Directional Hitting Guide

[adembroski]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

So don't use power on 3-0?

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[Jr.]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

I have a MLB The Show 16 franchise that I ported over to this year.

How do you suggest I hit with Justin Upton who player card says he is balanced but his power is in the 90s for lefties and righties but his contact rating is 69 for righties and in the 70s for lefties. I'm 30 games in and I am hitting between .215-220 with him. I've tried influencing down, pulling, pushing nothing works lol. Should I always pull with him and when I get to 2 strikes influence down/push?

Just so you know, the "balanced" refers to the idea that he hits balls all over the field.

It does not mean that he is a balanced hitter between average and power, or vs. RHP/LHP.

[TheWarmWind]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

Crazy power outage - 5 straight games without a homer using the Yanks, only one homer in my last 9 games.

Is it possible with SH at 7 i'm hitting the ball too hard? What would you think about going back down SH 6, and bumping up Power to 6 instead.

Not sure how much one power click will change things, but going from SH6 to SH7 seemed significant.

If anything my offense feels right on the cusp of being too potent, but with no home run capability. Right now i'm on AS, with contact at 6, sh at 7, power at 5. liking what i have overall offensively, if I could add a homer here and there it would be very nice.

My understanding of the power slider is that it effects ball velocity off the bat, though full disclosure I have never tinkered with it.

Meanwhile Solid Hits will give you more or less favourable ball trajectories on well timed hits, especially ones in your ideal pitch locations.

So yeah for you I'd suggest bumping down SH and bumping up power.

I would suggest that maybe you're in a slump and it happens, but hey I'm still in my tinker faze with sliders so I can't criticize too much.

[TheWarmWind]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

So don't use power on 3-0?

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I wouldn't recommend it, no. I save power swings for truly desperate situations only. They are, on average, terrible and you can still get plenty of power out of natural swings.

If you really feel the need for more power on a 3-0, do the hybrid Pull/Up swing. You can definitely afford the costs being so ahead in the count.

[ruxpinke]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

My understanding of the power slider is that it effects ball velocity off the bat, though full disclosure I have never tinkered with it.

Meanwhile Solid Hits will give you more or less favourable ball trajectories on well timed hits, especially ones in your ideal pitch locations.

So yeah for you I'd suggest bumping down SH and bumping up power.

I would suggest that maybe you're in a slump and it happens, but hey I'm still in my tinker faze with sliders so I can't criticize too much.

Its weird, i'm hitting really well, theres just no homers. 1 homer in the last 9 games. It feels like the best outcome for me is a well struck gapper.

[Charvalos]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

It's me or hitting the ball with a early/late timing it's better than hitting the ball with a good timing ?

95% of the time I hit the ball with a good timing, it ends with a lazy fly ball, line drive right to the infielder's glove or a miserable ground ball but if I hit the same ball with a early/late timing, the hit becomes much better with a base hit/double/HR.

I'm using Mike Lowe's Sliders and directionnal hitting.

[bcruise]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

It's me or hitting the ball with a early/late timing it's better than hitting the ball with a good timing ?

95% of the time I hit the ball with a good timing, it ends with a lazy fly ball, line drive right to the infielder's glove or a miserable ground ball but if I hit the same ball with a early/late timing, the hit becomes much better with a base hit/double/HR.

I'm using Mike Lowe's Sliders and directionnal hitting.

Not going to comment on late as I don't really have an opinion on it either way (plus the devs say they toned those kinds of hits down with the recent patches). But if you get early/just early timing on a ball that you've squared up, you're going to pull it, and in that case it should definitely be a harder-hit ball. There's more force behind a hit like that, because the bat's been in motion for a longer period of time. Those are the ones that are often the real tape-measure shots in real baseball - the ones clearing the LCF/RCF fence by 100 feet or more.

For me personally, I've never taken the early/good/late timing to mean anything other than which part of the field I'm hitting the ball to (assuming I squared the ball up and made solid contact, of course).

[TheWarmWind]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

Yeah I'm with bcruise. I never put much stock in the swing feedback. Just early and Just late are viable swings.

That being said, this year I've found most of my positive results come from good timing.

And please, please don't fall into the trap of thinking that a hard hit ball right at someone is a bad result. That's a part of baseball. Sometimes you can do everything right and still lose.

If weak contact on well timed pitches is what bothers you, I suggest you turn up the Human Solid Hits slider. There are several ways I could describe this slider, one way is that in essence it makes the results more user reliant and less statistical/attributes reliant. Well timed pitches in ideal locations will get more positive results with solid hits turned up.

Don't worry, you'll still get ground outs and fly outs, but more on balls that you probably shouldn't have been swinging at.

