I hope better scouting research has been done for pitchers this year

[DodgerFanatic2K3]

Question?

What gives a pitcher his individual identity besides his looks?

Answer...His signature pitch arsenal.... and when it's wrong it ruins his identity

I hope someone was hired or assigned this year just to research and make sure that pitchers will have there correct arsenal out of the box because this has been a glaring issue for years

[seanjeezy]

Re: I hope better scouting research has been done for pitchers this year

Question?

What gives a pitcher his individual identity besides his looks?

Answer...His signature pitch arsenal.... and when it's wrong it ruins his identity

I hope someone was hired or assigned this year just to research and make sure that pitchers will have there correct arsenal out of the box because this a been a glaring issue for years

Don't count on it, I'm just glad we are able to do the edits ourselves.

[DodgerFanatic2K3]

Re: I hope better scouting research has been done for pitchers this year

Don't count on it, I'm just glad we are able to do the edits ourselves.

Ya but with there slogan "SO REAL IT'S UNREAL" we shouldn't have to fix something like that to make it "REAL"

[stealyerface]

Re: I hope better scouting research has been done for pitchers this year

This has been a long standing question for... oh... ever.

I can go to Baseball Reference and see the 4 pitch arsenal that a certain pitcher has, based on his scouting report, and know what speed he generally throws it at, and what his main "goto" out pitch is with very little research effort on my part.

And then, I can see that that pitcher in the game, has two pitches he does not even have in his repertoire...

I am not sure why this is always such an issue.

Josh Beckett does not have a 93 mph Splitter. He wishes he did, but he does not. Why he gets one in the game every year is a mystery to me.

~syf

[Jgainsey]

Re: I hope better scouting research has been done for pitchers this year

This issue has been beaten to death, but the criticism is definitely justified.

I love The Show, but it baffles me that SCEA allows this aspect of the game to fall so incredibly short every year. It would be one thing if the information was somehow difficult to come by, but it's not... This information is as readily available as any other traditional stat.

[nomo17k]

Re: I hope better scouting research has been done for pitchers this year

I think there has been some attention to this paid at the minors level for generated players. Few generated players have crazy assortments of pitches.

And there might be a chance that SCEA paid more attention to this pitch repertoire issue given that one of the major game review outlet (ESPN?) did criticize MLB 12 for not getting them right for even more prominent players.

[seanjeezy]

Re: I hope better scouting research has been done for pitchers this year

I think there has been some attention to this paid at the minors level for generated players. Few generated players have crazy assortments of pitches.

And there might be a chance that SCEA paid more attention to this pitch repertoire issue given that one of the major game review outlet (ESPN?) did criticize MLB 12 for not getting them right for even more prominent players.

Well they did take suggestions and incorporate them into later roster updates, but like those two were saying, why is this even necessary? The game should ship with as accurate as possible rosters and it doesn't. When I did pitch edits this year there wasn't a single pitcher that I didn't have to make changes to, with most needing multiple edits.

Of course, I wouldn't recommend SCEA copying/pasting straight from pitch f/x since the algorithm has its quirks, and I doubt they would assign a valuable team member to dedicate ~1-2 months to compile and input the data (although it would probably take less since the devs are using computers to edit rosters), so why not outsource it (for free I might add) and add it to later roster updates?

[nomo17k]

Re: I hope better scouting research has been done for pitchers this year

Well they did take suggestions and incorporate them into later roster updates, but like those two were saying, why is this even necessary? The game should ship with as accurate as possible rosters and it doesn't. When I did pitch edits this year there wasn't a single pitcher that I didn't have to make changes to, with most needing multiple edits.

Of course, I wouldn't recommend SCEA copying/pasting straight from pitch f/x since the algorithm has its quirks, and I doubt they would assign a valuable team member to dedicate ~1-2 months to compile and input the data (although it would probably take less since the devs are using computers to edit rosters), so why not outsource it (for free I might add) and add it to later roster updates?

