bastardize verb bas·tard·ize \ˈbas-tər-ˌdīz\
1) to produce a poor copy or version of (something)
2) : to reduce from a higher to a lower state or condition : debase
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In the absence of a full set of pitch edits to work from this year, it's been gnawing at me how useful a public sheet would be to work from in solving some of MLBTS15's gameplay problems. In particular, SCEA's roster makers assign a fairly generic set of pitches across the board, failing to use a big portion of the tools they gave themselves and resulting in a bland product. More galling is the number of pitchers who are given wrong pitches or pitches that are significantly off in velocity. Getting fooled by a 74 MPH Tanaka changeup when the guy doesn't throw a change drives me a little batty.
seanjeezy has clearly set the standard on OS with regards to pitch edits for a long time and I have no desire to reinvent the wheel, I'd just like to reinflate the tires. I spent a giant chunk of the past week staring at
Brooks Baseball learning how to intepret pitchF/X data. I then spent even more time staring at jeezy's 14 pitch edit sheet trying to learn how he translated the pitch f/x data to ratings for The Show. I finally went into the game and threw a few dozen of each pitch at various movement ratings to understand how the numbers translated to the game. I'm still pretty clueless, but I have a decent idea how he classifies most pitches & movement ratings from the data.
Luckily for us, most pitchers are extremely consistent from year to year so the changes that need to be made to jeezy's masterpiece to give a slightly more authentic experience this year are minimal. I find the most common change I'm making is converting many (but not all) of the running fastballs to 4SFB based on jeezy's own observations of how the two pitches are working this year. Plenty of other guys are getting little velocity adjustments here and there and a handful of guys have dropped or added a new pitch.
The spreadsheet is here if you'd like to check it out as I work on it:
Bastardized Pitch Edits 2015
I've only finished the AL East so far. Every player I touch will have "
2014 Q" in the source column. Guys who have something else in that column either have no new pitch f/x data or it essentially says their pitches are similar to previous iterations and I'm not touching them.
Hopefully other people will find this useful as they try to make the most of the game! When I'm done, I plan on using them in conjunction with Willard's roster.