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Help with hitting offspeed pitches

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Old 04-09-2016, 12:02 PM   #9
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Re: Help with hitting offspeed pitches

I struggled badly with offspeed pitches, especially those low and especially low and outside, for many years. I've gotten a little better at not striking out so much lately though.

My method is to guess high fastball every pitch.

If that's not what I get on the first pitch, then the bat never leaves my shoulder.

I continue that until the CPU throws a strike.

With one strike on me, if I don't get the indication that the pitch is a high fastball, I assume that its offspeed, and do my best to not swing if its outside of the zone.

Once I get two strikes on me, I switch to only swinging using the circle button. Doing that gives you a larger area to make contact, and with a good hitter, you'll be able to get the bat on almost anything if you time it right. I can at least fowl a few pitches off if nothing else once I get into that situation. If you keep doing that, then sometimes the pitcher will eventually give you a pitch that you can do something with.

I've gone from striking out 10-15 times a game from when I started playing the Show in 2008 through around 2012, to now five or fewer most games since I started this method.

Now, if I face a pitcher who doesn't have a fastball, my goose is cooked. I'm horrible against them, and will often do my best just to use the circle button and try to put any given pitch into play.
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Old 04-09-2016, 12:23 PM   #10
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Re: Help with hitting offspeed pitches

I go in expecting EVERYTHING to be offspeed. That's because to me, I can see a fastball very well in this game, and I can lay off or swing if it's in the right spot.

The only thing offspeed that I can crush or lay off with consistency is the curveball. When I see a curveball coming, I lick my chops, I love hitting that pitch.

My approach to every at bat is the same, expect off-speed. I had to teach myself to stop being trigger happy and actually determine the speed of the pitch. Once I realized that the AI will take advantage if they know you're struggling to hit off-speed, if you go up there and expect it, you can have great success.

Be patient, WAIT for a pitch you know is coming in the strike zone and try to get wood on it. It might take you a few pitches to really get their speed down, but that's where the patience comes in.

Some people look for only fastballs, I look for only off-speed.
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Old 04-09-2016, 02:15 PM   #11
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Re: Help with hitting offspeed pitches

I forgot to mention in my previous post that my method has also allowed me to go from almost never drawing walks (literally only a few a month), to often getting about two a game. The more pitches that you force the CPU to throw, the greater the likelyhood that once in a while they'll throw one thats way out of the zone when I already have three balls and I can lay off.
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Old 04-13-2016, 10:15 AM   #12
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Re: Help with hitting offspeed pitches

I have been playing The Show since 2006 ... so I know all the basics (change the sliders, use the right camera, bla bla) ...

Still, I cannot for the life of me lay-off the low curve/changeup. How do I 'read' the pitch out of the pitcher's hand? If it's the heat, I have a very short time to swing (even with the FB slider way down), so I tend to be very trigger-happy and swing early on low junk.

Here's a question .... if you use buttons to initiate the swing ... do you have your finger on the button when the pitch is thrown? Just off the button? Farther away from the button? Finger on the button and already applying light pressure?

I have gotten down to this level of analysis in my attempt to stop swinging at low junk and whiffing!

I am still looking for a camera that will maximize my ability to "read the pitch" out of the pitcher's hand. I find that if I am too zoomed in, I don't read pitch location well, and if I am too far back, I don't read pitch speed well.
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Old 04-13-2016, 12:41 PM   #13
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Re: Help with hitting offspeed pitches

Try using MLB 15 The Show camera. Use this as a base and edit it. You want to edit it by moving the R stick up (I believe) to flatten out the angle. After you flatten out the angle you move the L stick down a little so that you can barely see both of your players' shoes. The goal is to line up the pitchers release point with the 1/3 of the strike zone. From an angle like this you have a very clear view of the bottom of the zone and can almost immediately see the downward break on the ball as it occurs. The only downfall to this view is that it will make a fastball at the very top of the zone look high. The problem with most of the default angles is that there is too sharp of an angle looking down and it hinders your ability to see any sort of downward movement until the ball is almost in the zone and you've already swung.
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Old 04-13-2016, 07:29 PM   #14
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Re: Help with hitting offspeed pitches

Quote:
Originally Posted by chuckm1961
I have been playing The Show since 2006 ... so I know all the basics (change the sliders, use the right camera, bla bla) ...

Still, I cannot for the life of me lay-off the low curve/changeup. How do I 'read' the pitch out of the pitcher's hand? If it's the heat, I have a very short time to swing (even with the FB slider way down), so I tend to be very trigger-happy and swing early on low junk.

Here's a question .... if you use buttons to initiate the swing ... do you have your finger on the button when the pitch is thrown? Just off the button? Farther away from the button? Finger on the button and already applying light pressure?

I have gotten down to this level of analysis in my attempt to stop swinging at low junk and whiffing!

I am still looking for a camera that will maximize my ability to "read the pitch" out of the pitcher's hand. I find that if I am too zoomed in, I don't read pitch location well, and if I am too far back, I don't read pitch speed well.
Unless I'm planning on taking the pitch (first pitch, 3-0 count, maybe 3-1), then yes, my finger is always on the button I'm going to use to swing. I've gotten gradually better at laying off the low and outside curveball, but I used to be horrible at it, and its still hard. For whatever reason, I'm much better at laying off when I'm hitting LH than I am RH, especially vs a RH pitcher. My biggest improvement was switching to just always using the circle button with two strikes, and then I can often fowl off the ones I don't hold back on.
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Old 04-13-2016, 08:16 PM   #15
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Re: Help with hitting offspeed pitches

Once your recognize it is a change up right out of the hand......let the ball travel.

Honestly it's really that simple.

First is recognition of the pitch and then let it travel to you. Be patient on the swing
Hit the cages and practice and you will be fine.
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Old 04-13-2016, 10:01 PM   #16
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Re: Help with hitting offspeed pitches

How I try to approach off-speed:

-Get a camera view that gives both good depth perception/where the ball is relative to the plate and lets you have a good gauge on high/low and in/out.

-Wait as long as you can. I have to tell myself, if it feels late, I'm probably on time.

-Pick a speed. Don't try to adjust to both. If you want to sit on off-speed and try to react to fastball, or vice versa, do one and be consistent, at least in that at-bat. If you flip flop, you might be bad at both plus the pitcher can get you in the rocking chair...i.e. looking fast and getting slow, then looking slow and getting fast. That's tough for a hitter. If you stick with one, you'll get better at it with practice and if the pitcher changes speeds, he'll come back to you eventually.

-Identify the pitch. Off-speed often has little tell-tale signs. Curves have "humps" in their movement. Change-ups sometimes do or appear to because of their slower motion and drop at the end. If you think curve and get change, chances are you'll still at least foul it off. Sliders can be the nastiest to identify. If they are slow sliders, they may look like sideways curves (the "hump" will be the start of movement a bit to the arm side of the pitcher - at least in appearances). Hard sliders...good luck and hope they hang. Nothing worse than 100 MPH fastball and 88+ MPH slider with movement. UGH.

One reason I like high (even maxed) pitch speed slider is I find these signs define themselves earlier out of the pitcher's hand, especially if they aren't particularly good pitches. Maybe it's just me, but I try to look for these "signatures" on pitches to give my timing an idea. On low pitch speed settings, everything just looks like whiffle balls (or knuckleballs?) to me. That visual difference in velocities and signatures helps me identify what's what, as long as it's not crazy - so maxing both gives me that.
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Last edited by KBLover; 04-13-2016 at 10:03 PM.
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