Developing A New Pitch for Prospect?

[MVPBaseballOnline]

In my solo draft, there is a RP with 55 Stamina and has great potential in Stuff, Movement, Control but only has a Fastball and Curveball.

What are the chances he develops a third pitch?

Is there a way to encourage that?

[MVPBaseballOnline]

And will he be a successful starter with only two pitches?

[BBGiovanni]

I don't know about the chances for developing a third pitch; I think in general it depends on the "talent change randomness" setting.


As to success, I think the idea is that nobody can live as a starting pitcher in the majors (in reality or OOTP) with only two pitches. I often let two-pitch guys start in the minors, usually if they have really high stamina. They seem to do ok, and I'd expect that will lead to developing a third pitch sometimes but I haven't tracked it.

[Rain King]

1. It is very rare that a pitcher develops a new pitch.

2. Whether they would be able to start with 2 pitches has a lot to do with the talent/size of your league. If you have an MLB-style league it is unlikely, however, I have seen 2-pitch starters do very well in smaller leagues.

[jimmysthebestcop]

Almost ZERO chance he develops another pitch. He will not be able to start at the MLB level. He might make it all the way thru the minors as a starting pitcher but once he gets to the show he will get rocked.

Even great control potential might not ever develop if his current ability is too low. If its like 20/30 current control and 70/80 potential. Those are the guys that never ever develop.

Hope it gets to 40 and if he is a power guy then he can setup/close if his stuff is >70

[alexdeangelis914]

I would keep him in the bullpen and make him a stopper maybe?

[Syd Thrift]

I'm not aware of any way to "encourage" a third pitch. There's a very low but non-zero chance that a player can develop another pitch, at which point they could be a decent starter, but you'll find that there is a significant change in Stuff if you put a 2-pitch guy as a starter vs. as a reliever. I *believe* that the game doesn't actually use that modified Stuff rating but instead uses the ratings of the actual pitches in the game engine; however, if a player has less than 3 pitches, they get a bit of a malus on their second time through the order and then a much larger one for the third time through.

In essence, that in turn means that if you put severe pitch count limits on a guy like that - say, 90 pitches - they can still be a somewhat effective 5-inning starter. It's not *really* a Stamina thing, although of course if a guy has 20/80 stamina then they might struggle to throw even 90 pitches every 5 days.