Slider adjustment question.

[HMMurdock311]

First let me start off with a thank you to you Slider Guru's. I usually download a good set and play with that but, as I feel the game is mostly good on default, I'd like to try tweaking things myself.

I would LOVE to be able to draw walks at default All-Star but I just can't seem to do it. I just finished a frustrating game against the White Sox. They had Noesi pitching, keep in mind his stamina is about 67, and he went a full 110-ish pitch game against me. However, he was down to zero energy on his bar showing for the last 1 2/3 innings. Nearly every batter he faced with no energy he threw 3 straight balls, or 2-1, then like magic he couldn't miss the zone. I'd foul off 4 pitches or so until he just got me to pop out. It was just amazing that with no energy he still hit when he needed.

What, if any, sliders could/should I adjust to keep the scenario I just posted from happening?

[tc020791]

Re: Slider adjustment question.

First let me start off with a thank you to you Slider Guru's. I usually download a good set and play with that but, as I feel the game is mostly good on default, I'd like to try tweaking things myself.

I would LOVE to be able to draw walks at default All-Star but I just can't seem to do it. I just finished a frustrating game against the White Sox. They had Noesi pitching, keep in mind his stamina is about 67, and he went a full 110-ish pitch game against me. However, he was down to zero energy on his bar showing for the last 1 2/3 innings. Nearly every batter he faced with no energy he threw 3 straight balls, or 2-1, then like magic he couldn't miss the zone. I'd foul off 4 pitches or so until he just got me to pop out. It was just amazing that with no energy he still hit when he needed.

What, if any, sliders could/should I adjust to keep the scenario I just posted from happening?

Glad to see a fellow O's fan on here. Check my sliders out, I was having a similar problem on All-Star hitting. Check out the hitting sliders atleast. Their at Veteran + Difficulty.

[nomo17k]

Re: Slider adjustment question.

First let me start off with a thank you to you Slider Guru's. I usually download a good set and play with that but, as I feel the game is mostly good on default, I'd like to try tweaking things myself.

I would LOVE to be able to draw walks at default All-Star but I just can't seem to do it. I just finished a frustrating game against the White Sox. They had Noesi pitching, keep in mind his stamina is about 67, and he went a full 110-ish pitch game against me. However, he was down to zero energy on his bar showing for the last 1 2/3 innings. Nearly every batter he faced with no energy he threw 3 straight balls, or 2-1, then like magic he couldn't miss the zone. I'd foul off 4 pitches or so until he just got me to pop out. It was just amazing that with no energy he still hit when he needed.

What, if any, sliders could/should I adjust to keep the scenario I just posted from happening?

If you want to walk more, you definitely need to have a certain level of discipline. After each game, go check the batter analysis stats and see if you are swinging too often. "Taken" should be close to less than 50%... anything higher you may be swinging too aggressively to go deeper in counts. Also, you should strive to have less than 20 "Chase" each game. If you swing, it will be a strike so it is important to not make a pitch outside the strike zone a strike by swinging.

The CPU pitcher tends to lay one in the strike zone when he gets behind... but if you don't swing excessively he should still miss the zone more than 30% of the time.

I haven't talked about sliders, but that's because for walking it is essential to have some level of discipline. If the stats that I mentioned above are fine, and if you still have an issue drawing walks, then there are adjustments that could be made. But what you should do depends on where you are converting balls into strikes.

[coreyerb]

Re: Slider adjustment question.

I'm having this same problem, and my stats don't indicate I'm hacking - I can take 60+% of the time and still get maybe two walks a game max - exactly what Murdock said, get the count to 3 balls and everything the pitcher throws is straight down the middle or borderline and he'll get the call. Hasn't mattered much who's pitching.

[nomo17k]

Re: Slider adjustment question.

I'm having this same problem, and my stats don't indicate I'm hacking - I can take 60+% of the time and still get maybe two walks a game max - exactly what Murdock said, get the count to 3 balls and everything the pitcher throws is straight down the middle or borderline and he'll get the call. Hasn't mattered much who's pitching.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, you might be taking too much (60%+ take certainly sounds like you are taking too much). When you don't punish CPU for throwing easy strikes, he should of course keep laying one in the strike zone when he gets behind.

[HMMurdock311]

Re: Slider adjustment question.

If you want to walk more, you definitely need to have a certain level of discipline. After each game, go check the batter analysis stats and see if you are swinging too often. "Taken" should be close to less than 50%... anything higher you may be swinging too aggressively to go deeper in counts. Also, you should strive to have less than 20 "Chase" each game. If you swing, it will be a strike so it is important to not make a pitch outside the strike zone a strike by swinging.

