High Pitch Counts

[SoxFan123]

I got to 2033 and the league leader in IP never exceeded 198-202.

[tonnage]

Originally Posted by pgjocki

Now the league average for Starters Inning per Game is 5.18...meaning that for all the complaining on the forum it appears the developers are really close to matching reality.

Okay, so were those pitchers pulled at the 5 inning mark because their pitch counts were already at 100+, or were they pulled for different reasons? I would bet it wasn't because of 100+ pitch counts, which is what is going on with 27. I had a pitcher at 64 pitches in the first inning. Yes, he walked a couple a gave up two hits, but 64 pitches in one inning seems excessive to me.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by tonnage

Okay, so were those pitchers pulled at the 5 inning mark because their pitch counts were already at 100+, or were they pulled for different reasons? I would bet it wasn't because of 100+ pitch counts, which is what is going on with 27. I had a pitcher at 64 pitches in the first inning. Yes, he walked a couple a gave up two hits, but 64 pitches in one inning seems excessive to me.

I have a strong suspicion that pitch counts are being counted incorrectly. Going to try to track this when I get home from work. I had a relief pitcher show 90 pitches thrown after 2 innings. He did walk 5 batters, but I just don't see 90 pitches being possible. Might be wrong, but that's why I want to track it. I also thought I saw a pitcher get a batter out on 5 pitches only to have his pitch count increase by 10. I was playing before heading out to work, so didn't have a ton of time to really track this.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by tonnage

Okay, so were those pitchers pulled at the 5 inning mark because their pitch counts were already at 100+, or were they pulled for different reasons? I would bet it wasn't because of 100+ pitch counts, which is what is going on with 27. I had a pitcher at 64 pitches in the first inning. Yes, he walked a couple a gave up two hits, but 64 pitches in one inning seems excessive to me.

I was at a game once where the RP came in and threw 54 pitches. I don't know how many the pitcher he replaced threw before being taken out. As a "one off" it's possible. If it happens a lot in OOTP that's a problem. When you see it in person you don't know if you should laugh or cry.

No idea what the most I've seen in OOTP is, but I know I've seen 50's before. I have the pitch widget open and usually it's due to AB's with a lot of foul balls. Then throw in an error and a couple of walks and it escalates.

In my last ST game (still haven't gotten to my first regular season) my SP was at 89 pitches at the end of the third. He had walked 5 and given up 6 hits. Time to go pull his butt out of the game. Haven't played enough games (only 11 so far in ST) to have an opinion on if this is a problem in v27. I know in v26 I wouldn't think a thing of it other than an outlier. This thread will have me watching pitch counts closely.


None of that is to suggest there isn't a problem. This topic isn't a one man crusade with little information. A quick glance and it looks like 15+ different posters in a thread with 40ish posts. Which leans me towards thinking something needs to be tweaked. The good news is on March 21, 3 days ago, Lukas posted they were looking at this. I'll be interested in seeing what he has to say. Or if there is an issue it could be it is just announced as "found and fixed" in the next patch. At least I hope so.

[Bluenoser]

My fictional league, just past all star game in season 3.

Career stats (far right column, 3rd from end)
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[Bluenoser]

Same report for Starting Pitchers
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[BigChillin]

Originally Posted by pgjocki

Now the league average for Starters Inning per Game is 5.18...meaning that for all the complaining on the forum it appears the developers are really close to matching reality.

But this thread was about what should the developers set stamina to get as close to real life as possible in terms of pitch count and how deep into the game they pitch.

I'm not sure that this is an issue with simmed games, but I haven't really paid attention to the sims. I also don't think it's an issue with pitcher stamina in general.


The issue I'm seeing is in played out games. There seem to be WAY too many foul balls and full counts in general during my played out games, which results in consistently high pitch counts. I've played out thousands of OOTP games over the last 5-6 versions, and this was an issue I immediately noticed when I started playing 27. I'm very regularly seeing at bats that go 10+ pitches, like several times per game. I have a 60 control/60 stam starting pitcher who can't seem to make through the 6th inning in a single start, even when he's throwing a shut out, and it's not just him. I'm also regularly having relievers throw 25+ pitches during a 1-2-3 inning.


