[Imbogo]

Thanks for the reply! I thought something similar with the game potentially incorrectly prioritizing a weaker pitch.

Hammels isn't special, the overlap penalty will happen with any pitcher at any velocity. But the theory of badly prioritizing pitches seems to make sense when you look at what velocity does. Velocity changes the severity of the penalty, probably because at higher velocities true pitch rating is more directly tied to actual stuff. With extremely hard throwers the penalty to a fastball becomes almost imperceptible since a much greater proportion of the total stuff rating is encapsulated in the strength of that single fastball pitch. At 100 mph the penalties for changeups and all other pitchers not being in the optimal order is no longer visible. The penalty to fastball will at most be a single point of stuff reduction when fastball is increased to match secondary pitches.

so yeah it's a small issue in that generally these penalties don't significantly affect pitchers. However, as you saw in my example there are certain conditions that set up nonsensical situations which can trigger a large drop in stuff from a small increase in the rating of a single pitch. Lower velocity pitchers with 4+ pitches are the most susceptible to big drops in stuff. I made a pitcher with 6 pitches whose pitches were rated 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215 and then by raising all pitches to 215 his stuff dropped from 254 to 201. With 100% accurate scouting that was a drop of 124 stuff to 94 stuff in game ratings!