Question for franchise mode users

[tessl]

Two things I haven't figured out about franchise mode.

1 - strike zone. There are 3 options. Personalized, average and perfect. I use manage mode and I want whatever setting the developers use when they test the game because I want the batter to react to pitches on the corner according to how they are programmed to react.

Does anybody know which strike zone/umpire setting the developers used when they tested the game?

2 - Morale. When they first introduced morale it impacted player attributes. My memory is they changed it so it no longer impacts attributes but it is still in the game as can be seen when signing a player to a contract.

Am I correct that it no longer impacts attributes?

Thanks for any replies.

[Ghost Of The Year]

Re: Question for franchise mode users

I'm no authority on the Show, even tho I play it religiously, but I'll take a shot:
#2 first) I'm almost a hundred percent positive morale doesn't impact attributes any more. But I've been wrong before and I might be wrong again someday maybe lol.

#1 second) Don't know about this but I like getting the benefit of all three options so I play game one on average, game two on perfect and game three on personalized. Rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat.
But since I admittedly don't know, I realize this probably doesn't help you, lol again.

Maybe someone else will weigh in further on the subject.

[kinsmen7]

Re: Question for franchise mode users

Two things I haven't figured out about franchise mode.

1 - strike zone. There are 3 options. Personalized, average and perfect. I use manage mode and I want whatever setting the developers use when they test the game because I want the batter to react to pitches on the corner according to how they are programmed to react.

Does anybody know which strike zone/umpire setting the developers used when they tested the game?

2 - Morale. When they first introduced morale it impacted player attributes. My memory is they changed it so it no longer impacts attributes but it is still in the game as can be seen when signing a player to a contract.

Am I correct that it no longer impacts attributes?

Thanks for any replies.

From my understanding,

1) The strike zone differences only impact games that you actually play...

2)Morale doesn't really have an affect anymore. From my experience, you will see some players have slight drops in their attributes during the first month, but depending on age/production/potential, they start to fluctuate more after you complete April.

A side note, it doesn't seem to matter how well you produce with 36+ year olds, they always seem to drop a couple of points every month. I did a little fun-franchise season with the Marlins, and signed JD Martinez, and even though he was absolutely raking, every attribute dropped by 2 every month.

[tessl]

Re: Question for franchise mode users

From my understanding,

1) The strike zone differences only impact games that you actually play...

2)Morale doesn't really have an affect anymore. From my experience, you will see some players have slight drops in their attributes during the first month, but depending on age/production/potential, they start to fluctuate more after you complete April.

A side note, it doesn't seem to matter how well you produce with 36+ year olds, they always seem to drop a couple of points every month. I did a little fun-franchise season with the Marlins, and signed JD Martinez, and even though he was absolutely raking, every attribute dropped by 2 every month.

I play every game until and unless my team is mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. Currently in the first week of 2026 season having played all but 5 games in my mlbs23 franchise. I use average but I'm not sure if the game was tested using perfect.

You are correct about aging players regressing but I'm fine with that. Father time is undefeated.

Morale still exists during contract negotiations. The reason I ask is because you can sign a player more easily based upon what promises you make regarding what role on the team you promise. Position players have platoon/star/everyday/platoon. SP has depth/ace/rotation. If I promise star or ace to sign a player and then don't use him as a star/ace in the lineup/rotation are there consequences regarding his attributes? If not why is that still in the game for contracts?

[tessl]

Re: Question for franchise mode users

I'm no authority on the Show, even tho I play it religiously, but I'll take a shot:
#2 first) I'm almost a hundred percent positive morale doesn't impact attributes any more. But I've been wrong before and I might be wrong again someday maybe lol.

#1 second) Don't know about this but I like getting the benefit of all three options so I play game one on average, game two on perfect and game three on personalized. Rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat.
But since I admittedly don't know, I realize this probably doesn't help you, lol again.

Maybe someone else will weigh in further on the subject.

I found this but I'm almost as confused as I was before I read it. I might switch from average to perfect but I've used perfect before and it seems to result in inordinately low scoring games.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MLBTheShow/...ation_perfect/I have googled for posts about why pitches where less than 50% of the ball is in the strike zone are called balls and none of the comments were helpful. Let me make some things clear from the jump:

-I play with perfect umpire accuracy in whenever possible. A pitch on the edge needs half the ball in the zone to be a strike and a pitch on the corner needs 25-50% of the ball in the zone to be a strike.

