Terrible third pitch question

[Pedro]

Hi

I remember a post where NoOne, I think, said that if a reliever had a terrible third pitch, he would edit the player and remove it, so that the pitcher wouldn't use it.

So in the attached screenshot, will my reliever throw that bad third pitch often, or will he stay away from it? I've never been tempted to edit players (till now anyway), but it would be good to know if I should prioritise guys with only two pitches over guys that may have a third terrible pitch.

Similarly for starters, should I avoid a guy with one weak pitch (and maybe 3 or 4 good ones)?

What's the community's opinion?

[jpeters1734]

I don't know about that, it seems counterintuitive. When you remove a pitch, even a bad one, the overall stuff goes down. Even if there was a benefit, there's the fact that the AI can't do that so it would be cheating. But I don't see the benefit

[Winnipeg59]

Might develop into something too?

[cmaug]

If NoOne said it, how could you remember it?

[Rain King]

It is always better to have more pitches. The way to think about it is that if the pitch is showing up within their repertoire it is at least "professional quality". The lower quality a pitch, the less often a pitcher will use it yet it still benefits him because the batter has to be aware of it.

[ThePretender]

Edit a player and find out for yourself. Look at the stuff as a SP with 3 good pitches vs 3 good pitches and a 4th pitch that's 30.

I'd say the pitcher is better with the extra pitch.

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by Pedro

Hi

I remember a post where NoOne, I think, said that if a reliever had a terrible third pitch, he would edit the player and remove it, so that the pitcher wouldn't use it.

So in the attached screenshot, will my reliever throw that bad third pitch often, or will he stay away from it? I've never been tempted to edit players (till now anyway), but it would be good to know if I should prioritise guys with only two pitches over guys that may have a third terrible pitch.

Similarly for starters, should I avoid a guy with one weak pitch (and maybe 3 or 4 good ones)?

What's the community's opinion?

short answer: probably doesn't matter much due to how often it wil be thrown.

use a backup. sim a game or two with pitch-by-pitch. insert him in 1st inning, it won't matter... throw until tired etc. best way to tell if worth it to lop off a pitch. i have never bothered. pbp shows what is thrown.

especially for releivers that get way less of a benefit from additional pitches.

based on that screen shot, i would lop that off... it's a worthess pitch, and if it is accidentally thrown it can only do bad things, evne if rarely.

[NoOne]

long answer

a really bad pitch is not likely to help, how could it, rationally? otherwise there'd be no bad pitchers in the league. they will barely throw a very poor pitch anyway, so the difference is likely very very small whether negative/positive in nature. (well, an SP might throw a bad 3rd pitch more often than an RP would... but probably shouldnt be an SP, either lol)

overall stuff is not what is used in the game, that is how removing a pitch can feasibly improve performance and why a lower stuff can have better results than a higher overall stuff (on average with infinite sample, not yearly results). this is one more reason why Pot/Ovr is imprecise - probably shortcutting and using the overall stuff.

they sequence pitches and each pitch-types' resulting stuff is used, not the overall stuff. should be easy to see how it can help from that. if you don't throw an objectively worse pitch than 2-3 other options available it will be a net positive over time.

to save space: common sense on # of pitches and role etc... e.g. the break-even for an RP is likely lower if it's the 2nd pitch vs the 3rd for it to be a good reason to lop off... context is complicated, if oyu want to be exact. i stick to the obviously bad.

so if you eliminate a sub-average pitch (guessing on break-even - i'd use lower than baseline to be sure. you should always eliminate a net-negative pitch, just really difficult to figure out that break-even point with incomplete information. so, imo, ~near average pitcher probably not helping. stick to doing this for the better pitchers or extremely terrible pitches 1-50/100 on profile? or so? if a smaller scale be more conservative - even lower % of scale to be sure.

anywhere near Half-Scale i'd be wary of eliminating (on profile!! not in editor, in profile is what game uses - accuracy assumed)

e.g. a 70/200 fastball with 100mph is not 36/100 on profile, it's likely at least half-scale i'd guess (not important, off top of head #s). profiles show the stuff that's used per pitch for in-game math, if not mistaken? refer to manual, or editor makes note i think? it's available reference info, if wrong. assume 100% accuracy, you account for scouting inaccuracy

the benefits to 'variety' is diminishing and different for SP/RP. also, the further out (rank by rating) it goes, it becomes irrelevant because it's thrown less often -- also different for SP/RP.

since the water is muddy, i make sure it's a very very bad pitch if i am going to lop it off and different rules for doing so on SP/RP and the quality of the other pitches available.

[Pedro]

Thanks for all the responses. I hadn't considered the "getting an advantage over the CPU" angle so that definitely puts me off doing it. I'm still curious about how often that pitch is thrown; maybe I will get time to run a few tests over Christmas. Thanks all.