Attribute for Pull hitters & Opposite field hitters?

[tnixen]

Does MLB 12 The Show have a attribute for pull hitter or opposite field hitter?

Reason I am asking this is because I am seem to be able to hit a lot of opposite field home runs with guys I know in real life never do. If there is a attribute for pull hitter or opposite field hitter it does not seem to work very well.

I hope we will see a big difference between pull hitters and opposite field hitters in MLB 13 The Show.

[Bobhead]

Re: Attribute for Pull hitters & Opposite field hitters?

I don't believe it does, and while I'd need to think about it some more, I don't really know how I'd feel about something like this being implemented.

It would be cool for guys like David Ortiz, Ryan Howard, but what about for the other 500 players, for whom the real-life distinction isn't as... distinct? I'd hate to have some internal attribute telling me that Mike Trout can't pull the ball successfully, or that David Wright cannot hit the ball the other way.

You have guys like Albert Pujols too, that would be tough to evaluate. Where would you place him? Closer to pull hitting? Because I've seen him hit quite a few HRs and XBH's the other way.

I think the only implementation I'd personally be happy with is if the game simply gave a very small bonus to your contact rating if you make the type of contact (pull vs slap) that the hitter is biased towards. The size of the bonus or penalty would depend on the amount of the bias, and this bias would be dictated with a slider (not a gameplay slider), instead of a numerical bar.

It could be set to one side for pull, the other side for opposite field, and anywhere in between for the balanced hitters... kinda like when you're creating a player in RTTS, you have those sliders to decide between speed and power...range or arm strength... I mean those kinds of sliders. Guys like Luis Castillo would have it set to the maximum bias towards opposite field hitting. And guys like Ryan Howard would have the maximum pull bias possible. The key though would be that other players, and the default, would have to have be a bias set in the middle (or slightly towards pull hitting), as most guys are. I wouldn't want arbitrary settings for the lesser known players, which is my main fear with something like this being done.

[nomo17k]

Re: Attribute for Pull hitters & Opposite field hitters?

From one of the posts Brian@SCEA wrote:

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...post2043493777

@jmik58: Like you said, perfect timing on outside pitches should be slightly late. Have you seen this problem with all batters? There are certain batters - pull hitters - which pull a ball on what "should have" been a slightly late swing. I've often debated completely doing away with the notion of our game even handling "pull hitters" and leaving it purely up to the user. That makes perfect sense from a hitting perspective. When I propose that however, the problem that keeps coming back is this makes no sense from a fielding, AI, or realism perspective. If a guy pulls 70% of his hits but the user flat out doesn't, why are all the fielders positioned as if he's an extreme pull hitter? And why doesn't the AI at least do this? Finally, is this realistic that all 9 batters bat the same way as the user, with only ability differences? This is the dilemma. As for stealing, I don't deal with throwing, fielding or running. Sorry. =(

From this post, it seems like the game is giving pull hitters a slight "timing" bonus, so that even if you are slightly late with guys like Howard, you end up pulling.

[seanjeezy]

Re: Attribute for Pull hitters & Opposite field hitters?

I would love to see L/R power replaced with pull/push power. Its not like Adam Dunn is sapped of his strength when facing a lefty, he just can't hit the ball against them. Batter success should be dictated by contact, vision, and discipline, power should only dictate how hard and far the batter hits the ball.

If that isn't something that can be implemented, tendencies would be the next best thing (actually, combining pull/push power with tendencies would be the best IMO).

Last year there were 4934 HR's, 67% of them were to the pull side, 11% were to the opposite field (only 30 players had 5 or more). Not sure of the frequency of opposite field HR's in the Show, but I have a feeling it occurs more than that. Also, about 52% of all extra base hits are to the pull side.

Bobhead, I think you got your examples backwards - David Wright is well known for his opposite field power while Trout's comes from the pull side.

Also, I like the slider idea, but what about a player like Ichiro is a slap hitter by choice and can pull the ball out of the park when he needs to?

[Bobhead]

Re: Attribute for Pull hitters & Opposite field hitters?

From one of the posts Brian@SCEA wrote:

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...post2043493777
From this post, it seems like the game is giving pull hitters a slight "timing" bonus, so that even if you are slightly late with guys like Howard, you end up pulling.

That's interesting, I didn't know that existed at all. I think what tnixen feels is missing though, is something that more modifies the success rate of an opposite field swing on pull hitters, rather than something to change the frequency. In other words, that pull hitters, when hitting the ball the other way, should be slightly more prone to poor contact quality, or maybe suffer from a slight loss of power...

The timing shift is nice, but as a user, that doesn't really make it harder for me to intentionally hit a quality, opposite-field hit, which is at the root of TC's concerns... I think?