-I have used the pitcher and batter analysis tool w/perfect umpire accuracy and will see a base on balls (walk) awarded on pitches where ~1/3 of the ball is in the zone. I haven't found an analysis view that differentiates between called balls and called strikes (they're both just "taken" pitches which is useful, but incomplete data).

-I have looked carefully at the strike zone displayed in-game via editing custom camera angles and was able to confirm the in-game display is an accurate representation of the strike zone used by statcast irl. The zone is positioned on the z-axis at the middle of home plate (right where the triangular half and the square half of the plate meet). The outer edge of the zone matches the width of the white part of the plate. The height of the zone is set similar to how statcast sets the zone height where the top and bottom edges are set to be some percentage of the individual batter's height.

-I have tested the other umpire accuracy settings to see if one is closer to the irl. From what I can tell the average and personalized settings are based on statcast data (i.e. the same data umpire scorecard uses), but both settings treat the "perfect" strike zone as the actual strike zone. Those settings effectively use rng weighted by pitch type, batter and pitcher handedness, and pitch location to reflect either the average MLB umpire's accuracy or the particular umpire's irl accuracy. It's really cool that they have those options available, but they all use the strike zone called with perfect umpire.

Based on what I said above, I infer that SDS has mapped the "perfect" strike zone directly to the pitch location mapping. In other words, the game calls balls and strikes based on where the center of the ball is located. I don't know if SDS intends to map the zone this way as a way of balancing pitching (it seems like there are better balancing mechanisms than that) or if they simply don't realize this is an issue.

What frustrates me most about this issue is that the fix is super simple. All SDS would have to do is map the "perfect" zone so that a strike is called whenever the shortest distance between the zone and the pitch location is less than or equal to the radius of the ball. There are plenty of other ways they could do it depending on their implementation, so the current zone certainly isn't a product of system constraints. If their as is "perfect" zone was implemented for PvP balance, they could easily make a new option for simulation players. They could call it "ABS" just like the automated ball/strike system MLB is testing in the minor leagues and that would even add more realism to RTTS where players could use ABS in the minors then use the personalized setting in the majors. Not to mention it would give SDS one less thing to update whenever MLB adopts an ABS system in the future.

[HeadCoach2.0]

Re: Question for franchise mode users

I only use Personalized strike zone myself I have NEVER really used any of the others.

IMHO personalized produces the most realistic player interactions.

For me it isn't baseball if the umpire does not mess up a call.

I will also add that any mistake that the umpire makes balances itself out because you will get your favorable calls as well.

When the umps blows calls you have to not let it affect your mind and keep yourself concentrating on the at bat.

Personalized is best to me because from the batting perspective you MUST protect the strike zone with 2 strikes by at least trying to foul off some pitches that you might not be able to get a good swing on. With personalized you can't depend on a perfect call so you have swing at close pitches because the ump could call a bad ball a strike.

[Ghost Of The Year]

Re: Question for franchise mode users

I only use Personalized strike zone myself I have NEVER really used any of the others.

IMHO personalized produces the most realistic player interactions.

For me it isn't baseball if the umpire does not mess up a call.

I will also add that any mistake that the umpire makes balances itself out because you will get your favorable calls as well.

When the umps blows calls you have to not let it affect your mind and keep yourself concentrating on the at bat.

Personalized is best to me because from the batting perspective you MUST protect the strike zone with 2 strikes by at least trying to foul off some pitches that you might not be able to get a good swing on. With personalized you can't depend on a perfect call so you have swing at close pitches because the ump could call a bad ball a strike.

At the risk of straying into the weeds, I'm not convinced a robot umpire wont make mistakes as well. They may be more accurate but if a human invented it, its fallible and not perfect. For whatever thats worth, lol.

[HeadCoach2.0]

Re: Question for franchise mode users

At the risk of straying into the weeds, I'm not convinced a robot umpire wont make mistakes as well. They may be more accurate but if a human invented it, its fallible and not perfect. For whatever thats worth, lol.

Good question. Is the perfect strike zone really perfect as they say a robot zone is.

Anything made with a computer program is liable to make errors.

[tessl]

Re: Question for franchise mode users

I only use Personalized strike zone myself I have NEVER really used any of the others.

IMHO personalized produces the most realistic player interactions.

For me it isn't baseball if the umpire does not mess up a call.

I will also add that any mistake that the umpire makes balances itself out because you will get your favorable calls as well.

When the umps blows calls you have to not let it affect your mind and keep yourself concentrating on the at bat.

