Pitcher Confidence

[xSubzer0x]

I've always wondered why pitcher confidence would sometimes seem too low. Like with a 6-1 lead a pitchers confidence might only be at like...75%...I would think it would be higher. Can someone maybe explain the system to me?

[The_Dude88]

Re: Pitcher Confidence

I've always wondered why pitcher confidence would sometimes seem too low. Like with a 6-1 lead a pitchers confidence might only be at like...75%...I would think it would be higher. Can someone maybe explain the system to me?

I'm guessing it's the game's way of trying to mimic real life MLB pitchers and just how difficult it is to reach maximum confidence.

The majority of MLB pitchers never have all their pitches working(example good break of curveball etc & locating their fastball on a consistent basis) to 100% effectiveness in any given start. On those rare occasions where we do see pitcher @ 90-100% confidence is when they have several of their pitches working(location & good break).

A pitcher at 90 to 100% confidence is when we get the rare complete game, no hitter, or the rarest of occasions the perfect game.

[sydrogerdavid]

Re: Pitcher Confidence

I also have a question when it comes to pitch confidence, specifically when it comes to walks. I've never noticed how pitch confidence is affected by walks, intentional or not.

How is confidence affected when you intentionally walk a batter?

How is confidence affected when you intentionally pitch around a batter?

Does the game recognize when you are pitching around a batter with a base open from when you just miss location and he gets on by a walk?

Based on the other questions, if you go 3-0, would it be better to intentionally walk him or try to fight back?

[KBLover]

Re: Pitcher Confidence

I also have a question when it comes to pitch confidence, specifically when it comes to walks. I've never noticed how pitch confidence is affected by walks, intentional or not.

How is confidence affected when you intentionally walk a batter?

How is confidence affected when you intentionally pitch around a batter?

Does the game recognize when you are pitching around a batter with a base open from when you just miss location and he gets on by a walk?

Based on the other questions, if you go 3-0, would it be better to intentionally walk him or try to fight back?

Unless it's changed, it's purely results oriented.

Meaning a screaming 330-ft line drive for an out is "better" than a 5-hop grounder that sneaks past the half-awake shortstop. Never mind that the latter result was most likely the best pitch, especially if it was thrown to a good location and fooled the hitter.

So I don't think the system understands true pitch-arounds (it's a walk so...bad result). IBBs, I don't know, I tend not to issue them, and if I do, the confidence is the last thing I'm worried about.

I understand what the system is trying to do, but if I throw a good pitch, getting "penalized" because confidence is low doesn't make sense. Neither does a "confident" hanging curve working because of the confidence. Confidence influencing partly on whether or not the curve hangs? Fine. Confidence messing with the result after bat hits ball? I don't like that.

I think it needs to be more nuanced/subtle and consider more than just the end result - which might be largely out of the pitcher's control. I would also like to see some individuality (perhaps tie it to the clutch rating or make a hidden rating) in how pitchers respond to various game events with regards to "confidence".

[therewillbechud]

Re: Pitcher Confidence

Striking guys out is the best way to get confidence up, since it's the best result a pitcher can have. You can be leading by 5 runs but have given up 2 hits an inning and your pitcher confidence probably isn't going to be that great.

Intentional walks/walks definitely impact pitcher confidence, I don't think the game can tell the difference between an intentional walk, regardless of the way you issued it, your confidence is going to take a hit.

Don't give up baserunners, strike guys out, that's the only way you're going to see that blue bar get real high.

[NCAAFootballFreak]

Re: Pitcher Confidence

All I know is that when my confidence meter is full, I can hit the spots a little bit easier. But when the CPU's confidence is full, I can't get solid contact on anything, let alone make ANY contact!

[Maxil]

Re: Pitcher Confidence

All I know is that when my confidence meter is full, I can hit the spots a little bit easier. But when the CPU's confidence is full, I can't get solid contact on anything, let alone make ANY contact!

My gameplan now when playing is purely based around confidence, and dueling with the opponents confidence. Should the CPU pitcher get any pitch confidence up to full you're going to start seeing a lot of that pitch and in very tight locations, and should his overall confidence gets up you're going to have trouble getting things going. Good luck should he max out, you need a few breaks in a row to bring them down, especially if they still have high energy.

So I play a little game trying to drain out the other teams pitcher while keeping his confidence from maxing out. Had a situation the other night early on in the 2nd. My first two batters both went like 9 and 10 pitch at bats. Thought this was GREAT because its going to drain the guys energy, which seems to have a similar effect to low confidence. But that's when I learned fouls count as strikes when it comes to confidence, and all those foul offs had driven up the pitchers individual pitch confidence on most of his pitches to near max.

