Contact - Swings & Misses - Strikeouts

[countryboy]

Quote: Originally Posted by Caulfield

I'm not too worried about it. I've had it for 10 years. Looked exactly the same then as it does today. So , no cause for concern, eh? back on topic, short term project, over the weekend I want to chart which pitch generates more k's. 4seamer? Slider? Curve or changeup? I hope to report 4seamer, right? cb, do you have a favorite strikeout pitch you rely on or do you go by the school of thought that unpredictability is the way to go?

No I don't have a favorite strikeout pitch. What I use varies from game to game and inning to inning.

Its all about what is working for a pitcher and how I've chosen to attack the hitter for that particular at-bat as well as all game. My goal is to continue to either one keep him off balance or two if he's free swinging to keep moving the ball a little further out of the zone to see how far he'll go.

And then sometimes its just here it is lets see if you can hit it.

[Caulfield]

Quote: Originally Posted by countryboy

...sometimes its just here it is lets see if you can hit it.

thats my favorite pitch

[Vercingetirex]

Quote: Originally Posted by El_MaYiMbE

Timing slider actually makes the issue worse! You will be Very Late and Very Early more often but STILL make contact. Behind the scenes, it seems like the plate vision is too big for all hitters. As a result they are able to touch pitches that are either in front or behind the plate.

Thats why I suggest changing the actual Contact slider before all others.

[El_MaYiMbE]

Quote: Originally Posted by Vercingetirex

Thats why I suggest changing the actual Contact slider before all others.

I would have to dive more into it but I tried this as well for a few games. It just makes you a worse hitter, as in ability to get hits but it doesn't influence swings and misses to degree I would consider acceptable.

There is a contact slider, solid hit slider, power slider, and foul slider. There should be a vision slider which I think is what influences how often the player can put bat on ball. That missing slider is tied to contact but again lowering contact just makes you a worse overall hitter which isn't exactly the issue.

However, I will admit I need to play more with contact lowered 1 or 2 clicks again.

[jmel07]

I had this conversation with myself, then found your thread, thanks for posting it.

I play as the Brewers, and I noticed that there are just tons of contact and foul balls against Hader, when normally it's a bunch of swings and misses in real life. And yes, I mix up my locations and pitch sequences, he just feels nerfed because of all the contact even with his extremely high K/9 ratings on his two main offerings (the slider and fastball).

I think "not enough swing and miss in the zone" feels like the main issue.

Quote: Originally Posted by countryboy

With all due respect this thread is to discuss the excessive contact thus leading to fewer swings misses which may be resulting in fewer strikeouts This thread isn’t to discuss the need for sliders to get realistic stats or gameplay or to discuss other issues with the game or the direction of the game/series. There are other threads for that discussion. I’m just trying to see if others were/are seeing the same “issue” I am. And then seeing if we can find a culprit and relay to SDS. Thanks Sent from my iPhone using Operation Sports

[51shergie]

H


Sent from my iPhone using Operation Sports

[51shergie]

OK maybe I’m not quite sure what this thread is about, but if there’s one thing I consider myself an expert on, in any video game not just this one, it is pitching and getting strikeouts. And I am not good anymore at video games because I have severe hand issues That I am on disability because of him. However, it is this one area I consider myself an expert in because of the realism between how to pitch (locations, pitch selection,etc) in real life that carries over to the show.

Personally I see no need to change sliders, in fact I have to dial back the 2 user pitcher sliders down 1 to 4 (control & consistency) or i will be OP.

Are use pure analog and I will see that just as important as your location and pitch selection you must accurately execute the desired pitch within the meter.

What I will say about this game is that when you get two strikes on hitters it is more challenging putting them away, and they will continue fighting off pitches and fouling them off until u give in or make a mistake. By that I mean either failing to execute a pitch and leaving it over the middle or doing a ball out of the strike zone. I find this to be perfectly reasonable and would not want to change this dynamic of really having to dig deep to get some guys out.

Again i hope im understanding what this thread is talking about. My average performance usually has my starter going seven or eight innings with eight strikeouts being the low Mark. I don’t give up many hits but the hits I do give up are usually homeruns from me making a mistake in the zone.

I don’t want to question anyone’s baseball intelligence but I have no idea exactly what others do or do not know but I have a few questions/thoughts for anyone struggling.

How often do you throw fastballs? There is almost never A situation in which fastball (4seam, 2seam, sinker, cutter, running) would not be thrown over 50% of the time.