[TheWarmWind]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

Using Timing to Adjust to Pitches in Directional

I've talked about ideal pitch locations for swing types, but there are also ideal pitch locations for your timing. Timing is the ultimate way to adjust to different pitches as they come in, and while like everything else in Directional it's no guarantee, it's a powerful tool for you to utilize.

Think of the strike zone as a gradient, where the middle is the "hottest" zone and as you go further to the push or pull side things start to get cooler. There are many reason why the middle of the strike zone is so deadly to opposing pitchers. It's not only ideal for all swing types, but all timing types as well.

Slightly early, slightly late, and being right on the pitch are all good ways to produce a hit on this type of ball.

However, as the ball location moves away from the center, less timing is applicable. The closer it moves pull field side (closer to the batters body), the more you need your swing to be an early swing. The further push side (away from the body), the more you need the swing to be later. Think of it as a tightening of the timing window in that particular direction.

This is part of the reason why Pull swings pull the ideal pitch inside a little. Because it widens the timing window a little bit to the early side, it makes it easier to time those inside pitches you need to be early on. The same goes for the push swing, and how is pushes ideal pitch location slightly outside.

You can still push with a pull swing and pull with a push swing based on timing, but these swings are more difficult then if they had been matched ideally because they don't gain the timing window bonus. However, if you still manage to time your swing appropriately, your batter is still more likely to get solid contact, even more so than if you had chosen the swing type that was ideal for the pitch location.

Timing is what I consider one of the three pillars that form the foundation of Directional hitting (the others are Discipline and Influence) so knowing how to properly utilize it and adjust to pitches is key to finding success.

Sorry for taking so long to put this part of the guide out. I honestly didn't think about it until now. I'll add the above paragraphs to the OP.

[bigd51]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

Thank you. So much. For the level of detail and thought you put into this.

I would hug you 10x over if you were in front of me right now, to the point you'd likely start feeling completely uncomfortable w/ the amount of times I'd be hugging you right now.

Because you deserve all the hugs.

All of them.

[TheWarmWind]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

Thank you. So much. For the level of detail and thought you put into this.

I would hug you 10x over if you were in front of me right now, to the point you'd likely start feeling completely uncomfortable w/ the amount of times I'd be hugging you right now.

Because you deserve all the hugs.

All of them.

lol you are very welcome.

I like hugs.

[rkocjay]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

Before reading this guide I was on a 7 game LOSING streak and now after reading I am on a 4 game winning streak. Definitely have to know your batters and situations

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[Dragsy]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

I think my Cespedes is broken. Was having a decent year with him until August (. 250 is decent for me), but the past month or so has produced two results; a strikeout if there's noone on, or a double play if there is. I think I may have managed two singles within him in the last 15-20 games. I've always been better with him against rightys, but it doesn't seem to matter who's pitching at the moment moment, I've tried pulling when ahead and pushing behind, high pull to try and avoid the gidps, using exclusively down influence to try and get something. I've had him benched and brought in as a pinch hitter. I don't know what else to do.

[TheWarmWind]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

I think my Cespedes is broken. Was having a decent year with him until August (. 250 is decent for me), but the past month or so has produced two results; a strikeout if there's noone on, or a double play if there is. I think I may have managed two singles within him in the last 15-20 games. I've always been better with him against rightys, but it doesn't seem to matter who's pitching at the moment moment, I've tried pulling when ahead and pushing behind, high pull to try and avoid the gidps, using exclusively down influence to try and get something. I've had him benched and brought in as a pinch hitter. I don't know what else to do.

Push/Down hybrid swing is probably your next stop on the search for some decent contact. Barring that, it might be time to consider a trade in the offseason.

He's obviously having a problem with vision, so some time training up with the hitting coach and adding some down swings earlier in the count might also help.

[No.27]

Re: Directional Hitting Guide

I think my Cespedes is broken. Was having a decent year with him until August (. 250 is decent for me), but the past month or so has produced two results; a strikeout if there's noone on, or a double play if there is. I think I may have managed two singles within him in the last 15-20 games. I've always been better with him against rightys, but it doesn't seem to matter who's pitching at the moment moment, I've tried pulling when ahead and pushing behind, high pull to try and avoid the gidps, using exclusively down influence to try and get something. I've had him benched and brought in as a pinch hitter. I don't know what else to do.

Sorry this one is not in WarmWinds guide but you sound as desperate as I was with not being able to hit with Ben Zobrist last year. So after 6 months and a .160 average I simply changed his batting stance to one I knew worked for me. I wrote it off as he had been working with the hitting coach and changed "some things". You might even find a correct one in the stances thread. It worked for me!