Games like that end up with me just trying to get them to the bullpen ASAP, taking everything I can except fat meatballs down the middle.


As for on my end, when pitching, I have to stay on top of my pitcher. If a pitch gets too low you run a lot of risk throwing it. It could go wild, or right down the middle even with perfect delivery, and a solid hit can bomb it easily. I try to wean up low confidence pitches on first pitches to batters as a lot of CPU batters look 1st pitch, but gotta be careful. But If you let a particular pitch confidence drop and you get into a dangerous game situation, you're best to just ditch the pitch and stick to what you have up in high confidence for the time being.

As for overall pitcher confidence, also has to be watched very carefully. I try to sit right around what I think is 80% on the bar. Of course 100% is great, but unrealistic for his entire time on the mound. But 2 single base hits can drive your confidence down to 60% and below and you have to start paying attention. I use mound visits very often, but sometimes these do more harm than good so you have to keep pitchers ready to go. I use KC and a near full bullpen with 2 long relief pitchers who start getting ready any time I have to do a mound visit from the third inning on.


And this got a lot longer than I meant, sorry.

TLDR: I see confidence, and individual pitch confidence, as a very very important meter/stat you have to keep on top of. It can make the game become a chore or a breeze depending how your and the cpu confidence is going.


What I THINK it all boils down to:

High confidence = pitches tend to go where they are supposed to go more often, and are hit weaker/differently.

Low confidence = some chance randomness on what the pitch does when thrown, and are hit with more solid contact/better chance of a base hit or better

How the individual pitch confidence ties together with overall confidence, I couldn't really say other than overall confidence just covers all the pitches. Some testing could be done here I suppose for someone who loves to number crunch.

Energy also has to factor into the pitcher/batter battle as well, on top of the many stats both sides play with when at bat. But how I have no clue, just know both meters need to be managed well.

OH!!, warm up your pitchers if you want high individual pitch confidence. Something I learned early on. The individual confidence levels will be varied when they come out of the pen. I tend to make sure the fastball has the highest confidence, and no pitch in particular is very low. If say my 5th pitch has next to no confidence I'll throw 5 or 6 of those and the rest fastballs in the warmup.

When you throw a pitch in the warmup the confidence goes up if it is a strike. If it misses it will go down though. And if you don't throw a pitch after so often it starts going down as well. I know some difficulty-slider creators would recommend not warming pitchers up because this could almost be seen as cheating. You could focus on just 2 pitches or so and get them to near max confidence in the warmup

[NCAAFootballFreak]

Re: Pitcher Confidence

My gameplan now when playing is purely based around confidence, and dueling with the opponents confidence. Should the CPU pitcher get any pitch confidence up to full you're going to start seeing a lot of that pitch and in very tight locations, and should his overall confidence gets up you're going to have trouble getting things going. Good luck should he max out, you need a few breaks in a row to bring them down, especially if they still have high energy.

So I play a little game trying to drain out the other teams pitcher while keeping his confidence from maxing out. Had a situation the other night early on in the 2nd. My first two batters both went like 9 and 10 pitch at bats. Thought this was GREAT because its going to drain the guys energy, which seems to have a similar effect to low confidence. But that's when I learned fouls count as strikes when it comes to confidence, and all those foul offs had driven up the pitchers individual pitch confidence on most of his pitches to near max.

Games like that end up with me just trying to get them to the bullpen ASAP, taking everything I can except fat meatballs down the middle.


As for on my end, when pitching, I have to stay on top of my pitcher. If a pitch gets too low you run a lot of risk throwing it. It could go wild, or right down the middle even with perfect delivery, and a solid hit can bomb it easily. I try to wean up low confidence pitches on first pitches to batters as a lot of CPU batters look 1st pitch, but gotta be careful. But If you let a particular pitch confidence drop and you get into a dangerous game situation, you're best to just ditch the pitch and stick to what you have up in high confidence for the time being.

As for overall pitcher confidence, also has to be watched very carefully. I try to sit right around what I think is 80% on the bar. Of course 100% is great, but unrealistic for his entire time on the mound. But 2 single base hits can drive your confidence down to 60% and below and you have to start paying attention. I use mound visits very often, but sometimes these do more harm than good so you have to keep pitchers ready to go. I use KC and a near full bullpen with 2 long relief pitchers who start getting ready any time I have to do a mound visit from the third inning on.


And this got a lot longer than I meant, sorry.