There is no reason why you cant start off the game and throw a 1st pitch fastball low and inside or outside (for a strike) to the 1st 9 batters in a row

Do you throw first pitch change ups? Don’t do that ever LOL (unless in rare occasions when a better comes up for the third time against that picture and you had previously struggled to get them out. Just dont do it)

Sliders, curveballs, or any breaking balls should never be thrown above the bottom three boxes in the zone. If you throw it above that, thats a hanging pitch and you should feel lucky anytime you get away with that with them not hitting it over the fence. I know I yell out “oooh” every time I know I just hung one.

Just because a picture has five pitches, does not mean they should all be used at any time. Unless you know what you were doing, I wouldn’t even throw the fifth and maybe even the fourth pitch unless you throw it out of the zone.
You don’t need all of those pitches.

In baseball, every pitcher starts off as a starter, but what separates some into relievers eventually is whether or not they can only throw 2 pitches really well or whether they can establish and throw a 3rd pitch really well.

This is because the third time through the lineup, that third pitch now is needed, really for the first time, in order to get batters out. Therefore:
—relievers only need to throw their best 2 pitches (X & O on ps4)
—starters should save a pitch that they rarely throw until the 3rd time through the lineup

I personally hardly ever throw pitches in the middle 3 boxes (from top to bottom).

Always try and get ahead 0-1 by throwing A First Pitch strike, and you can literally never go wrong with a fastball low and outside corner.

All pitches should be thrown on the edges of the strike zone, the skill is getting as close to the edge without throwing a ball as you can. Literally every pitch except for strike out pitches when you’re trying to get them to chase

Sample pitch selection: Dallas Keuchel vs Aaron Judge 1st inning 1st AB 2-outs no runners on:
1: 2seam low edge outside 0-1
2: 2seam low edge outside further out (can be slightly out of zone if 1st pitch was strike) 1-1
3: changeup low edge inside (do not hang!) 1-2
4: slider just out of the strike zone low center (he should either chase for SO, foul it, or take it for a ball) 2-2
5: 2seam low edge outside where u threw the 1st 2 except try and make him chase it just out of the zone
6: changeup low middle definitely for a strike but not above the bottom 1/3 of the zone

Notice there was not 1 pitch that wasnt low. Now that is a strategy keuchel must use because he doesent throw 95 mph, but the logic is sound.

With a harder throwing pitcher, to strikeout them out high fastballs above and out of the zone are good pitches to make them chase. (Technically keuchel could even get away with this if he is consistently pounding the bottom of the zone. This is the only time, for instance, that i use his 4seam fastball. Its 2seams, changes, and sliders all game. 75% of the time its a 1st pitch seam low.

Third time through batting order i will mix in his cutter to lefties low and inside or go up just a tad with it on inside edge.

Well considering i might be blabbing on to something no one cares to hear i will stop here but if it helped anyone or they want tons more tips/examples on this particular matter let me know.

Ps tried to post some pics as diagrams but...my execution was off lol. Wish it was pure analog lol

[countryboy]

Ok...I know I said that I was just going to let it be and play.....but this morning I guess curiosity got the best of me because I played a game against the Braves where I made the following slider adjustments. I know...I know...I promise the world isn't coming to an end because CB made a gameplay slider adjustment.

Before I go further my hitting information isn't displayed because the stats were "skewed". The reason I say that they were skewed is because I made a mistake in the slider adjustments and didn't realize until very very late in the game.

Here is what the settings were and the results to the CPU hitting in the video:

Legend Pitching
Meter
Ball Marker On
Jack Flaherty pitching for me

My franchise because I wanted to compare any differences to what I've seen using the same rosters/ratings

CPU Contact - Down 1 (4)
CPU Timing - Up 1 (6)

The reason I increased timing is because my thought was that the CONTACT slider says that it adjusts timing as well. Well the issue wasn't really the timing per se, but moreso the contact being made with bad timing. So since CONTACT adjusted timing when altered, I wanted to counter the (-1) by adding (+1)

Here are the results:



I liked the results with the swings and misses causing strikeouts as well as the CONTACT CHANCES based on PCI feedback on pitches well out of the zone. And honestly the game play didn't feel off (at least not CPU..mine did due to slider mistake) and played pretty well. There were hard hit balls, balls pulled, up the middle, and opposite field. Nothing felt "off" making this change. Honestly it felt much like '18.

I am going to play more games with these adjustments to see what happens. At least go thru my pitching rotation and back to Flaherty to see if strikeouts become to overpowered. After that cycle of games, I'll decide what to do with either leaving it this way or going back to default. I'm not messing with anything else....

Anyways I wanted to share with the community my findings.

If anyone else makes this same change, please post your results/findings.

Back to the diamond....err...virtual diamond.