Ramone@SCEA has indicated that they use the Baseball Info Solutions data at least in the past, but I don't know if BIS collect pitch f/x type of data... And even though the data are available publicly, the terms and conditions of usage may actually prevent SCEA from using the data for profit... but I don't really know why things have been that way.

I would imagine if the dev team actually used pitch f/x info, it wouldn't take them 1 - 2 months to rate all players. That kind of thing can be totally be automated, so I suspect there are other reasons.

[seanjeezy]

Re: I hope better scouting research has been done for pitchers this year

Ramone@SCEA has indicated that they use the Baseball Info Solutions data at least in the past, but I don't know if BIS collect pitch f/x type of data... And even though the data are available publicly, the terms and conditions of usage may actually prevent SCEA from using the data for profit... but I don't really know why things have been that way.

I would imagine if the dev team actually used pitch f/x info, it wouldn't take them 1 - 2 months to rate all players. That kind of thing can be totally be automated, so I suspect there are other reasons.

That's the thing though, trusting a computer to automatically collect and input the data is why there are so many inaccuracies. Copy/pasting from the f/x database also incorporates the misclassifications and errors the system has too. The only way to ensure that every pitch is correct is to manually review every single one, and with approximately 500 pitchers that takes time that I doubt they are willing to spend. I lucked out when Brooks Baseball released their player cards, all I had to do was convert their pitch types into the Show's.

I'm highly suspect of them using BIS, there's no way a company that professional teams rely on for scouting can have so many mistakes. Fangraphs' f/x data also comes from BIS but they don't have Pineda with an 80 mph changeup or Cashner with a 91 mph fastball. So I'm in agreement with you, there must be something preventing SCEA from using the data for profit.

[dutch4404]

Re: I hope better scouting research has been done for pitchers this year

I'm hoping the speed differential between fastball and change up is fixed. I haven't done the research but I don't know many guys who throw 93-95 mph fastball and 77-79 mph change up. And it seems the worse a pitcher is, the bigger the difference in speed(which makes them harder to hit). U would think a worse pitcher would have those pitch speed closer together

[seanjeezy]

Re: I hope better scouting research has been done for pitchers this year

I'm hoping the speed differential between fastball and change up is fixed. I haven't done the research but I don't know many guys who throw 93-95 mph fastball and 77-79 mph change up. And it seems the worse a pitcher is, the bigger the difference in speed(which makes them harder to hit). U would think a worse pitcher would have those pitch speed closer together

Luckily I did the research, average differential is about 7 mph (I think it was 6.8 or something like that).

[stealyerface]

Re: I hope better scouting research has been done for pitchers this year

Correct.

A devastating change-up begins to really manifest itself when there is a 9-11 mph swing. Looking at a 95mph 4-seamer, then having to sit back and have someone unload an 84mph change down and in is borderline criminal.

Johan Santana has around a 12mph differential, and that equates to a deadly pitch with just the right amount of pace taken off of it. Ben Sheets has around 15mph, and one might think that was even better, but the idea is to make the batter feel as if the ball headed towards them is actually a fastball, so if you go too much, as in the 20mph+ differential, it actually becomes easier to hit, as it looks like a totally different pitch.

With the exception of the Ephus pitch, like RedSox Padilla threw every now and then, the ten mph rule is pretty much the benchmark for nastiness.

~syf

[dutch4404]

Re: I hope better scouting research has been done for pitchers this year

Are those #s in real life or in game...or both and they got it right?

[stealyerface]

Re: I hope better scouting research has been done for pitchers this year

Real life.

Not sure if they got it right, but I did when I made the edits for the starting five for each team.

~syf

[seanjeezy]

Re: I hope better scouting research has been done for pitchers this year

Are those #s in real life or in game...or both and they got it right?

He's correct, I had Johan at 12 mph last year (88.6 - 76.66), although Sheets is more around 9 mph (90.02 - 81.5).

It wouldn't be such a big deal (for generated players at least) if there was a discernible difference in arm speed and trajectory between a 89 mph change and a 75 mph one, but there isn't so too slow = maximum effectiveness right now, regardless of movement.