The CPU pitcher tends to lay one in the strike zone when he gets behind... but if you don't swing excessively he should still miss the zone more than 30% of the time.

I haven't talked about sliders, but that's because for walking it is essential to have some level of discipline. If the stats that I mentioned above are fine, and if you still have an issue drawing walks, then there are adjustments that could be made. But what you should do depends on where you are converting balls into strikes.

Hey nomo17k, thanks for providing some insight. I can draw walks. I can get about 2 or 3 a game. I don't have exact percentages but I feel I do a decent job of working the count. I will check and compare them to your numbers and see how I match up.

My problem is getting the CPU to stop being so precise all the time. In my example the pitcher ran out of energy early in the 8th. He still was laser precise after, and only after, getting behind in the count. I've had plenty of times where the pitcher, no matter his rating, just didn't miss. I'm ok with good high rated pitchers doing this, but not a 67 rated person being on all the time. That's why I'm trying to understand the ratings to fix this to my liking.

Glad to see a fellow O's fan on here. Check my sliders out, I was having a similar problem on All-Star hitting. Check out the hitting sliders atleast. Their at Veteran + Difficulty.

tc020791, I'll check out your sliders tonight. You said it's on Veteran+? Does that play similar to All-Star? I REALLY enjoy the challenge of All-Star as Veteran was way to easy to hit on.

[tc020791]

Re: Slider adjustment question.

Hey nomo17k, thanks for providing some insight. I can draw walks. I can get about 2 or 3 a game. I don't have exact percentages but I feel I do a decent job of working the count. I will check and compare them to your numbers and see how I match up.

My problem is getting the CPU to stop being so precise all the time. In my example the pitcher ran out of energy early in the 8th. He still was laser precise after, and only after, getting behind in the count. I've had plenty of times where the pitcher, no matter his rating, just didn't miss. I'm ok with good high rated pitchers doing this, but not a 67 rated person being on all the time. That's why I'm trying to understand the ratings to fix this to my liking.



tc020791, I'll check out your sliders tonight. You said it's on Veteran+? Does that play similar to All-Star? I REALLY enjoy the challenge of All-Star as Veteran was way to easy to hit on.

I agree all star was too hard and veteran was too easy. Veteran + seems just right for me and where I have CPU control and consistency allows good pitchers to hit corners, like everyone seems to do on all star, and bad pitchers seems to throw more meatballs, like every pitcher seems to do on regular Veteran. Now there's more of a combo of the 2 not just one or the other.

[Go Yankees]

Re: Slider adjustment question.

Have you tried the managers hook slider? I would turn that up to 6 or 7, that should help with the computer going the full 9 because if the computer pitcher gets in trouble in the middle innings the computer manager is more likely to yank him, so for instance, you get runners to second and third with no one out in the 6th inning, the computer manager is more likely to yank his pitcher even if they are throwing a shutout. That has been my experience, also, if you use quick counts it seems way easier to draw walks, i usually get between 4 and 7 a game and while pitching i give up anywhere from 2 to 8, but the game seems to play so differently for each person that experimenting is the only way to get what you want, good luck!

[nomo17k]

Re: Slider adjustment question.

Hey nomo17k, thanks for providing some insight. I can draw walks. I can get about 2 or 3 a game. I don't have exact percentages but I feel I do a decent job of working the count. I will check and compare them to your numbers and see how I match up.

My problem is getting the CPU to stop being so precise all the time. In my example the pitcher ran out of energy early in the 8th. He still was laser precise after, and only after, getting behind in the count. I've had plenty of times where the pitcher, no matter his rating, just didn't miss. I'm ok with good high rated pitchers doing this, but not a 67 rated person being on all the time. That's why I'm trying to understand the ratings to fix this to my liking.

...

CPU actually isn't very precise (mostly just as precise as you are using Meter pitching interface... which I think isn't very precise).

I think people get an impression that CPU paints corners very well when he gets behind, but as far as I see, it is not because CPU is locating pitches where he aims. He is obviously trying to throw a strike, which often means he's challenging you wish laying one around the middle of the plate. However, there are some variability in where exactly each pitch goes, and that is often not exactly where he aimed. What happens when you aim down the middle is that quite a few of them goes like a dozen inches off where he aimed, which quote often are on the black.

