Hierarchy of Pitched

[PSUColonel]

Do people feel there is a heirarchy of important pitches in OOTP, or just a model where more pitches = better?

If people feel there is a heirarchy, does it model actual mlb where a slider is heavily coveted?

[NoOne]

each pitch has a profile (really one portion of a matrix of factors is a better description, probably)... what are the exact traits in the game? some stuff is easily traced to basic stats, some stuff is a but more sophisticated in nature.

individually, numerous factors to acount for like how velo affects the pitch. a 250/200 88mph fastball isn't as effective as a 100mph fastball. i would guess it's not a dominant pitch at 88 even if >max.

i would wager a strikeout pitch liek a slider is much less effective in a low strikeout era (league totals/baseline).. for obvious reasons. average velocity of pitchers might be important if the pitch doesn't scale well at different velocities. pretty sure a slider is one of those pitches... maybe a good changeup is even more effective with a complimentary good fastball?

historical era (or fictional statistical environment) may effect which pitches are most effective. different traits, different strenghts and weaknesses will have different best practices, best strategies, best player evaluation methods etc.

i would wager it's reasonable to suspect that combinations of pitches itself can be a net neg or pos effect. some pitches compliment each other like a good fb/changeup combo. does ootp go this deep? maybe. at the least you can see the simpler stuff definitively.

you can easily see differing BABIP for various pitches, you can see differing stuff splits vs. opposite or same handed batters etc... so, we can see there are clear differences between the pitches based on factors with ranges of values. probably millions of not billions+ of combinations possible in total

(sounds like a lot, but more like the dominos menu claim in their commericals, lol... still just selling pizza with toppings.)

you could systematicall map it all out... if you got alot of money involved in some online league it would be well worth your time there would be significant advantages to knowing. if you are perceptive in nature, you may already have been honed naturally by the game to the same conclusions about various factors... naturally can't be right about all of it without real research though. (video game or real life for that matter)

i always say batters are easy to understand in ootp relative to pitchers. so many combinations of ratings with pitchers and such a large amount of time needed to decipher things compared to batters (like babip on relievers). with batters the only thing you need to decipher is the babip portion of Contact to know the full picture. after that every single things they do can be easily traced back to the offensive ratings. stealing is a bit more mysterious (just more purposeful volatility, imo) but nothign like pitching.

there are alot of things we cannot see with pitchers. things you can find on google about various pitch types will likely translate in the game. if that kind of info is out there, free of charge.

[Curve Ball Dave]

Originally Posted by NoOne

individually, numerous factors to acount for like how velo affects the pitch. a 250/200 88mph fastball isn't as effective as a 100mph fastball. i would guess it's not a dominant pitch at 88 even if >max.

An 88mph fastball with late movement so the batter can never seem to square it up thrown out of a deceptive arm angle that hides the ball well is far more effective than a 100 mph straight as an arrow pitch that the batter sees like a beach ball.

[t-bone shuffle]

Originally Posted by Curve Ball Dave

than a 100 mph straight as an arrow pitch that the batter sees like a beach ball.

-

See - Giles, Ken.

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by Curve Ball Dave

An 88mph fastball with late movement so the batter can never seem to square it up thrown out of a deceptive arm angle that hides the ball well is far more effective than a 100 mph straight as an arrow pitch that the batter sees like a beach ball.

just talking about ootp video game here... not real life possibilities..

in ootp if you make a 250/200 88mph fastball and compare to a 250/200 100mph fastball, you will see a vast improvement in results, i garuantee. i have no idea if the 250/88 is "good" or not, that was a guess. i would suspect it's not a great pitch relative to other pitches @250 and 88mph. it was only meant to give a concept to extrapolate out from based on op's question about individual pitches (i think i said it's not importnat if right/wrong for the example?)...

that was an example of how velocity may or may not be more important to a fastball than other pitches.. a guess, but probably true. the point is that different pitches with teh same exact #'s otherwise will have a different "profile" of results that can be used to describe expect trends of various pitches. some will have lower babip's, some higher etc.

knuckleballs most definitely have a lower babip than most other pitches @ ~200/200 rating, ceterus paribus. that's a real and true example. may not be true with a crappy-rated KB. the curve (depicting results) could do 'anything' for each pitch that they want it to, and it's easily implemented...

