My only gripe. Too many plays made by the catcher. What's yours?

[JohnnyRu31]

A longtime show fan and a longtime OS user. I Love this game. But I do have one minor gripe. There seems to be an over abundance in plays made by catchers. Between so many batted balls tapped out in front of the plate, and all the dropped 3rd strikes it seems that the catchers are throwing to 1st way too much.

[Smallville102001]

Re: My only gripe. Too many plays made by the catcher. What's yours?

I have a few but they are issues we have had like ever year.


1. The way the CPU uses there Bullpen they leave pitchers in to long and don't really uses left pitches vs left pitches.
2. To many double plays even when I am hitting well I hit into way to many double plays. Example last 5 games I have hit into like 11 double plays.
3. Pitchers getting hit by balls going up the middle. It is better this year as it doesn't happened ever game more like a ever other game type of thing where in the past it was like 3 times a game but even ever other game is much more often then real life.

[mlbsorrento44]

Re: My only gripe. Too many plays made by the catcher. What's yours?

I'm tired of the defensive shifts....I know it's part of the game, but, it's ruining my BA!!!!! lol

[deadlocked]

Re: My only gripe. Too many plays made by the catcher. What's yours?

Being able to steal home. Seriously I've done it like 2-3 times already in my RTTS [emoji23]


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[Ghost Of The Year]

Re: My only gripe. Too many plays made by the catcher. What's yours?

I wouldn't charecterize it as a 'gripe' & it's certainly not my only, what I'd term a 'druther', but it's my biggest.
I'd druther have custom leagues over anything else.
I can't stand playing in 1982 & knowing I can't have a Cardinal-Brewer World Series.ng
I can;t stand playing in 1978 and playing against the likes of Tampa, Arizona, Colorado, & Miami, knowing those teams are still 15-20 years from realization.
I can't stand playing in 1955 & almost half the teams are fakes,
But still, the Show, in it's current format, is worth 3-4 times the retail price I paid for it. To me anyways.

[ItAllFades]

Re: My only gripe. Too many plays made by the catcher. What's yours?

The "Hop out of the crouch and zap to the ball like a magnet before the batter even leaves the box" has been a pretty annoying thing with this game for years now. And I don't see it changing any time soon.

[Ghost Of The Year]

Re: My only gripe. Too many plays made by the catcher. What's yours?

Maybe Catcher Range/Reaction should be capped at 25 or 30.

[Knight165]

Re: My only gripe. Too many plays made by the catcher. What's yours?

Pretty much only one right now.

RP showing up in the rotations.

Drives me nuts....and is pretty much the only reason I still use 30 team control.

M.K.
Knight165

[countryboy]

Re: My only gripe. Too many plays made by the catcher. What's yours?

My biggest gripe is not being able to see the managers and coaches of other teams in franchise mode. Oh and not being able to edit coaches. Those two are tied.

[Juzbee]

Re: My only gripe. Too many plays made by the catcher. What's yours?

Most of the gripes I have are things like you all have mentioned, the things that just tend to happen in sports games year after year. I think if i had to list just one thing, it would be the inability to export stats. The Show took a big leap this year with stat tracking (still needs improvements, but still a big leap), and I'd like to track my franchise stats without all the manual transposing. Baseball is all about stats, right? Seems like this would be a natural thing to include.

[kaptainkarl76]

Re: My only gripe. Too many plays made by the catcher. What's yours?

Woody Keller's obsessive compulsive behavior with his umpire mask..

[strawberryshortcake]

Re: My only gripe. Too many plays made by the catcher. What's yours?

Three:

(1) Pitcher's throwing motion.
(2) Outfielder's throwing motion.
(3) Urgency throws are still lacking at the certain times. Urgency throws have improved, but there are moments when urgency throws should have been activated (for both CPU and user controlled players) but don't. Even if you've preloaded the throw, sometimes, urgent throws are nonchalant.

All three takes away from the overall experience.

[JPCaveman13]

Re: My only gripe. Too many plays made by the catcher. What's yours?