TLDR: I see confidence, and individual pitch confidence, as a very very important meter/stat you have to keep on top of. It can make the game become a chore or a breeze depending how your and the cpu confidence is going.


What I THINK it all boils down to:

High confidence = pitches tend to go where they are supposed to go more often, and are hit weaker/differently.

Low confidence = some chance randomness on what the pitch does when thrown, and are hit with more solid contact/better chance of a base hit or better

How the individual pitch confidence ties together with overall confidence, I couldn't really say other than overall confidence just covers all the pitches. Some testing could be done here I suppose for someone who loves to number crunch.

Energy also has to factor into the pitcher/batter battle as well, on top of the many stats both sides play with when at bat. But how I have no clue, just know both meters need to be managed well.

OH!!, warm up your pitchers if you want high individual pitch confidence. Something I learned early on. The individual confidence levels will be varied when they come out of the pen. I tend to make sure the fastball has the highest confidence, and no pitch in particular is very low. If say my 5th pitch has next to no confidence I'll throw 5 or 6 of those and the rest fastballs in the warmup.

When you throw a pitch in the warmup the confidence goes up if it is a strike. If it misses it will go down though. And if you don't throw a pitch after so often it starts going down as well. I know some difficulty-slider creators would recommend not warming pitchers up because this could almost be seen as cheating. You could focus on just 2 pitches or so and get them to near max confidence in the warmup

Completely agree, man. And really, the game is sort of this cat-and-mouse confidence meter game for me as well. Like you, I try to keep the CPU from getting max confidence when I play them because a guy like Anibal Sanchez will suddeny become Clayton Kershaw if I'm not careful.

But it still seems to me like the CPU has a much easier time maintaining hight confidence than I do. For me, I throw a couple of balls out of the strike zone and suddenly Clayton Kershaw turns into Anibal Sanchez.

And I'm glad you mentioned the warm-up. I'm curious how others approach their pitcher warm-ups.

Generally, if I'm warming up my starter I'll try to make sure his #1 pitch is sitting at about 75% or better and then I'll take care of any pitches that aren't at least 40% and work to get them up.

If I'm bringing in a reliever, it depends on the situation for me. Like, if he's coming in with guys on base and really needs a ground ball, I'll work on his stuff that induces ground balls (splitters, sinkers, 2-seamers if they don't have the other two and possibly even sliders if nothing else is there -- anything with some downward break) and try to max that stuff out.

If it's my closer or a RP that is coming in looking for a strikeout, then I work to max out their power and movement pitches.

If it's a long reliever coming in for mop-up duty, then I treat him like my SP.

Any pointers?

[Bobhead]

Re: Pitcher Confidence

Unless it's changed, it's purely results oriented.

Meaning a screaming 330-ft line drive for an out is "better" than a 5-hop grounder that sneaks past the half-awake shortstop. Never mind that the latter result was most likely the best pitch, especially if it was thrown to a good location and fooled the hitter.

So I don't think the system understands true pitch-arounds (it's a walk so...bad result). IBBs, I don't know, I tend not to issue them, and if I do, the confidence is the last thing I'm worried about.

I understand what the system is trying to do, but if I throw a good pitch, getting "penalized" because confidence is low doesn't make sense. Neither does a "confident" hanging curve working because of the confidence. Confidence influencing partly on whether or not the curve hangs? Fine. Confidence messing with the result after bat hits ball? I don't like that.

I think it needs to be more nuanced/subtle and consider more than just the end result - which might be largely out of the pitcher's control. I would also like to see some individuality (perhaps tie it to the clutch rating or make a hidden rating) in how pitchers respond to various game events with regards to "confidence".

Does the system really work that way? I've always assumed that the pitch confidence system functioned not by making a hanging curveball more effective, but by lowering the probability of the curveball hanging in the first place.

I agree with the other part of your post though, about the system being too results driven. A hard line drive out should not be a reward, a pop-fly single should not be a penalty.

[KBLover]

Re: Pitcher Confidence

Does the system really work that way? I've always assumed that the pitch confidence system functioned not by making a hanging curveball more effective, but by lowering the probability of the curveball hanging in the first place.

I notice that when pitchers have poor confidence (mine or CPU's) everything tends to be harder contact, regardless of location and (to a degree) hitter's timing and swing plane (unless it's way off). Getting confidence back up either relies on your pitching coach (how ever that works...is it random? Is there a hidden rating on the coach, etc?), or pretty much good luck.