So part of the reason is that in-game pitchers are wild, but not wild enough (likely not as wild as real-life pitchers) to miss the strike zone when a pitch is aimed at the middle of the strike zone.

Having said that, the easiest slider adjustment is to lower Pitcher Consistency. However, you then will be making CPU very wild, and when you do that to pitchers they cannot really execute their strategy. That's the trade off. You could also lower Pitcher Control, but the effect of that slider is a bit more subtle though may show up over a longer run.

[Bobhead]

Re: Slider adjustment question.

This is the type of thing that really requires wayyyyyyyyyyyyy more information for any accurate and definitive insight to be offered. There's so many different things that could be going on here. Nomo alluded to a lot of it already, and I can't begin to guess what's happening without more stats/info...

But Ill give it a shot.

You could, for example, not be hitting the CPU well enough, to the point that the CPU has no qualms about just laying it in the zone.

I cant remember who it was, but someone here had a great post about a year ago... about how balls and walks come not just from a lack of control, but a surplus of fear/respect of the hitter (I want to say it was Nomo). Long story short, it applies to the CPU too... if you aren't a threat at the plate, you won't draw many walks, because the CPU will adjust accordingly.

The reason I say this is that when I read your OP between the lines, it seems like you are feeling a bit helpless at the plate. You describe a pitcher with no energy, and you say that you foul several pitches off and then pop up... A pitcher that exhausted should really not be inducing fouls OR pop-ups. Obviously you won't punish every pitcher every time, but that's the kind of situation where you should be seeing a fair amount of offense.

So I don't have all the facts here, but if you aren't batting at a respectable clip, and punishing bad/tired pitchers, that's the first thing you want to work on (either with a change in camera/settings, or a change in sliders).

Only when you are a threat at the plate, will the CPU opt to work corners instead of coming right after you... and only then will you see more balls/walks.

Anyway... I realize you asked for slider changes, so here's my suggestion if you still want to go that route.

+1 Pitch Control
-1 Pitch Consistency

If the problem is really severe or isn't solved with that, then also:

-1 Strike Frequency.

[nomo17k]

Re: Slider adjustment question.

...

I cant remember who it was, but someone here had a great post about a year ago... about how balls and walks come not just from a lack of control, but a surplus of fear/respect of the hitter (I want to say it was Nomo). Long story short, it applies to the CPU too... if you aren't a threat at the plate, you won't draw many walks, because the CPU will adjust accordingly.

...

If it were me, it must be in reference to B Ma's analysis and interpretation of walks. Here's the quote from the post:

Great questions. I don't want to turn this into a Q&A session because of time constraints, but I'd be happy to cover more of these topics after the game ships. It's more important what '10 actually does in your hands than what I can say about it anyways.

The most important attribute for home runs is not discipline, either in-game or in real life. The most important attribute in real life is actually power.

To illustrate, let me suggest that there is no contradiction that Ichiro is better at drawing walks but Adam Dunn will draw more of them. In other words, if you throw a ball outside of the strike zone at both Ichiro and Dunn, stats year after year prove that Dunn is way more likely to swing and chase it (and also miss). Yet Dunn actually draws double the walks as Ichiro, and the reason has to do with the fact that he simply sees way more balls than Ichiro.

The funny thing with walks is you just need a few more balls to get a lot more walks. For example, if a pitcher threw 58 balls instead of 50 balls (16% increase), he might increase his walks given up from 3 to 4 (33% increase).

The same can be said for a small increase in user skill. If you're not drawing walks, look at the PB Analysis after a game. You're definitely getting plenty of ABs where the pitcher threw you four or five balls. The only way someone might not see this is if they aren't even letting the pitcher throw them four pitches (i.e. swinging at every pitch and staying early in the count). In that case, there are bigger challenges than not drawing walks and this is an occasional problem even for MLB teams.

Back to the comparison..if Ichiro were pitched exactly the same way as Dunn or Dunn pitched exactly the same way as Ichiro, Ichiro would simply draw more walks than Dunn. Stats show Ichiro has no trouble taking balls when he gets them, whereas Dunn does in comparison.

So why do pitchers pitch around Dunn? It's all about his swing power. If he even gets lucky he can hit a home run. So it's no coincidence that he strikes out a lot and makes lots of bad contact, precisely because he's focused on swinging hard rather than well. Ironically, both Dunn and the pitcher have played their strategies to increase his walks for opposing reasons.

