AI walks issued, AI pitches chased... Hopefully can be adjusted in a patch...

[Bobhead]

Re: AI walks issued, AI pitches chased... Hopefully can be adjusted in a patch...

I agree Zone% has always seemed low to me. But the math adds up.

If actual strike% is 63%, and zone% is 45%... that means 18% of all pitches are thrown outside the zone but recorded a strike? That would be about 26 in the typical game (roughly 145 pitches).

Now work the other way... 55% of all pitches are outside the zone... 55% of 145 = 80 balls thrown outside the zone in the typical game.. 30% chase percentage... that's 24 chases...

When you factor in rounding and my lazy math, as well as human (umpire) error, that seems equivalent to me.

[Bobhead]

Re: AI walks issued, AI pitches chased... Hopefully can be adjusted in a patch...

Sorry to double post but on a different note.... It's also important to note that if you switch over to Pitch F/X data instead of Fangraphs own data (which they get from Baseball Info Solutions... whatever that is):

- Average O-Swing drops to 28.58%
- Average Zone% increases to 49.79%

Both numbers look much more believable in this manner, and personally, I consider Pitch F/X to be more reliable than whatever BIS is anyway, when it comes to statistics.

[nomo17k]

Re: AI walks issued, AI pitches chased... Hopefully can be adjusted in a patch...

According to Fangraphs, they use both Baseball Info Solutions and Pitch f/x data. Given the definition of strike zone varies depending on who does the analysis, there will be some discrepancies in those numbers from different sources.

For example, there is this VERY interesting table of plate discipline stats from Fangraphs.

It basically shows Zone % has decreased from about 55% in early 2000s to 45% in 2012. That's quite a huge difference for a sport that has been stable for quite a few decades. Now, I'm not sure if there has been a real change in how MLB pitchers approach hitters today (they could intentionally be pitching more non-strikes with the intention of taking hitters out of the zone more) compared to a decade ago, or this could also be a mere product of the change in how Fangraphs has changed their interpretation of strike zone (e.g., they may have shrunk the size)... That I'm not sure of, but it doesn't seem to be stable number.

(... it's entirely possible that pitchers have become more capable of using pitches outside the zone, and therefore the reduction in offense we are seeing in MLB today. How interesting!)

But I don't think all this necessarily mean that Brian@SCEA's assumption about chasing is incorrect... because it still stands that roughly about 30% of all swings are chases... for the most part O-Swing / (O-Swing + Z-Swing) = 30% if you use the numbers from the table that I cited above.

And trust me when I say that Brian@SCEA is just as good a sabermetrician as you can ever find... he works with exactly the kind of data we are talking about here, so if there's anomaly he would notice... We are very, very lucky that he's working on this part of the game for our favorite sport. Talking about the right man for the right place.

[Heroesandvillains]

Re: AI walks issued, AI pitches chased... Hopefully can be adjusted in a patch...

And trust me when I say that Brian@SCEA is just as good a sabermetrician as you can ever find... he works with exactly the kind of data we are talking about here, so if there's anomaly he would notice... We are very, very lucky that he's working on this part of the game for our favorite sport. Talking about the right man for the right place.

Thank you Nomo for pointing this out. Without meeting him, people couldn't even fathom how lucky we are to be in the security of his hands.

[nomo17k]

Re: AI walks issued, AI pitches chased... Hopefully can be adjusted in a patch...

Thank you Nomo for pointing this out. Without meeting him, people couldn't even fathom how lucky we are to be in the security of his hands.

To be honest, he's one of the devs in the forum who are kind enough to interact with us occasionally, so I don't think it takes meeting him to know how lucky we are. It's obvious to anyone who tracks stats or read his past posts.

[ARMORALLL]

Re: AI walks issued, AI pitches chased... Hopefully can be adjusted in a patch...