Personalized is best to me because from the batting perspective you MUST protect the strike zone with 2 strikes by at least trying to foul off some pitches that you might not be able to get a good swing on. With personalized you can't depend on a perfect call so you have swing at close pitches because the ump could call a bad ball a strike.

From the post above "I have tested the other umpire accuracy settings to see if one is closer to the irl. From what I can tell the average and personalized settings are based on statcast data (i.e. the same data umpire scorecard uses), but both settings treat the "perfect" strike zone as the actual strike zone. "

Since I use manage mode I want to use whatever the batter is programmed to believe is the strike zone. I switched from average to perfect.

Glad I stumbled upon that post. That person seems to have done a deep dive into the topic.

[CBoller1331]

Re: Question for franchise mode users

From the post above "I have tested the other umpire accuracy settings to see if one is closer to the irl. From what I can tell the average and personalized settings are based on statcast data (i.e. the same data umpire scorecard uses), but both settings treat the "perfect" strike zone as the actual strike zone. "

Since I use manage mode I want to use whatever the batter is programmed to believe is the strike zone. I switched from average to perfect.

Glad I stumbled upon that post. That person seems to have done a deep dive into the topic.

I don't think the setting impacts the player decisions at all. Guys will likely still swing or take close pitches based on where they perceive the pitch to be regardless of the setting.

[tessl]

Re: Question for franchise mode users

I don't think the setting impacts the player decisions at all. Guys will likely still swing or take close pitches based on where they perceive the pitch to be regardless of the setting.

That's my point. The player reacts the same but the ball/strike call isn't the same.

Personalized and average take the perfect strike zone and then skew it. The batter doesn't know the strike zone has been skewed. He is reacting as if the strike zone is perfect. That's why I changed to perfect when I discovered that information.

[HeadCoach2.0]

Re: Question for franchise mode users

That's my point. The player reacts the same but the ball/strike call isn't the same.

Personalized and average take the perfect strike zone and then skew it. The batter doesn't know the strike zone has been skewed. He is reacting as if the strike zone is perfect. That's why I changed to perfect when I discovered that information.

Well if you are the BATTER YOU DO KNOW THE STRIKE ZONE HAS BEEN ALTERED. LMAO. THAT WAS THE POINT OF WHAT I SAID.

The CPU batter might not know you do know the strike zone is different and you might have to try to hit something out of the strike zone if you use personalized.

You didn't understand my whole point it went right over your head

[MiracleMet718]

Re: Question for franchise mode users

That's my point. The player reacts the same but the ball/strike call isn't the same.

Personalized and average take the perfect strike zone and then skew it. The batter doesn't know the strike zone has been skewed. He is reacting as if the strike zone is perfect. That's why I changed to perfect when I discovered that information.

The batter does not react as if the strike zone is perfect. That’s why they swing and chase at pitches outside the zone, hit pitches outside the zone for base hits/home runs, and take pitches down the middle. Batters swinging/not swinging has more to do with the type of pitch thrown, the count, vision/discipline rating, and the differential in pitches per at bat than whether or not the umpire zone is “perfect” or not.

The umpire zone only impacts what the umpire is calling and how different each ump is, nothing to do with the batter.

[IndianSummer]

Re: Question for franchise mode users

I changed to perfect strike zone a few years ago because strikeouts was so high with the AI to begin with and then watch them take a pitch that was out of the zone and get rung up. At the same time I was tired of taking a pitch out of the zone and getting rung up as well. I have never changed back.

[tessl]

Re: Question for franchise mode users

The batter does not react as if the strike zone is perfect. That’s why they swing and chase at pitches outside the zone, hit pitches outside the zone for base hits/home runs, and take pitches down the middle. Batters swinging/not swinging has more to do with the type of pitch thrown, the count, vision/discipline rating, and the differential in pitches per at bat than whether or not the umpire zone is “perfect” or not.

The umpire zone only impacts what the umpire is calling and how different each ump is, nothing to do with the batter.

I disagree with vison determining whether a batter swings. Vison = ability to make contact with a pitch, i.e., to not swing and miss.

Discipline = ability to check swing and to that extent it does determine whether a batter "takes" a pitch by checking his swing.

In order for a batter to successfully check swing on a pitch outside the strike zone he must have knowledge of the strike zone. The question then becomes what does he think the strike zone is? Does a batter with high discipline check swing at a pitch in the strike zone or outside the strike zone?

You seem to be saying the batters have no idea what a strike is. I've never seen a batter swing at a pitchout.