in real life, a ~90mph could arguably be good. is there 1 in the mlb right now? (consitently good, not just 1 year or 2) even if so, it's not common. there's fewer like maddux in the hof than a true power-pitcher (modern-day athletes). numbers don't lie. maddux-like pitchers translate poorly in the video game at the high-end for sure, but not impossible. rarely is a low velo guy as dominant as the high velo guys can peak. i've seen it before, but it's the clear minority of what's possible. cy young-quality guys, not just any old sp.

in real life i'd argue that a 100mph doesn't have to be a straight line, too. it depends on the pitcher... it is true they need a bit more angular momentum (spin) for a ball to move the same 'inches' in a shorter amount of time flying to the plate, but only in the strictes and most literal sense. the reduced reaction time far outweights the small distance it moves less in a particular direction relative to a few more mph and resulting movement. ineveitable when you consider ~90+mph vs a few mph that spin causes a ball to move in a particular direction.

physics - treat the forces caused by the angular momentem (descirbed as a vector) and initial direction and force the ball is thrown as a mutually exclusive forces in 2 perpendicular planes. in flight these are mutually exclusive forces when predicting flight-path. 84-100mph vs a few mph of movement perpendicular to a straight line to the catcher - this huge difference is important to evaluating what's going on. a few mph with a fraction of a second less time to travel results ina very tiny difference in distance moved, all other factors remaining the same. hence, power pitchers are in demand for a good reason compared to "junk" pitchers with a very small bit more movement. the good ones have just as much spin on the ball as anyone else. mathematical certainty

the 100mph guys that have no movement would have no movement at 90mph too, relatively speaking, because it would be such a small difference in time to the plate for the ball to move. it's not that they throw too hard, it's that they have no movement, which is a problem at all velocities.

100 - 90 is a 10% reduction in time. if a pitcher has crappy movement, 10% more or less isn't going to help them much. 10% of a healthy amount of movement isn't such a big deal. if a curveball figuratively drops off the face of the earth, an extra 1" or 2 is irrelevant. so, extra mph should be a net positive in nearly all possible contexts. for some it just might be a negligible difference. the rare instance someone is near a break-even point in game of good vs bad results related to this would be the only time it could be a net negative...

ie.. they have "just enough" movement to be effective and the equation somehow accounts for it and a few extra mph makes that margin too slim to be "good.... this is not a very good SP, most likely to begin with... and such a small slice of teh distribution to worry about.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

Do people feel there is a heirarchy of important pitches in OOTP, or just a model where more pitches = better?

If people feel there is a heirarchy, does it model actual mlb where a slider is heavily coveted?

I'd question that sliders are highly thought of in current day MLB.

[ThePretender]

I don't think I've ever looked at the pitches my pitchers have, beyond how many they have and what the quality are - to help decide if they are better as a RP or SP. So to me they're all equal.

Edit: A knuckleball is different than the others for various reasons, but in terms of slider/curve/change etc I don't have a preference.

[NoOne]

they clearly have different results, if you pay attention.

not paying attention isn't evidence that they are all equal. you admit you never look, but feel they are all the same. that makes the rational portion of my brain hurt.

if you did FB/SL as base and then used Changeup and CB as teh test 3rd pitch you'd see they'd have different resulting hr/9 bb/9 slash against etc etc -- all other things remaining the same...

the simple fact there are pitches that favor vs opposing or same handed batters, or is it opposite? whatever, it is 1 of the 2 -- AND the #'s of each is far from even (L v R players). that alone means each will be different due to this 1 factor.

i don't think any pitch shares teh same split, but if they do and they perform differently that's more evidence that other factors are also at play causing differences between pitches.

e.g. CB is ~near even split, maybe 1 off? a changeup is weaker vs same handed batter (based on stuff alone in profile editor - ceterus paribus).

if they don't, this is objectively a %#$ simulation not worth buying. a baseball sim where all pitches are equal in what they do means all pitches are merely named differently. that sounds terrible.

each pitch is a variable or object or class whatever the buzzword is now... it's not unlike a row in a database, really. multiple variables make up each "pitch" profile. it's not just a single # that displays % success, although it can be mined down to that value relative to any context.

[ThePretender]

I've paid more attention to pitches in the last few months since I've seen you post about how you hate sinkers, or other pitches...and noticed no change. I'm not avoiding pitchers who throw pitch X, or have pitch combination A B C. So I stopped looking at pitches, because I've found no significant differences. I know you hate sinkers, but every sinkerballer I've used has done exactly as I expected.

I care more about the final ratings - the stuff/move/control vs RH and LH hitters. If there is a difference in splits, I'll notice it there, but I when I did pay attention to the pitches, I noticed no difference, and I don't care what pitches a pitcher throws.