Do we pretty much all agree with the OP that currently the CPU doesn't chase as often as it should or is it about even with the real MLB rate. I'm not seeing as many strikeouts but it's only been 5 games. What slider increases the amount of swing and misses for both human and CPU?

[Bobhead]

Re: AI walks issued, AI pitches chased... Hopefully can be adjusted in a patch...

Chase% is below what it should be in CPU vs CPU games, but I've had no record for Hum vs CPU games.

On the flip side, overall contact% (ratio of swings that don't miss/ total swings) is actually consistently low... meaning CPU swings and misses too often. So I'd refrain from reducing the CPU Contact or Timing slider(s) (which is the answer to your question).

And thirdly, despite the above, I actually find strikeouts per game to also be slightly high.

So while I haven't made these changes myself, since I haven't decided if I want to venture down that route.... if you really want a solution, it would be to lower contact by 1 point, decrease Foul Frequency by 2 points, increase power by 1 point, increase solid hits by 2 points, and timing by X... Where X is a at least 3, but a number I haven't quite figured out yet. That way you balance everything that Contact changes... offensive ability (Power and Solid Hits), contact% (Timing), and foul% (foul frequency).

Raising the difficulty level and then lowering exclusively the Contact slider by 1 or 2 points is probably an easier solution, but I haven't really tried that either.

It's a lot of slider work either way.

[jbprice20]

Re: AI walks issued, AI pitches chased... Hopefully can be adjusted in a patch...

To be honest, he's one of the devs in the forum who are kind enough to interact with us occasionally, so I don't think it takes meeting him to know how lucky we are. It's obvious to anyone who tracks stats or read his past posts.

I've never met him but I agree that we are lucky that he chats with us. However, the OP found a stat that says 26 chases per team per game, I calculated chases using the same Fangraphs website you linked to upthread and got 25, and Bobhead used a different calculation and came up...26.

So, the 19 chases per 140-something pitches that Brian@SCEA is using to calibrate chases just doesn't seem correct. That's almost 37% too low. To me, that's a big deal.

Look, I go way back with the Show and I D/L'ed 2013 the day it released. I think SCEA does a fantastic job. But, I, along with many others it seems, have always felt that AI batters are a bit too disciplined. From what Brian@SCEA posted in this thread, I think it's because he is using 30% of SWINGS are chases which--especially in 2013--is too low and what he should be using is 30% of pitches outside of the zone are swung at (i.e., chased). Like I showed above, that seems to amount to 40% of swings, not 30%.

Until I see someone step through the calculations like I did to get to Brian's 30%, I'm going to continue to think that AI batters at default sliders don't chase enough pitches...

[ParisB]

Re: AI walks issued, AI pitches chased... Hopefully can be adjusted in a patch...

To me the chasing doesn't seem like that big of a deal because it seems like they swing and miss a lot more in general this year. I'm averaging about 7 K's per game and several are with off speed in the dirt or high heat just out of the zone.

It feels just right so I don't get too bogged down by focusing on a certain stat that could be tweaked. I mean, if the hits, runs, walks, k, home runs, doubles, steals, fouls, pitches thrown, strike percentages etc are all lining up, I can live witty chase % slipping through.

With that said, I trust Brian's crunching

[nomo17k]

Re: AI walks issued, AI pitches chased... Hopefully can be adjusted in a patch...

Do we pretty much all agree with the OP that currently the CPU doesn't chase as often as it should or is it about even with the real MLB rate. I'm not seeing as many strikeouts but it's only been 5 games. What slider increases the amount of swing and misses for both human and CPU?

To me the chasing doesn't seem like that big of a deal because it seems like they swing and miss a lot more in general this year. I'm averaging about 7 K's per game and several are with off speed in the dirt or high heat just out of the zone.

It feels just right so I don't get too bogged down by focusing on a certain stat that could be tweaked. I mean, if the hits, runs, walks, k, home runs, doubles, steals, fouls, pitches thrown, strike percentages etc are all lining up, I can live witty chase % slipping through.

