Stats-Based CPU Sliders [MLB 18 Version Season-Mode Memorial Edition]

[KBLover]

Quote: Originally Posted by NolanRyansSnowmonkey

But to the question, my guess would be that strike frequency at 10 would be jamming the zone early with not-so-quality strikes, but "dang blammit, I'm gon' throw a strike." Which would increase the number of very hittable pitches, and therefore averages go up. Likewise, I would guess that strike frequency at 0 would be (with a little exaggeration) avoiding the zone at all costs, "im gon' throw it but please dont hit my pitches." Which would decrease the number of hittable pitches early in counts, and increase walks.

Pretty much, and with only mild exaggeration. Depending on who's up, that's EXACTLY what the pitcher says on 0. I've had my 99 Power slugger get 4 balls that weren't within a foot of the zone before...even with no one on base. Commentary even said he got "the treatment". In fact, I get him out more than the pitcher does sometimes because I wanna hit with him and the pitcher is like "yeah okay, here, hit this stuff 2 inches off the black and 2 inches above the letters". If I don't swing, it's a 4-or-5 pitch walk. If I do, usually a lazy out or just a single, which is a win, basically.

Count, who's at the plate, game situation, who's on deck, all work into the "effective" strike frequency, i.e. how the pitcher will pitch that at-bat. The slider is like the base mentality.

Where control and consistency come it is: how effectively does the pitcher hit the spot.

0 with higher control/consistency might make a pitcher aim for, and hit, those edges and corners nicely. With lower, you get more walks, more obvious misses, and the occasional "hit me" pitch. You also might get borderline strikes, which is why I like 0 with lower control/consistency. I might get lulled into being worked around, then paint-paint suddenly it's 2-2. Or maybe he's nibbling, but nabs the edge - 1-2 and he's still not "trying" to throw strikes. Lots of variety, imo, and generally around the 45% Zone% range of real MLB and I'm constantly having to think at the plate. 0 with high control/consistency is like the Greg Maddux setting. Live on (or just off) the corners all game and rarely miss.

10 with higher control/consistency, I almost never saw a ball except on 2-strike counts. Sky high strike and zone rates - was actually easier, aside from the effect of control/consistency on hitting. 10 with lower is interesting. You could get a lot of misses or a lot of "hit me" balls...or hit batters... It's like it's the "effectively wild" setting. Or maybe Young Randy Johnson setting.

Like with all settings, it's just taste and who you want to highlight and how you want players to succeed and fail and why. That's pretty much what Control/Consistency/Strike Frequency do. That's why so many combinations of those three can create "sim" experiences.

[NolanRyansSnowmonkey]

Awesome KB. I love hearing others takes on sliders.

Going to change subjects a bit, but along the same lines... Excuse me for a moment while i talk about Human vs CPU in a CPU vs CPU thread...Im sure that in all your slider testing, Nomo, you've had to attempt to fix a similar issue at some point with CPU sliders - For the third year in a row I've had the same issue, that others do not seem to have - I've checked other people's numbers and it's not there if they are in a good slider set up....

That is, that I can get sliders to give me, the human, a near perfect .300 babip, and .255 average (playing with multiple teams for many games - i understand sample size) but every time I settle in those averages, I look at doubles and and my doubles per hit is around 26 to 30%. Which is way too high. Basically I live on doubles, while all other percentages look great.

So I mess with Solid hits to maybe bring down the doubles, and the ball feels like they turned the Humidor up to about 300%. Or maybe they just stored the balls in a swimming pool. Singles go down, home runs go down, doubles go down. Now I'm getting near perfect 1B,2B,3B, HR ratios, but babip falls to .250 and my batting average to .220. Then the cycle starts over: raise solid hits or power back again, or raise timing or foul frequency and my babip and doubles percentage always go up together.

To tie this back in to the topic at hand, I've wondered if raising strike frequency might help, with Solid hits lowered a notch. I guess I'm just thinking out loud now...

If you had perfect babip, perfect batting average, perfect strike %, perfect amount of strikeouts and walks, etc, but only one thing was off - too many doubles, what sliders might you try to bring that down without going through this same cycle? I usually hear solid hits... any ideas?

FYI im on legend hitting and i love it. (I've had the exact same issue on other levels for 3 years) and my hitting sliders are usually around 5, 5, 1, 3, 3. With CPU pitching at default, fielder speed and reaction at 2 and 2 (which just looks perfect on just about all balls in play) and BR speed at 4. I've thought about raising fielder speed to 3 but 2 just looks right on every bip. Especially since the majority of my doubles seem to be line drives that perfectly split the gaps anyway, and fielder speed wouldn't make much difference...

I know there is no perfect answer to this without more trial and error, but I'm about trialed and errored out with my own ideas.

Anyway, if this is too far off-topic i apologize and can pose the question elsewhere. I just love talking sliders and stats, and it seems im in good company.

[nomo17k]

Quote: Originally Posted by NolanRyansSnowmonkey

... That is, that I can get sliders to give me, the human, a near perfect .300 babip, and .255 average (playing with multiple teams for many games - i understand sample size) but every time I settle in those averages, I look at doubles and and my doubles per hit is around 26 to 30%. Which is way too high. Basically I live on doubles, while all other percentages look great. So I mess with Solid hits to maybe bring down the doubles, and the ball feels like they turned the Humidor up to about 300%. Or maybe they just stored the balls in a swimming pool. Singles go down, home runs go down, doubles go down. Now I'm getting near perfect 1B,2B,3B, HR ratios, but babip falls to .250 and my batting average to .220. Then the cycle starts over: raise solid hits or power back again, or raise timing or foul frequency and my babip and doubles percentage always go up together. ... FYI im on legend hitting and i love it. (I've had the exact same issue on other levels for 3 years) and my hitting sliders are usually around 5, 5, 1, 3, 3. With CPU pitching at default, fielder speed and reaction at 2 and 2 (which just looks perfect on just about all balls in play) and BR speed at 4. I've thought about raising fielder speed to 3 but 2 just looks right on every bip. Especially since the majority of my doubles seem to be line drives that perfectly split the gaps anyway, and fielder speed wouldn't make much difference... ...