I would love to see L/R power replaced with pull/push power. Its not like Adam Dunn is sapped of his strength when facing a lefty, he just can't hit the ball against them. Batter success should be dictated by contact, vision, and discipline, power should only dictate how hard and far the batter hits the ball.

If that isn't something that can be implemented, tendencies would be the next best thing (actually, combining pull/push power with tendencies would be the best IMO).

Last year there were 4934 HR's, 67% of them were to the pull side, 11% were to the opposite field (only 30 players had 5 or more). Not sure of the frequency of opposite field HR's in the Show, but I have a feeling it occurs more than that. Also, about 52% of all extra base hits are to the pull side.

Bobhead, I think you got your examples backwards - David Wright is well known for his opposite field power while Trout's comes from the pull side.

Also, I like the slider idea, but what about a player like Ichiro is a slap hitter by choice and can pull the ball out of the park when he needs to?

And David Wright is well known for his opposite field power, but he's also well-known by us Mets fans for never using it. He has an annoying habit of falling in love with pulling and uppercutting. He's definitely at his best when he hits the other way, though, so you're right I did have those backwards.

As for Ichiro, I guess he would be closer to the middle of the slider, since he excels in both areas.

You make a good point though. Perhaps there would have to be two separate sliders, one to reflect the tendency (which would work similarly to what Brian@SCEA explained, that is already in the game)... And one to reflect ability. So that Ichiro could be biased towards opposite hitting only in tendency, not ability, meaning a user could still successfully pull with Ichiro successfully, if he so desired. It would only mean that by default, if the user isn't intentionally swinging early or late, his (Ichiro's) hits are more likely to be hit towards the opposite field area.

Edit: In other words, the tendency slider would reflect the hitter's real-life ratio of pull contact (not just hits... outs too) to opposite-field contact. The ability slider would reflect the hitter's batting average in those two areas.

[nomo17k]

Re: Attribute for Pull hitters & Opposite field hitters?

I actually got curious about how the vs LHP/RHP breakdowns look like on all those "plate discipline" statistics (like swing %, contact %, and all that...). I really want to start looking at those numbers myself!!

In terms of pull vs. spray "power," what really generates it is swing speed (with a heavier bat helps)... so all the game needs is one and only one Swing Speed rating. Unless swing speed varies against RHPs and LHPs (I'm doubtful), it really doesn't make sense to have different Power ratings for R/L in terms of physics stand point.

Now, we all see that pull vs. spray is partially a hitting style choice... But I also believe (without hard proof at the moment) that power hitters in general become pull hitters because their swing speeds are faster (which imparts more momentum to the ball, faster exit speed, farther the ball goes, etc.). And to generate power, you really want to bring your meet point in front of your body toward the pitcher, where your swing speed maximizes. And great reflex helps as well, since the earlier you commit to swing, the greater the timing window to maximize your swing speed.

So power = faster swing speed plus good reflex to bring meet point out in front... those are quality you need for pull hitter as well.

I think the dilemma of implementing this directly into the game, as Brian@SCEA noted, is that the gamer may not have a good enough reflex (random gameplay videos on YouTube tell you that most gamers are late on their swing) and/or do not have the intention to bring the meet point earlier, i.e., start swinging a bit earlier with the intention to pull. I was like this before too, but being late on pitches you end up generating many opposite field HRs. But you *will* generate more HRs in the game if you make a conscious effort to pull.

Once thing the game could do right away, is to tie Power rating to the actual swing speed in the game, not as a timing bonus... but as a real swing speed difference. I don't think there's any swing speed difference among players right now. That way, high power hitters tend to pull more even if the gamer bushes button/move analog stick with the same timing.

...

Also, I like the slider idea, but what about a player like Ichiro is a slap hitter by choice and can pull the ball out of the park when he needs to?

Based on Ichiro's thinking:

"Chicks who dig home runs aren't the ones who appeal to me. I think there's sexiness in infield hits, because they require technique. I'd rather impress the chick with my technique then with my brute strength. Then every now and then, just to show I can do that, too--I might flirt a little by hitting one out."

what the game needs to reflect his style is Attitude attribute.


Ichiro is interesting because he could hit for power (according to Wikipedia, he once joked that he would go for 40 HRs if people are satisfied with him hitting .220), and he has great bat control as well as truly excellent reflex. I think there needs to be some tendency type of thing (and quite possibly an additional hitting mode, like slap hitting in addition to the current set of power, normal, contact swings).

[seanjeezy]

Re: Attribute for Pull hitters & Opposite field hitters?

