Anyone tips to avoid striking out?

[Friar Fanatic]

I started up a test franchise to practice my hitting ability (using the Padres). I am just doing hitting and quick simming the pitching so I can get a lot of practice in while also looking at the sample numbers.

Im on default All-Star except I bumped up foup freq to 6 and user timing to 7. Im still striking out between 14-18 times a game lol. I try to be patient but I chase pitches out of the zone a ridiculous amount. I have my pitch speed on 4 for fastballs and 3 for offspeed.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated lol

[Mackrel829]

Re: Anyone tips to avoid striking out?

Stop chasing balls outside the zone would be a good start lol!

Being disciplined early in the count is huge. On 0-0, I basically sit on a fastball in the middle of the zone, and I'm not swinging at anything else. I used to swing often early in the count but this just led to me falling behind. The pitcher then has the freedom to pitch outside the zone, and you're going to be tempted to swing again because you're already behind. Then you swing and miss and you're struck out anyway.

Getting ahead in the count forces the pitcher to give you what you want - a fastball in the zone. If they don't, you're walking. You only get ahead in the count by being disciplined and refusing to swing, particularly early.

You don't avoid strikeouts by swinging at every pitch. You avoid strikeouts by refusing to swing at the wrong pitches.

[deamon93]

Re: Anyone tips to avoid striking out?

As said before, don't chase pitches outside of the zone!
But easier said than done.

I don't know what your input type hittingwise is, I just tell you what I do with buttons (PS5):

I decide which swing type to use depending on the strikes I have: 0 strikes I use square button/power swing, 1 strike normal swing / X and with 2 strikes I use the contact / O button. This helps putting the ball in play and fouling it off a few times instead of going down on 3 pitches.
Very important for me: check the pitch repertoire of the pitcher. that's especially important if he features sliders or curveballs, typical 0-2 strikeout pitches: so you're expecting something like this in the dirt when behind in the count.

What helped me the most: I try to focus on the low pitches. if i see a low pitch, I try not to swing; mostly it breaks out of the zone (slider, curveball) or just drops (changeup). if you see a high pitch, you can easily just press contact swing to at least foul it off or get a lucky hit.

Long story short:
stay awy from low pitches and use contact swings with two strikes.

Disclaimer: may be not the best method; but for me it works, so i thought i'll just share my approach

[twinlove9301]

Re: Anyone tips to avoid striking out?

To help with not swinging at bad pitches, try different camera angles. I use pitch center. Even the smallest change to an angle can make a difference.

[NYJin2011tm]

Re: Anyone tips to avoid striking out?

The slower the pitch the more I strike out lol. I hit better on the higher difficulties than the lower. Go figure lol. I think it’s I just can’t get timing down, I’m early on everything. But on the higher difficulties the pitches coincides with my natural hitting timing.

[HBKSean216]

Re: Anyone tips to avoid striking out?

Go into hitting practice and put difficulty on rookie and find a camera angle you feel gives you the best view of the ball. Keep hitting in practice and move up difficulty when you think you've got the timing down and then just repeat..... You want to find a camera angle where you can pick the ball up quickest. I am never looking anywhere but the pitchers throwing hand. Pick up the ball and literally follow it all the way to your hitter. If you can do that youll be able to pick up the type of pitch and the direction it is going MUCH faster. Keep in mind the higher the difficulty the faster the pitch comes in. Also, the closer the camera angle, the faster you need to swing as well. A camera like retro, you'd need to wait a little longer to swing. Everyone loves Strikezone 1 or 2. I hate them. I use offset 2.

I turn off strikezone and hot zones and I have PCI turned off except for center PCI and I use diamonds. You don't have to do all that but it's what works for me.

[HBKSean216]

Re: Anyone tips to avoid striking out?

The slower the pitch the more I strike out lol. I hit better on the higher difficulties than the lower. Go figure lol. I think it’s I just can’t get timing down, I’m early on everything. But on the higher difficulties the pitches coincides with my natural hitting timing.

I CAN NOT STAND going up against someone online who is using Fernando Valenzuela.

[My993C2]

Re: Anyone tips to avoid striking out?

Hitting is hard. I cannot even begin to imagine how challenging it must be to hit in the real world against professional pitchers. But in regards to this game it just takes time. It takes time to learn the sight pictures of the ball leaving the pitchers hand. When I first began hitting in the game, I swung at high pitches, I swung at low pitches. I swung at almost everything. But over time, I began to recognize, oh that pitch is low, or that pitch is high. I still struggle with sliders though as the sight picture of a slider looks like a fastball coming out of the pitchers hand so I swing and as soon as I do this the ball breaks and I look like a fool.

Oh and when down 0-2, in the vast majority of the cases at least in this game, the next pitch is most likely not going to be in the strike zone. So I find 0-2 counts are ironically one of the easier pitches to take. The only exception to this is if I am a pitcher at the plate. In this game I find the opposition pitcher will often throw the ball in the strike zone when you yourself are a pitcher at the plate. But all bets are off in 1-2 counts and you just need to battle at the plate the best you can. Nobody likes to strike out, but it is part of the game.

[Ees110]

Re: Anyone tips to avoid striking out?

I have serious problem laying off pitches. I see that it's going to be out of zone but for whatever reason I still cant stop myself from swinging, especially with 2 strikes. My box score usually has low number of walks and ton of strike outs. I'm hoping that as I play more I will be able to lay off more. Not looking too good right now though.

