everything and the changeup is not much of an issue.

Lol its not an excuse at all and quite a few here are commenting the same. When EVERY pitcher that throws a change has it exactly the same mph difference, its a bit of a problem. Earth shattering? No. Gamebreaker? No. Something that could use tweaking? Yes.

[RD_Rabin]

Re: Too Many "Pedro Martinez" Type Changeups?

I know people are exploiting certain pitchers in DD because of this 'mechanic'. the most popular one has nearly a 30mph difference between his fastball and change-up which makes it pretty much unhittable.

You swing about 3 seconds before it gets there after you've had a couple of his fastballs and they throw the change!

[therewillbechud]

Re: Too Many "Pedro Martinez" Type Changeups?

Lol its not an excuse at all and quite a few here are commenting the same. When EVERY pitcher that throws a change has it exactly the same mph difference, its a bit of a problem. Earth shattering? No. Gamebreaker? No. Something that could use tweaking? Yes.

Quantifying it that way doesn't really make a lot of sense. When I hit a 99 MPH fastball in the game, it's not actually traveling at 99mph, that's just what the game says it is. I know this because it's not all that hard to actually hit one on the game. People take it far too literally and get cut up about this inconsistency or that. If you play a full 162 game season things are going to balance out, just like they do in real life. The change may be a little overpowered during your journey, but that compensates for other things.

If you have the right approach at the plate and make 2 strike adjustments most importantly, you won't be waving and flailing around the plate. 2 strikes, hit fastball the other way, aim to hit the slider/sinker/cutter up the middle, and you will by default be more prepared for the changeup and be able to handle that pitch. Keep trying to pull the fastball when you're down in the count and yes, you will get dominated by the changeup all night.

This is all I do at the plate, and I strike out on average about 6-7 times per game, and most of those are my fault rather than good pitching. It's a very easy adjustment to make.

[Kearnzo]

Re: Too Many "Pedro Martinez" Type Changeups?

My biggest issue with changeups throughout the series is that every pitcher, despite the accuracy rating on the change, can bust out a changeup that drops JUST below the strike zone on command. You've got guys with changeups as their lowest rated pitch accuracy wise, and not one of their offerings winds up in the strike zone. Nearly every one of them is just below the knees. Once you whiff on one or two of them and the confidence goes up, you find yourself SOL pretty quick, as confidence plays a HUGE role in individual pitches.

As someone else said, if more changeups missed farther from their intended target, it wouldn't be an issue. But I honestly see no difference between guys with dominating changeups and guys with very subpar changeups. They almost always wind up just below the zone regardless of pitcher, and with the huge pitch speed difference between the fastball and changeup, they are exceedingly difficult to make well timed contact with.