Once thing the game could do right away, is to tie Power rating to the actual swing speed in the game, not as a timing bonus... but as a real swing speed difference. I don't think there's any swing speed difference among players right now. That way, high power hitters tend to pull more even if the gamer bushes button/move analog stick with the same timing.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but In year's past the power swing was slightly faster than the regular swing, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say the contact swing is slower as well. Now it might just be me, but I have a firm belief that the contact rating has an effect on bat speed. Try hitting with two batters with wide disparities in hitting ability and it will feel like the lower rated player is swinging a log instead of a baseball bat...

Either way, I would love variable bat speeds since its such a fundamental part of being a hitter. Being able to hit the ball farther is not the only bonus of having good bat speed, you also have more time to read pitches due to the increase in the timing window.

Off topic, but I really want to see some new swing animations where the batter takes a vicious hack. IMO it looks like every batter is using a 40 oz. bat or is swinging underwater...

[nomo17k]

Re: Attribute for Pull hitters & Opposite field hitters?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but In year's past the power swing was slightly faster than the regular swing, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say the contact swing is slower as well. Now it might just be me, but I have a firm belief that the contact rating has an effect on bat speed. Try hitting with two batters with wide disparities in hitting ability and it will feel like the lower rated player is swinging a log instead of a baseball bat...

Either way, I would love variable bat speeds since its such a fundamental part of being a hitter. Being able to hit the ball farther is not the only bonus of having good bat speed, you also have more time to read pitches due to the increase in the timing window.

I cannot say you are wrong because I don't know it for sure, but I don't get the feeling that high Contact players swing faster; I even just did a timing batting practice with Andres Torres with Contact = 99 and 0... felt the same, though with 99 I obviously drove balls better. Swing timing seems similar for all players to me... even with power/normal/contact swings.

Yes, I think the swing speed = Power makes most sense, at least in the sense of determining how fast balls take off off the bat contact. It adds strategy elements too... with aging power threat, you have to swing earlier to cheat a bit, etc... that sounds fun to me...

We could even try adding bats as accessories... would you want to use heavier bat in hope of adding more power, sacrificing some bat control and speed? Or do you want to go with a lighter bat for more control and swing speed?

Off topic, but I really want to see some new swing animations where the batter takes a vicious hack. IMO it looks like every batter is using a 40 oz. bat or is swinging underwater...

Swinging underwater I read is how Greg Jefferies of yore trained himself when he was young... maybe that's the feeling the dev team wants us to experience...

[Russell_SCEA]

Re: Attribute for Pull hitters & Opposite field hitters?

Does MLB 12 The Show have a attribute for pull hitter or opposite field hitter?

Reason I am asking this is because I am seem to be able to hit a lot of opposite field home runs with guys I know in real life never do. If there is a attribute for pull hitter or opposite field hitter it does not seem to work very well.

I hope we will see a big difference between pull hitters and opposite field hitters in MLB 13 The Show.

All batters now have a push, pull, balanced, or extreme pull hitting trajectory tendencies. It's one of the major additions to the hitting engine this year.

When you hit select now during gameplay you can see their tendencies.

[tnixen]

Re: Attribute for Pull hitters & Opposite field hitters?

All batters now have a push, pull, balanced, or extreme pull hitting trajectory tendencies. It's one of the major additions to the hitting engine this year.

When you hit select now during gameplay you can see their tendencies.

Awesome news!

This sounds exactly what I was hoping for

Thanks Russell

[seanjeezy]

Re: Attribute for Pull hitters & Opposite field hitters?

All batters now have a push, pull, balanced, or extreme pull hitting trajectory tendencies. It's one of the major additions to the hitting engine this year.

When you hit select now during gameplay you can see their tendencies.

Best news I've heard to date, top notch stuff man

[DeathMetal]

Re: Attribute for Pull hitters & Opposite field hitters?

All batters now have a push, pull, balanced, or extreme pull hitting trajectory tendencies. It's one of the major additions to the hitting engine this year.

When you hit select now during gameplay you can see their tendencies.

Sounds good. Is this editable in the player editor, and can you set this when you create a new player?

[Russell_SCEA]

Re: Attribute for Pull hitters & Opposite field hitters?

Sounds good. Is this editable in the player editor, and can you set this when you create a new player?

No you can't edit this if you create a player it's random and in the season modes players in the draft are given random tendencies as well.

[NJ2NC]

Re: Attribute for Pull hitters & Opposite field hitters?

All batters now have a push, pull, balanced, or extreme pull hitting trajectory tendencies. It's one of the major additions to the hitting engine this year.

When you hit select now during gameplay you can see their tendencies.

I love you Russell!

[Richie12]

No you can't edit this if you create a player it's random and in the season modes players in the draft are given random tendencies as well.

Can we change tendencies of already created players?