[saucerset]

Re: Anyone tips to avoid striking out?

I started up a test franchise to practice my hitting ability (using the Padres). I am just doing hitting and quick simming the pitching so I can get a lot of practice in while also looking at the sample numbers.

Im on default All-Star except I bumped up foup freq to 6 and user timing to 7. Im still striking out between 14-18 times a game lol. I try to be patient but I chase pitches out of the zone a ridiculous amount. I have my pitch speed on 4 for fastballs and 3 for offspeed.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated lol

New this year in practice mode, they finally brought back straight batting practice. You can select the pitcher and batter and even the pitch location. It helps to work on timing. I start off with the PCI on and just practice tracking the ball without swinging. Track it better with your eyes and your thumb will follow.

[My993C2]

Re: Anyone tips to avoid striking out?

I have serious problem laying off pitches. I see that it's going to be out of zone but for whatever reason I still cant stop myself from swinging, especially with 2 strikes. My box score usually has low number of walks and ton of strike outs. I'm hoping that as I play more I will be able to lay off more. Not looking too good right now though.

Give it time. I too hardly drew any walks at all in the early days and definitely struck out more than I should have when I first began to play the game. It took hundreds and hundreds (if not thousands) of plate appearances to learn the sight pictures. I still strike out these days, don't get me wrong. But I draw far more walks and strike out far less than I used to.

[ZoltanZ]

Re: Anyone tips to avoid striking out?

I still swing at bad pitches all the time still and I have been playing this game for years. Its hard to be patient sometimes and wait for your pitch. The worst is guys who throw a lot of junk. Everything looks good out of their hand and then it ends up in the dirt.

I personally feel like certain moments have made me a worse hitter. You need XBH or a HR and the CPU won't throw you anything in the strike zone. That forces you to chase bad pitches because a walk does nothing for you in those moments. They just reinforce bad habits.

I usually try to sit on fastball down the middle or look for a high looping breaking ball that they hung. Thats when I let it rip. If the pitch starts low in the strike zone, it will end up out of the zone typically. Don't be afraid to take a strike too. I used to feel like I needed to swing at everything that was a strike and that led to poor contact and easy outs.

[jeffy777]

Re: Anyone tips to avoid striking out?

Much of it boils down to having the right mindset before each AB. Don't think:"If this is in the zone, I'm swinging", think this way instead: "I am ONLY swinging if this is right in my wheelhouse!" (At least until you get to 2 strikes, then you have to go into protect mode).

That alone makes a HUGE difference and I guarantee you will swing at less garbage and borderline pitches that you otherwise would've missed or resulted in weak contact. Make the pitcher pitch to YOU.

Also don't be in a hurry. Getting into a hitter's count helps a ton, so don't be afraid to watch a good one go by on the first pitch.

[bcruise]

Re: Anyone tips to avoid striking out?

Much of it boils down to having the right mindset before each AB. Don't think:"If this is in the zone, I'm swinging", think this way instead: "I am ONLY swinging if this is right in my wheelhouse!" (At least until you get to 2 strikes, then you have to go into protect mode).

That alone makes a HUGE difference and I guarantee you will swing at less garbage and borderline pitches that you otherwise would've missed or resulted in weak contact. Make the pitcher pitch to YOU.

Also don't be in a hurry. Getting into a hitter's count helps a ton, so don't be afraid to watch a good one go by on the first pitch.

All of this. I've felt for a long time that the main reason people have such a struggle hitting in this game/series is that they are in a two-strike mindset on every pitch of an AB. You will almost never be in good hitters' counts (let alone walk) if that is your approach. This is evident in the number of people who struggle with grounding into double plays every year and then come here to complain about it. On lower levels it's possible to get away with it....sometimes. But even then you're going to make contact on the edges of the contact PCI zone much more often than in the middle, and hit into easy outs as a result.

Your chances of solid contact and a positive result increase the more you try to look for/identify one pitch and wait until the pitcher throws it there. Even if a pitch is going to be a strike, unless you already have two strikes, just take it if it's not going where you want it to be.

Check out the Hitting - Other Tips Pages 5 and 6 in the in-game guide for some more stuff you might not be familiar with about how hitting works in the game.

[jcar0725]

Re: Anyone tips to avoid striking out?

All of this. I've felt for a long time that the main reason people have such a struggle hitting in this game/series is that they are in a two-strike mindset on every pitch of an AB. You will almost never be in good hitters' counts (let alone walk) if that is your approach. This is evident in the number of people who struggle with grounding into double plays every year and then come here to complain about it. On lower levels it's possible to get away with it....sometimes. But even then you're going to make contact on the edges of the contact PCI zone much more often than in the middle, and hit into easy outs as a result.

Your chances of solid contact and a positive result increase the more you try to look for/identify one pitch and wait until the pitcher throws it there. Even if a pitch is going to be a strike, unless you already have two strikes, just take it if it's not going where you want it to be.

Check out the Hitting - Other Tips 2 Pages 5 and 6 in the in-game guide for some more stuff you might not be familiar with about how hitting works in the game.

I've gotten way better at hitting over the years by simply having a plan. I wait for a hanging breaking ball in the zone. By doing this, I find it way easier to judge the strike zone all around. And I can react when the CPU grooves a fastball.

If I don't have that kind of plan, then I'm reacting to every pitch thrown and I can't react fast enough because I'm not just focused on one zone.