Likewise, when pitchers have high confidence, it just doesn't matter. All contact tends to be weaker unless pretty much perfect. Hitters have to hope the pitchers start making mistakes somehow (getting tired, bad luck thanks to the "bleeders equal poor results" aspect, etc).

I could be wrong, obviously, but it just seems consistent over the versions of the game.

It's almost like in MLB13/14 I would get poor results on a hanging curve because the pitcher was "perfect" on his delivery/meter. Just part of the game, I know, just makes me chuckle sometimes about that perfectly thrown hanging curve with high confidence to get Stanton to pop up on a perfectly timed swing

[Ghostciv]

Re: Pitcher Confidence

the more strikes u throw the better ur pitcher confidence( it can be a 2 strike pitch and if u throw 9 more pitches that keep getting fouled off add to ur confidence also). had an at bat where guy fouled off like 8 to 9 pitches and each time the pitch i threw raised in confidence. but give up a walk or base hit afterwards and watch it decrease fast

[joeylomax]

Re: Pitcher Confidence

Unless it's changed, it's purely results oriented.

Meaning a screaming 330-ft line drive for an out is "better" than a 5-hop grounder that sneaks past the half-awake shortstop. Never mind that the latter result was most likely the best pitch, especially if it was thrown to a good location and fooled the hitter.

So I don't think the system understands true pitch-arounds (it's a walk so...bad result). IBBs, I don't know, I tend not to issue them, and if I do, the confidence is the last thing I'm worried about.

I understand what the system is trying to do, but if I throw a good pitch, getting "penalized" because confidence is low doesn't make sense. Neither does a "confident" hanging curve working because of the confidence. Confidence influencing partly on whether or not the curve hangs? Fine. Confidence messing with the result after bat hits ball? I don't like that.

I think it needs to be more nuanced/subtle and consider more than just the end result - which might be largely out of the pitcher's control. I would also like to see some individuality (perhaps tie it to the clutch rating or make a hidden rating) in how pitchers respond to various game events with regards to "confidence".

I get what you're saying, but as a former pitcher, I can see it the other way as well. Even if you're hitting your spots and feeling "on," the opposing team can still impact your confidence by (exactly what you said), sticking the bat out on a perfectly spotted outside pitch and blooping it into right field for a two-out single. That can get in a pitcher's head, and thus, have a negative impact on confidence. Conversely, let's say you miss with a pitch and you inadvertently throw a center-cut fastball down the middle of the plate that the hitter belts hard to the center fielder for an out. As a pitcher, you're thinking, whew!! I got away with one there! And, thus confidence increases as you approach the next hitter as you tend to be more careful and you realize you have a great defense behind you. Make sense?

So, I guess there's two ways of looking at it.

[rjackson]

Re: Pitcher Confidence

Does the system really work that way? I've always assumed that the pitch confidence system functioned not by making a hanging curveball more effective, but by lowering the probability of the curveball hanging in the first place.

I agree with the other part of your post though, about the system being too results driven. A hard line drive out should not be a reward, a pop-fly single should not be a penalty.

The system really does work that way but it doesn't bother me. It does affect a pitcher IRL when they successfully jam a hitter but that texas leaguer bloops right in. I've seen plenty of pitchers put their heads down or shake their heads when this happens.

Also, I don't think people are separating overall confidence from the confidence in individual pitches. The best way to raise an individual pitch is to get a whiff on it (even if not a K) or a K. A walk or a HR really drops it. Strikes & balls without a BB or K result is a very minor change. Getting an out or allowing a hit is a bit more of a change. What you talk about as far as breaks or a pitch's effectiveness is based on this, the individual pitch rating. An IBB doesn't affect confidence but pitching around does since you didn't get the hitter to chase.

Overall confidence seems to me to be more based on OPS for the outing kind of like dynamic difficulty. If you play meter and get the confidence really up, you'll see the meter become much easier to hit the release point and really spot your pitches. I mean, it does this in Classic as well but I know that it is visually represented and verifiable via meter. I can't speak for pulse...

[Steven78]

Re: Pitcher Confidence

What I hate about individual pitch confidence is a strike raises it and a ball lowers it even if you dont aim there.

Like if I aim low and away out of the zone and I miss my spot badly and it ends up over the heart of the plate, a strike still raises my confidence in that pitch. And if I nail that low and away pitch but the batter doesnt swing I lose confidence even if I nailed my intended location.

Individual pitch confidence should be tied to how close you are to your intended location, not just if it's a ball or strike.

[rjackson]

Re: Pitcher Confidence

But they are such small increases/decreases it doesn't matter. Like I said, things like whiffs and ball 4 are the big ones.