My first caveat here is that I never ever thought never will I think that this is a game killer. It is a flaw though and Im curious to find a way to work it out. I've done some research myself and hope some of you guys will also. If this post pisses you off to the point where you feel the need to flame me... go for it. I could care less. I love this game and want to find a way to get maximum enjoyment out of it. I can definately live with just not stealing, but if there is an answer, i would rather do that.
Anyway, i conducted some tests this afternoon.
From what i can tell pitch speed and game difficulty have no affect, but feel free to experiment more with that.
What I did was play exhibitions and i would just beam batters and then take control of the the hitting team when they had a runner on first and always send him on the first pitch. I was using the Dpad method because that way we can be exact (since we will all be stealing at the same time). And to those who think this is the problem... it isnt, i can steal manually much better.
I also never made my lead any bigger.
What I found in 4 matchups is that catchers, it seems, are underrated. Jorge Possada would throw out maybe 1 in 3 (never a fast guy....) while the Drays catcher would throw out no one. The lower rated catchers always throw the ball in too high and the person covering cannot get the tag down.
Im thinking the solution to this problem is to edit the catchers to give them more accuracy. The arm strength seems to be fine, but bad catcher (as far as i can tell) will make a good throw maybe 1 in 20 times. This is not realistic. And, the throws come in so high and lofty that people like Doug Mirabelli (red sox backup catcher) can steal on an average catcher.
So, it seems those who have been saying they've been getting thrown out are the ones playing great catchers. This is good... leave them alone. But, as far as i've seen, a bad catcher just wont make a strong throw.
If anyone else is willing to experiment with this maybe we can figure out a good way to boost the catchers to be realistic. I obviously dont want crappy catchers throwing everyone out... but at the same time not ever catcher has an arm like mike piazza so something should be done about that.
Comment