The fact is, whether or not you draw walks has less to do with how well you see and take pitches than how much of a power threat you are against the pitcher. There are several proofs of this based on stats. You can choose to consider intentional walks or not (which is one factor in Dunn's numbers) but the result is the same.

That said there is such as thing as skill in taking pitches, however secondary to power. That's where your DIS attribute matters. The attribute is actually compared against PWR to determine your skill at checking your swings, meaning Ichiro checks his swing better than Dunn. Visually this affects the borderline check cases in '10 and it matters in the long run. Although 09 did this under the hood, the new system should make it immediately obvious of improved animations.

This comparison is in no way a criticism of Dunn's approach, because it works. In fact if Ichiro and Dunn were on the same team they'd complement each other very well because Ichiro's high OBB would translate into a lot of RBIs for Dunn.

Pitchers pitch around power hitters, and people have observed this in the game through the years. This one should be obvious. Likewise, there are many other tendencies that happen naturally both for the CPU and user. Batters who don't strike out will rarely miss and can have long at bats even with 2 strikes, and people have observed this both CPU and user. Some hitters try to pull the ball as a tradeoff between power (ex. home runs) versus contact, and even the user is at an advantage using this strategy with the right hitters. Although some tendencies are not as easy to notice, unfortunately this should never a reason for the game to exaggerate them just for show.

There are other tendencies I've listed in lots of older posts, but certainly some people are not going to see them. However you can definitely prove some of them one way or another. Put Dunn and Ichiro on the same team and run the game over and over, and see who draws more walks and who is better at taking balls when thrown. It should even be possible for some people to play the game and observe this point if they know all the hitters.

By the way, I guess this point got lost in old posts but although in '09 the strike zone is displayed according to MLB rules the average umpire actually gives you about an inch and a half off the top (some more, some less). It's hard to notice because people don't take a lot of pitches there out of fear of a strike. Although there are some improvements in '10 I think it's better to see that in action by trying it out.

Back to walks. It shouldn't be a surprise that some people can draw walks and others can't. Drawing walks takes both skill and concentration, whereas not drawing walks takes zero skill or concentration. I have trouble drawing walks when I'm playing casually, but when I play for real I have no trouble drawing them. And if you followed the Ichiro vs. Dunn comparison and have noticed that pitchers pitch around power hitters, clearly you'll see that the right hitters will draw more walks than others. This is regardless of if you are user or CPU.

It's also important to play on at least All Star if not Veteran difficulty because in Rookie the pitcher will go easy on you on purpose. For example in Rookie you can swing at every single pitch and the pitcher will not punish you by pitching around. It will do this 1/2 effectively in Veteran (i.e. he's imitating what a beginner player might do), but it will never go easy on you in Allstar and above. That said, if someone can't draw walks by a big margin but wants to, that's something the game can't easily solve and still stay a sim. One thing you can do in 09 is adjust the two sliders related to accuracy.

Bottom line, as far as power and walks is concerned the game should choose to play baseball like real life instead of popular conception. This is why power is more important for drawing walks than even discipline skill. It does mean these questions will always be asked and things in doubt, but fortunately we can always put it in next year's strategy guide.

That's really all the time I have until the game ships, but I think the game will explain things much better than words can.

[Skyflame21]

Re: Slider adjustment question.

If you want to walk more, you definitely need to have a certain level of discipline. After each game, go check the batter analysis stats and see if you are swinging too often. "Taken" should be close to less than 50%... anything higher you may be swinging too aggressively to go deeper in counts. Also, you should strive to have less than 20 "Chase" each game. If you swing, it will be a strike so it is important to not make a pitch outside the strike zone a strike by swinging.

The CPU pitcher tends to lay one in the strike zone when he gets behind... but if you don't swing excessively he should still miss the zone more than 30% of the time.

I haven't talked about sliders, but that's because for walking it is essential to have some level of discipline. If the stats that I mentioned above are fine, and if you still have an issue drawing walks, then there are adjustments that could be made. But what you should do depends on where you are converting balls into strikes.

Above is correct. I struggled with walks a few iterations ago. You really need to have a bit more discipline. However here are a few ideas that may help.
First, turn off the check swing appeal. This will allow for more home plate umpires to call balls without being overridden by the corresponding base umpire on the appeal. Second, lower the CPU, strike frequency / pitcher consistency, They'll throw more balls. A third try is to lower CPU stamina, i tend to use a hybrid set of sliders because I am a bit impatient with pitches and swings. It plays a really good game. If you would like to try PM me and I'll send it to you. Best of luck.