With that said, I trust Brian's crunching

Now, if you are using HUM vs. CPU numbers you cannot really generalize your conclusions because those numbers depend A LOT on how you play, but at least CPU vs. CPU games, my observation (not just MLB 13 but of previous iterations) is that Chase % is indeed a few % lower than the MLB ave (21 - 25% vs. 29% depending on the iteration), but the strikeout rates (e.g., K/9) have been most right around the MLB ave.

This basically means Ks are happening at the right frequency, but *how* they are happening may still be off (e.g., perhaps CPU takes or swings and misses on a strike on X-2 counts more often than MLB hitters, to make up for a potential loss of Ks due to CPU not chasing on X-2 counts... a detail like that is what I'm talking about...).

[nomo17k]

Re: AI walks issued, AI pitches chased... Hopefully can be adjusted in a patch...

Chase% is below what it should be in CPU vs CPU games, but I've had no record for Hum vs CPU games.

On the flip side, overall contact% (ratio of swings that don't miss/ total swings) is actually consistently low... meaning CPU swings and misses too often. So I'd refrain from reducing the CPU Contact or Timing slider(s) (which is the answer to your question).

And thirdly, despite the above, I actually find strikeouts per game to also be slightly high.

....

I saw your table and in your game it seems to be lower by about 3%... that's significant if it keeps its pace, but in my test after 66 games, it's 79.1% (game) vs. 80.4% (MLB)... so I'm not seeing as huge a difference, and I would say the deviation is within a reasonable range (though is lower, and you see the effect in K%).

You should be careful of making early conclusions when you are looking at plate discipline based stats, since they actually fluctuate a lot depending on pitchers and hitters. This is where you not only need sample size, but also need to vary pitcher-batter match-ups sufficiently to capture the performance differences among players...

When I do stats tracking for slider making purpose, I do 75 games playing every single game using a season mode.... so that all starting pitchers are used (5 x 15). That way, I'm starting from No. 1s & 2s and finally a lot of No. 4s & 5s from all teams... and it's actually interesting since I can often see the offensive numbers swing from being on lower side (due to may aces pitching) to gradually coming back up to stay around what I consider to be average offense....

You can easily get fooled by a poor test design if I just did the first 15 games thrown by aces, for example...

[BrianU]

Re: AI walks issued, AI pitches chased... Hopefully can be adjusted in a patch...

This is all over my head and I have little to offer but it is very impressive to read and see the attention you have for the little things. It can only help further enhance the gameplay I fully support the discussion! This is a big reason why The Show is #1

[nomo17k]

Re: AI walks issued, AI pitches chased... Hopefully can be adjusted in a patch...

I've never met him but I agree that we are lucky that he chats with us. However, the OP found a stat that says 26 chases per team per game, I calculated chases using the same Fangraphs website you linked to upthread and got 25, and Bobhead used a different calculation and came up...26.

So, the 19 chases per 140-something pitches that Brian@SCEA is using to calibrate chases just doesn't seem correct. That's almost 37% too low. To me, that's a big deal.

Look, I go way back with the Show and I D/L'ed 2013 the day it released. I think SCEA does a fantastic job. But, I, along with many others it seems, have always felt that AI batters are a bit too disciplined. From what Brian@SCEA posted in this thread, I think it's because he is using 30% of SWINGS are chases which--especially in 2013--is too low and what he should be using is 30% of pitches outside of the zone are swung at (i.e., chased). Like I showed above, that seems to amount to 40% of swings, not 30%.

Until I see someone step through the calculations like I did to get to Brian's 30%, I'm going to continue to think that AI batters at default sliders don't chase enough pitches...