There's obviously differences in pitches, some get you more GB or better vs RH/LH. But the OP asked if there was a hierarchy of pitches, to which I said no, I rank them all (save for knuckleballers) equal.

[rocknfire7]

Originally Posted by Curve Ball Dave

An 88mph fastball with late movement so the batter can never seem to square it up thrown out of a deceptive arm angle that hides the ball well is far more effective than a 100 mph straight as an arrow pitch that the batter sees like a beach ball.

Yes. And I would know.

[dpd376]

From what I can tell pitch types only affect splits. If you give a guy 1 great pitch and a high velocity he'll have great stuff. In the player editor movement and control are independent factors that you simply set.

I think it would be really hard to model all the ways pitches interact and get an affordable, playable game.

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by ThePretender

I've paid more attention to pitches in the last few months since I've seen you post about how you hate sinkers, or other pitches...and noticed no change. I'm not avoiding pitchers who throw pitch X, or have pitch combination A B C. So I stopped looking at pitches, because I've found no significant differences. I know you hate sinkers, but every sinkerballer I've used has done exactly as I expected.

I care more about the final ratings - the stuff/move/control vs RH and LH hitters. If there is a difference in splits, I'll notice it there, but I when I did pay attention to the pitches, I noticed no difference, and I don't care what pitches a pitcher throws.

There's obviously differences in pitches, some get you more GB or better vs RH/LH. But the OP asked if there was a hierarchy of pitches, to which I said no, I rank them all (save for knuckleballers) equal.

sinkers: changed my tune in last year or 2. either somethign changed or i had multiple years of bad luck with that pitch. i didn't give up until many rp failed. (was more of a problem with 2-pitch pitchers, if i recall from experience)

the very fact that they are different means that some are better than others given various contexts. if they are quantitatively different, then they cannot be equal in results, therefore hierarchy is guaranteed.

when is one better than the other? don't know. not that interested in the minutiae, tbh.

********* read on if you don't think hierarchy is a logical conlcusion to the fact that quantitative differences exist between the pitches... otherwise, i'm just beating a dead horse below. ********

We agreed that they have different resutling GB%, which should be enough on its own. Some are better strikeout pitches than others, i think most of us would agree too. hard not to say that would cause a difference between pitches. even Splits alone is enough to cause a hieracrchy due to disparate # of left vs right handed players.

all of this knowledge in this realm would give a huge advantage over your competition, if they did not have this knowledge. if money was involved, i'd change my tune about my interest for sure.

if it doesn't seem like they could differentiate teh pitches since the resulting stuff value is what is used, it's soemthign similar to this hypothesis:

the final "stuff" rating for the individual pitch in the profile screen is calculated from teh raw stuff + whatever else (factors mentioned in the in-game editor). Same with Movement, because those 2 ratings are a conglemerate of sorts, since they both differ from the editor's raw values and what you see in profile.

movement is probably the same for all as far as it's effects, but could stil be affected by pitch type or that's what's causing movement ot be different in first place etc etc. maybe even velo too. exact details are unimportant to general concept.

like you said some will have better gb% than others, as one example.. which will still scale with the resulting Stuff in player profile for each pitch type -- just possibly differently than other pitches too. (easy to use different curves, simple implementation, really). the same value is being used, but whether it's this pitch or that it gets used differently.

A profile for each pitch that scales to the resulting stuff. whats included in the profiel? doesn't matter, it clearly is true in some shape or form by the very existence of differences in resutls like GB%.

**so, a 200FB will not necessarily equal a 200CB - as compared by results, ceterus paribus. (ie given same movement and all other relevant factors etc) ... obviously any highly rated pitch should perform ~well. but not as well as others is the point!

**But, any 2 FBs on different pitchers that equates to 200 on the profile will be equal, ceterus paribus. (ie given same movement and all other relevant factors etc)

So, ootp does say the same thing about the high/low velo FB, as it should under the right extreme contexts. you need a TON of movement for an 88mph fasball to be dominant... you need a lot of movement for an 88mph FB to play off other pitches and be competent etc etc... i'm sure how these 2 factors play off each other is tied to RL data. OOTP is professional in this way.

again, why would they all be the same unless it's an incredibly cheaply made and unsophisticated simulation game. based on how ootp implements other factors through research and logical reasoning i am not concerned that they'd be so simplistic in their implementation of a major baseball concept such as pitch types. (this paragraph was falacious reasoning, but the following statements are not: )

hieracrhy is inevitable, if differences do exist. no way around it without magic... witch! burn the witch!