Drawing walks

[bcruise]

Re: Drawing walks

This will sound weird, but the best way for me to draw walks is actually to get more hits and therefore be aggressive, but only swing at strikes. The reason is due to how confidence works.

When you get hits and score runs you lower the opposing pitcher's confidence. That will, in turn, affect their control. They'll miss their location more, both off of and over the plate (though more often off it, from my experience). And that's when the walks can really pile up. If you're facing a pitcher who is below 50% confidence, be VERY selective and try not to swing at stuff on the corners - they're not going to be able to put pitches there very often. If you avoid chasing balls on a pitcher with low confidence, you WILL draw walks.

[dougdeuce]

Re: Drawing walks

Yeah, I draw walks all the time now. I've completely changed my approach at the plate in the last few months with 16 and 17. I'm much more patient at the plate. Just because the ball is in the zone doesn't mean I need to swing. If it's a corner pitch early in the count I almost always take. Taking strikes has allowed me to work the counts more and I'm 100% contact swing with 2 strikes, so I foul a good deal of pitches off when behind.

When this is happening you'll be able to see more pitches per at bat and then the walks follow.

[TheWarmWind]

Re: Drawing walks

I play with hitting on rookie, veteran, and all star, switching it up as my frustration level changes. The problem is that on rookie, walks are very rare because pitches are strikes more often than not; on all star, walks can be very common -- pitchers throw more balls than strikes -- but if I take on 2 strikes and it's a FB for a strike, I'm dead. On all star I average about 4-5 walks, and there were many more there to be had, but I also average about 17 K's, which is unrealistic.

The pitch speed on all star, at least to my 42 year old eyes and hands, is just prohibitive, even with FB's in the low 90's. So I think what I'll do, as I haven't tried it yet, is to use all star difficulty but lower FB pitch speed and increase user timing window. That might be my sweet spot if it allows me a realistic chance to react to a FB thrown for a strike without using guess pitch.

I might test strike % by not swinging at all during a game, a few times with pitchers of various qualities, to see what the REAL strike % is on all star. If I do it, I'll post results.

Veteran hitting CPU strike frequency set to 2. Might also work for you.

[335TDC]

Re: Drawing walks

Here are complete pitch results from a game on All Star, default sliders, only swung ONCE (couldn't resist...).

From year 2 in my Twins Franchise vs. Indians. Opposing pitchers were Danny Salazar (64 bb/9) who lasted 6 innings and Zach McAllister (59 bb/9) who pitched the final 3. My lineup is as follows:

Byron Buxton
Orlando Arcia
Miguel Sano
SCEA rookie
Jorge Soler
SCEA rookie
SCEA rookie
Alan Hansen
John Ryan Murphy

SCEA rookies will be abbreviated CP (created player) and blown calls by the ump are noted in parentheses as BC.

BB: 1-0, 2-0, 3-0, 3-1, 3-2, 4-2 WALK
OA: 1-0, 1-1, 2-1, 2-2, 3-2, 3-3 K
MS: 1-0, 2-0, 2-1, 2-2, 2-3 K
CP: 0-1, 0-2, 1-2, 1-3 K

JS: 0-1, 1-1, 1-2, 2-2, 2-3 K
CP: 1-0, 1-1, 2-1 (bc), 2-2, 3-2, 3-3 K
CP: 1-0, 2-0 (bc), 2-1, 2-2, 2-3 K

AH: 1-0, 1-1, 2-1, 2-2, 2-3 K
JM: 0-1, 1-1, 2-1, 2-2, 3-2, 4-2 WALK
BB: 0-1, 1-1, 1-2, 2-2, 2-3 K
OA: 0-1, 1-1, 1-2, 1-3 K

MS: 1-0, 1-1, 1-2, 2-2, 3-2, 4-2 WALK
CP: 0-1, 0-2, 1-2, 2-2, 2-3 K
JS: 1-0 (BC), 1-1, 2-1 (BC), 3-1, 4-1 WALK
CP: 1-0, 1-1, 1-2, 2-2, 3-2, 3-3 K
CP: 0-1, 0-2, 0-3 K

AH: 0-1, 1-1, 1-2, 1-3 K
JM: 0-1, 0-2, 1-2, 2-2, 2-3 K
BB: 0-1, 0-2, 0-3 K

OA: 0-1, 1-1, 2-1, 3-1 (BC), 3-2, 3-3 K
MS: 0-1, 1-1, 2-1, 2-2, 2-3 K
CP: 0-1, 0-2, 1-2 (BC), 1-3 K

JS: 0-1, 1-1, 2-1, 2-2, 3-2, 4-2 WALK (PITCHING CHANGE)
CP: 0-1, 1-1, 1-2, 1-3 K
CP: 0-1, 1-1 (BC), 1-2, 2-2 (BC), 2-3 K
AH: 1-0, 1-1, 1-2, 2-2, 2-3 K

JM: 1-0, 1-1, 2-1, 2-2, 3-2 (BC), 4-2 (BC) WALK
BB: 0-1, 0-2, 0-3 K
OA: 1-0 (BC), 1-1, 2-1, 3-1, 3-2 HIT, WOULD HAVE BEEN STRIKE 3
MS: 0-1, 0-2, 0-3 (BC)
CP: 1-0, 1-1, 1-2, 2-2, 2-3 K

JS: 1-0, 2-0, 2-1, 3-1, 3-2, 3-3 K
CP: 1-0, 2-0, 2-1, 2-2, 2-3 K
CP: 0-1, 0-2, 0-3

There were 13 blown calls in the game, most of them favoring the hitter. The number of blown calls is probably realistic, but the distribution seems wrong.

SIX total walks, only swinging once on a full count. Walks would probably be higher if I swung more, assuming I were a robot with perfect h/e coordination. The cpu adapts, and if you don't swing, it will throw more strikes -- right?

What's the best count to swing on? -- this seems to me to be the best question to ask.

First pitch First pitch strike 19/33 times (58%)
1-0 count Next pitch a strike 9/14 times (64%)
2-0 count Next pitch a strike 4/5 times (80%)
3-0 count Only occurred once, next pitch was a strike

1-1 count Next pitch a strike 10/19 times (53%)
1-2 count Next pitch a strike 5/14 times (36%)

2-1 count Next pitch a strike 10/14 times (71%)
2-2 count Next pitch a strike 11/19 times (58%)

3-1 count Next pitch a strike 4/5 times (80%)
3-2 count Next pitch a strike 7/11 times (64%)

0-1 count Next pitch a strike 9/19 times (47%)
0-2 count Next pitch a strike 5/9 times (56%)

In 33 at bats, I had 25 meatball counts (2-0, 2-1, 3-0, 3-1) -- some occurring in the same at-bat, of course -- and 19 times the next pitch was a strike. 76% strike percentage, with the best counts being 2-0 and 3-1 by far. So, it's obvious, right? Try to get to those counts. Easy!

Be selective early.
Read and react on neutral counts, which is MOST OF THE TIME.
Be aggressive on meatball counts.
Be defensive a pray on pitcher's counts. Or be aggressive and K.

All that damn work, for what? For what we already KNEW...sheesh

Time to go do something productive...

THERE SHOULD BE AN AT-BAT FLOW CHART BASED OFF THIS.

But I'm not doing it...

[bobloblah1980]

Re: Drawing walks

Veteran hitting CPU strike frequency set to 2. Might also work for you.

I would even say 0 and work your way up. And try cpu control and consistency at 2 as well for veteran I found