Season O-Swing%  Z-Swing% Swing%  O-Contact% Z-Contact% Contact% Zone%  F-Strike%SwStr%   ChasePerSwing%  
   2002    18.1 %   70.1 %  46.5 %     47.5 %     85.5 %   78.8 % 54.6 %   58.3 %   9.8 %            17.7%
   2003    22.2 %   68.8 %  46.2 %     51.9 %     87.8 %   79.4 % 51.4 %   58.6 %   9.5 %            23.4%
   2004    16.6 %   69.6 %  45.8 %     53.7 %     85.2 %   80.1 % 55.1 %   58.4 %   9.0 %            16.3%
   2005    20.3 %   68.0 %  46.0 %     51.8 %     88.3 %   80.8 % 53.8 %   59.1 %   8.7 %            20.4%
   2006    23.5 %   66.6 %  46.1 %     57.4 %     88.5 %   81.0 % 52.6 %   58.8 %   8.5 %            24.1%
   2007    25.0 %   66.6 %  45.9 %     60.8 %     88.2 %   80.8 % 50.3 %   58.7 %   8.6 %            27.1%
   2008    25.4 %   65.4 %  45.9 %     61.7 %     87.9 %   80.8 % 51.1 %   58.6 %   8.6 %            27.1%
   2009    25.1 %   66.0 %  45.3 %     61.7 %     87.8 %   80.5 % 49.3 %   58.2 %   8.6 %            28.1%
   2010    29.3 %   64.4 %  45.6 %     66.5 %     88.1 %   80.7 % 46.5 %   58.8 %   8.5 %            34.4%
   2011    30.6 %   65.0 %  46.2 %     68.1 %     87.9 %   80.7 % 45.3 %   59.4 %   8.6 %            36.2%
   2012    30.8 %   64.7 %  46.0 %     66.8 %     87.2 %   79.7 % 44.9 %   59.8 %   9.1 %            36.9%

The last column is chase per swing %. It fluctuates throughout the years, so *if* this number is indeed used to calibrate stuff, then it's entirely possible the "30%" number is coming from one of those earlier years.

[Bobhead]

Re: AI walks issued, AI pitches chased... Hopefully can be adjusted in a patch...

I saw your table and in your game it seems to be lower by about 3%... that's significant if it keeps its pace, but in my test after 66 games, it's 79.1% (game) vs. 80.4% (MLB)... so I'm not seeing as huge a difference, and I would say the deviation is within a reasonable range (though is lower, and you see the effect in K%).

You should be careful of making early conclusions when you are looking at plate discipline based stats, since they actually fluctuate a lot depending on pitchers and hitters. This is where you not only need sample size, but also need to vary pitcher-batter match-ups sufficiently to capture the performance differences among players...

When I do stats tracking for slider making purpose, I do 75 games playing every single game using a season mode.... so that all starting pitchers are used (5 x 15). That way, I'm starting from No. 1s & 2s and finally a lot of No. 4s & 5s from all teams... and it's actually interesting since I can often see the offensive numbers swing from being on lower side (due to may aces pitching) to gradually coming back up to stay around what I consider to be average offense....

You can easily get fooled by a poor test design if I just did the first 15 games thrown by aces, for example...

Yeah that's why I cycle all teams and pitchers # evenly. I don't do full seasons, but I do the #1 best team vs the #30 team (the worst), then the #2 team vs the #29 team, and so on... and I shuffle the pitchers as well, albeit in a less systematic way.

[Gameboy 11]

Re: AI walks issued, AI pitches chased... Hopefully can be adjusted in a patch...

I have to comment on pitching and walking the cpu. The key really is finding a difficulty and/or changing sliders to where you are not comfortable when pitching. I am using meter pitching on HOF. I can't get away with grooving a 3-0 fastball just to get a strike. I threw a 3-1 curveball that still hasn't landed. That same pitch would have worked for me last year.

The point is I have to throw more balls, try to paint the corners, and really pitch like a mlb pitcher would or my era will be like John Danks spring era. I love the White Sox but he has me a little worried. Anyways, my strike % is now in the 60's and I am walking more hitters. Never thought that would happen. This game is amazing!