Most of the gripes I have are fairly simple:

1) Changeups...it's like the velocity of those pitches is not related to the fastball at all. Looking at the pitch f/x for any pitcher in the game, their real life changeup is right around 8 mph slower than the listed fastball velocity. In the game, the average jumps to nearly 14 mph difference. Instead of a 0-99 rating for velocity, just give us a main fastball velocity number and then a short range marking the difference for all out other pitches.

2) Plays within 10 ft of the plate...catchers can beat the batter out of the box on a swinging bunt but on a dropped third strike, can't even tag the batter at all. Other times, the catcher will just stand there while the pitcher runs 55 ft to pick up the grounder because there's a runner on second and the catcher is auto-programmed to stay at the plate (had that happen too many times as a catcher in RTTS), even though he is the closest and easiest fielder to get the out, which ends up as a bunt single.

3) Bunts and bunt coverage...quickly-fielded bunts yield an automatic throw to first even with the runner barely halfway to the next base. As a former catcher, if I see that huge of a gap, I'm calling for the ball to go to the lead base. There are also different wheel plays designed to get to the ball quickly and be in a position to nail the lead runner. A recent example is the 3-6-4 DP that the DBacks pulled off on the Dodgers on an attempted sacrifice bunt. The second half of this is the bunts themselves. Players who never would bunt try to lay them down; certain speedy, contact hitters will try to bunt for a single way too often; and the unwritten rule of going for a bunt single late in a no-hitter.

4)Managers...these are just empty avatars in the game that may apply a random benefit/shortfall. There should be a way where we can see certain aspects of the manager such as: is this manager a disciplinarian or player-friendly, does this manager have a strict limit on starters or can a starter finish out shutouts or huge wins, is this manager a big believer in sabermetrics or just goes on how the game is going. This should also become a way to be editable for managers, base coaches, bench coaches, and pitching/hitting coaches.

5)Moving fielding camera...I've been trying to find a fielding camera that won't change it's view mid-attempt. I've missed a few catches because I start tracking the ball off the bat and moving the controller in the direction of the hit only for the camera to switch and send me 2-3 steps in the opposite direction.

[Equinox831]

Re: My only gripe. Too many plays made by the catcher. What's yours?

Well the CPU bullpen issue has already been talked about over and over again, so I won't touch on that. My main gripe that I've had for years now with this damn series is the speed of the fielders and there ability to track down balls and close the gaps. It goes for human and CPU fielders. The saving grace is there is a slider for it and turning it down to about 3 is the sweet spot this year, but the game out of the box makes it extremely challenging to find the gap on a ball that isn't scorched. There aren't nearly enough bloop singles or foul balls that manage to fall and give the batter a chance to die another day.

SCEA's entire algorithm for determining the player speed rating seems really odd as well. I've seen a TON of guys that have 67 speed and I can't really figure out why it's so common. That's another topic for another thread though.

[KBLover]

Re: My only gripe. Too many plays made by the catcher. What's yours?

SB rate is abysmally low on both sides in the games I've played.

MLB average was 70% last year - it's lucky to be 50% in games. Too "gamey" (I pick you off as soon as you hit the lead button) and the whole "ready for it" thing. Yeah, I bet irl teams are "ready for" Billy Hamilton...or Rickey Henderson. Really slowed them down.

And I swear the game input reads to know when to pitch out because it does it in times that seem odd in terms of the PA strategy (going down 3-0 just to pitch out, etc).

Doesn't help that I hate how runners inconsistently auto-extend lead. I have to wait to see if they are going to because if they take a double lead it's almost an automatic pick off. Then if I wait, some pitchers are set so fast that I get the pick off-as-soon-as-you-tap-the-button and the runner freezes even though he's not even leading for whatever reason.

Faster runners run at like half-speed when stealing. Good jumps get wasted because they take their timing actually running fast as they are capable (but around the bases they fly in normal baserunning...???)

Just hate this whole dynamic of the game.