Pitcher and Catcher Intelligence and chemisty

[potatoman]

I always felt that the sucess of a pitcher is not his control or how hard he throws. I think that the best pitchers to every pitch in the league are the ones who are smart. Sure control and velocity plays an important role in their pitching but sometimes when the batter is guessing fastball and the pitcher throws a heater straight down the middle, its gonna get crushed no matter what. Maddux and Zito are good examples. Maddux and Zito are both VERY smart pitchers. They can throw hard and have good control but their pitch decision, i feel, generates success for them. If they have bad pitch selection, they would not be as dominant as they are now. Also, a major factor is the catcher. The catcher must be good at calling pitches for the pitcher to suceed also. I also feel that the catchers range should be determined by the chemistry between the pitcher. If the catcher knows where the balls going, hes gonna catch it.

In ootp, the game does not take these factors in account. Pitchers pitch the same way to all cathers and theres no difference if you change cathers. In real life, sometimes the manager has to switch cathers because some pitchers like working with only one catcher.

What im trying to say is...

1.) Pitchers should have a intelligence rating (pitch selection rating) which will also help determine greatly on how they perform in pitching. In ootp6, MARKUS has stated that he will take away the ratings for avoiding 2b,3b,hr. The selection of the pitch could replace that. If a pitcher throws a smart pitch and the batter makes contact, it probably won't go for extra bases.

2.) Catchers should have an intelligence rating. This will be another factor to influence the pitchers ratings, when the pitcher is pitching, if the catchers make bad calls, he will get hammered. Maybe not all the time but a lot of times.

3.)Catchers should have chemisty levels with all pitchers. There should be a whole new player card page that states all the pitchers the catcher has caught for. The more games that they play together, the more chemistry they will develop. When the catcher knows the pitcher inside and out, he will know what the pitchers strong pitches are and what his weak pitches are therefore making him call even better plays depending on the pitcher. Since spring training games may be added, there could be a function where the catcher and pitcher can work together.

4.) Pitchers need strong pitchers. As of now, in OOTP5, all pitches the pitchers pitch have the same chance of being hit. In real life, this is not true. Almost every pitcher has a strong pitch. EX. randy johnson and his slided, kerry woods slide, zitos slider. These are pitches the pitcher can goto when hes in a jam and know that it will work out. Pitchers should have some pitchers that they master and have an effect in the game.

Im not sure if this is all clear but i had very little time. What do you guys think of this? or is it too complex thinking? anyone agree?

[magicmike]

I like these concepts. Don't know how hard they'd be to implement. I've thought about the pitcher/catcher chemistry thing myself and I like how you approach it, but I don't know how programmers would set up a new roster set. Does anyone really know how many times Brad Ausmus has caught Octavio Dotel? And if they did, it seems it would take forever to input that kind of data for every catcher.

I like the idea of certain pitchers favoring certain catchers (like Maddux used to do with his own "personal catcher" who's name escapes me at the moment). It gives the manager one more decision to make: do I sit my good hitting regular catcher and play my ace's favored backstop instead. And that's a good thing. It also adds another variable element to the defensive value of individual catchers, which is an underdeveloped aspect of the game imo.

[potatoman]

true...about the roster set but maybe when u make it you just set that they are pretty familiar with them. you can prolly tell how many games ausmus caught for dotel just by looking at the games hes pitched....or use innings instead....

[Bears5122]

I wouldn't mind having the catcher intelligence rating give a very small ratings boost to the player. Like a 1-3% increase for good catchers and negative for bad. Would give you a reason to keep that veteran catcher around.

[potatoman]

that was what i was thinking....when people get old, players just dump them....maybe if you want to deal, you will take both the pitcher AND catcher so the ratings won't hurt and stuff

[Cuss16]

Great ideas, but might be long before this could be implemented into the game.

[MrWorkrate]

I always kind of imagined a catcher's range had some kind of affect on his calling a game. After all, the catcher has a fielding percentage which determines his errors, a number set to determine his passed balls, and a rating for his arm strength. Outside of that, what would his range rating do? Determine the amount of foul territory he covers on a pop fly? The amount of ground he covers on a bunt?

If it isn't already built into the range rating (for some reason, I think it helps it, but I imagine lots of things), how the catcher handles pitchers should be built into his range.

[twins15]

Here is a thread that is kind of similar to this one. http://www.400softwarestudios.com/bo...threadid=35775

[potatoman]

oh i see