This type of discussion is totally fine as far as I'm concerned. Since I decided to make the spreadsheet public, there haven't been many opportunities to actually talk about things (people just silently peek at the sheet), so that's one reason why I just posed the question about Strike Frequency.

In any case, which hitting interface are you using? From all the other settings I'm assuming you are using Zone, but that's one big piece of useful information missing from your post.

[NolanRyansSnowmonkey]

Quote: Originally Posted by nomo17k

This type of discussion is totally fine as far as I'm concerned. Since I decided to make the spreadsheet public, there haven't been many opportunities to actually talk about things (people just silently peek at the sheet), so that's one reason why I just posed the question about Strike Frequency. In any case, which hitting interface are you using? From all the other settings I'm assuming you are using Zone, but that's one big piece of useful information missing from your post.

My bad. Yeah I was rushed at the end of that post, and left that out. Yes you are right I'm using zone. I've had very realistic results every year except for the issue I mentioned.

I like to play a lot of games with every team to get decently close to league average, much like you do with CPU, although I can't get near the sample size since that would take up way too much time, actually playing every pitch. I still play enough with different sets to start to get a decent sample size. The goal of getting the stats close to league average is almost as fun to me as when I start playing my actual franchise.

But anyway, have seen the same doubles trend enough to recognize it. I also play a full 162 game season every year, playing every pitch, and zone hitting, so in that case I do get a good sample size.

[KBLover]

Quote: Originally Posted by NolanRyansSnowmonkey

If you had perfect babip, perfect batting average, perfect strike %, perfect amount of strikeouts and walks, etc, but only one thing was off - too many doubles, what sliders might you try to bring that down without going through this same cycle? I usually hear solid hits... any ideas?

I would need more information. Why are the doubles happening?

If it's because you're a Zone hitter and you're hitting line drives because you're a good hitter...I would do...nothing. The sliders are probably reflecting your own ability as well as your team's ability.

League averages are good benchmarks...but don't forget why there's deviations. Not every team is league average, nor every player. And since we hit for every player and you're using zone where you control the bat itself for every player...you have to think more about your playstyle archetype at least as much. Because if you hit like, say, Altuve, you're going to be better than league average at something and doubles sounds about right if you're a long-term line drive hitter. That's one of the advantages of line drives. Removing that would be more wrong than right, in my opinion. It might also mess with your BABIP.

The most I would consider doing is lowering Power by 1. I wouldn't touch solid hits - too many side effects. I really wouldn't want to touch Power either...that might mess with line drive rate (batted ball velocity informs batted ball type a lot of times with the new hitting engine in 17 and now 18, imo).

Of course, this is coming from the perspective of a Directional hitter. I don't have control of the bat so playing with solid hits and power would have more implications since I'm counting on event chances (i.e RNG) more than squaring up with the PCI (which is an event chance of it's own impacting all the other chances). Or I would probably have to raise contact and hope that didn't do too much.

[keveyd]

Genesis

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[keveyd]

Are you still using veteran hitting and all-star pitching

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[NolanRyansSnowmonkey]

Quote: Originally Posted by KBLover

I would need more information. Why are the doubles happening? If it's because you're a Zone hitter and you're hitting line drives because you're a good hitter...I would do...nothing. The sliders are probably reflecting your own ability as well as your team's ability League averages are good benchmarks...but don't forget why there's deviations. Not every team is league average, nor every player. And since we hit for every player and you're using zone where you control the bat itself for every player...you have to think more about your playstyle archetype at least as much. Because if you hit like, say, Altuve, you're going to be better than league average at something and doubles sounds about right if you're a long-term line drive hitter. That's one of the advantages of line drives. Removing that would be more wrong than right, in my opinion. It might also mess with your BABIP.

Yeah, I've never been one to try to use league average to measure any one team. But by using every team an equal amount of times, those combined numbers and averages usually fall very close to MLB league average. The game impresses me that it is even somewhat possible. I dont care if any one team is at league average or not, since every team has different strengths and weaknesses. But I do I want each team to be within the pretty standard year to year range of MLB teams. In other words I dont want any one team to set record high or low numbers in any statistic. Especially not consistently. No team hits close to 30% doubles. As it is right now, and last year, etc, I could set league records in doubles with many teams.

As far as my skill level, I can't see that being the issue. I can't hit line drives any more than anyone else. I struggle to hit in many games with some teams. But those teams still hit close to 30% of hits being doubles. The problem seems to be not too many line drives, but too high of a percentage of line drives being gap doubles.. Even if i experiment and get my line drive % down to 14%, way too many of those are gap doubles. But at that rate babip and average drops. When I hover right around league average of 19-20% line drives, all other stats start to fall right in line, except doubles.

I have been testing some other settings and I'll let you know how it's going. I will also try your power suggestion since that is the slider I've touched the least so far.

Thank you for the suggestions and input. I think I'm in the right thread. As soon as it gets to be too much on this topic, let me know and I can start a new one. I dont want to overtake it and change the subject from the original purpose. I just knew Nomo had probably at least dealt with this from a numbers standpoint, albeit from CPU vs CPU.