To me it seems to be an issue with the amount of foul balls during played out games. There may be other things in play as well, but that is the main thing I've personally noticed in my games.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by David Watts

I have a strong suspicion that pitch counts are being counted incorrectly. Going to try to track this when I get home from work. I had a relief pitcher show 90 pitches thrown after 2 innings. He did walk 5 batters, but I just don't see 90 pitches being possible. Might be wrong, but that's why I want to track it. I also thought I saw a pitcher get a batter out on 5 pitches only to have his pitch count increase by 10. I was playing before heading out to work, so didn't have a ton of time to really track this.

I did this for a spring training game I played this afternoon. Looks like numbers I might expect in a game. Certainly nothing that surprised me. Take it FWIW.

visitor: 109 pitches, 24 foul balls
home: 120 pitches, 26 foul balls

Two- 10 pitch PAs accounted for 13 foul balls.
Two- 8 pitch PAs accounted for 3 foul balls
Four- 7 pitch PAs accounted for 6 foul balls
That's 22 foul balls of 50 total in 8 plate appearances.

No idea how any of this compares to real life other than a google search with it's AI saying 50-55 per game. There are 50 in the game I just tracked.


From here I'll be content to wait and see what Lukas says after they look at it.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Sweed

I did this for a spring training game I played this afternoon. Looks like numbers I might expect in a game. Certainly nothing that surprised me. Take it FWIW.

visitor: 109 pitches, 24 foul balls
home: 120 pitches, 26 foul balls

Two- 10 pitch PAs accounted for 13 foul balls.
Two- 8 pitch PAs accounted for 3 foul balls
Four- 7 pitch PAs accounted for 6 foul balls
That's 22 foul balls of 50 total in 8 plate appearances.

No idea how any of this compares to real life other than a google search with it's AI saying 50-55 per game. There are 50 in the game I just tracked.


From here I'll be content to wait and see what Lukas says after they look at it.

Got home this afternoon and scored a game for 5 innings counting pitches. All pitchers pitch counts were correct. I also went back and checked the log for the game in which the relief pitcher threw 90 pitches. He did just that. 35 the first inning he pitched and 55 in the second. Ugh, my bad.

[Charlie Ricker]

Not to keep dumping on this because I've been a longtime yearly customer, but whatever's changed with all these foul balls, poor control and high pitch counts makes playing the games out pitch by pitch very arduous and infuriating.

I'm looking forward to a remedy.

[beepollen]

FWIW, Ohtani just now needed 19 pitches for a 1-2-3 first inning.

[Reed]

I just played out 4 games and the average pitches per batter was 3.9 (Random game using 1984 stats). I realize that is an EXTREMELY small sample size. I think that is pretty reasonable..

[khucke]

FYI the benchmark for average pitches per plate appearance was 3.87 in 2025. The screens posted by Bluenoser showed almost all pitchers in his universe had averages well above 4. Assuming he had the standard setup in his test some engine corrections ought to be made.

[Highlander]

Originally Posted by khucke

FYI the benchmark for average pitches per plate appearance was 3.87 in 2025. The screens posted by Bluenoser showed almost all pitchers in his universe had averages well above 4. Assuming he had the standard setup in his test some engine corrections ought to be made.

Agreed- I did some quick, small sample comparisons of guys from my league in OOTP so far versus 2025 numbers for how many pitches it takes them to get through an inning and the OOTP numbers were definitely higher by a good amount. The biggest thing I notice is a lack of innings where pitchers get through and inning in the low teens or less....no matter how they fare in the inning. There are a few, but it seems like many innings....even very clean ones.....go well over 20 pitches too often. As mentioned somewhere above, I also notice a very high number of full counts....with many of them adding on a number of foul balls. Not sure how it matches up with MLB in that regard, but that may be what is driving the higher pitch counts. As was also mentioned above, the dev. team seems to be looking into it, so we can wait and see what they come up with.

[BigChillin]

Originally Posted by beepollen

FWIW, Ohtani just now needed 19 pitches for a 1-2-3 first inning.

That's pretty high for a 1-2-3 inning, but I'm consistently having guys throw 25-30 pitches for a 1-2-3 inning.

I think the screenshots posted my Bluenoser above show that there is definitely some sort of issue. Nearly every single one of his guys averaged over 4 PI/PA. In real life, no team averaged higher than 3.96.

[David Watts]

I Eugene Church my games, sim to the start of the 5th inning and then watch the game from that point forward. Doing this, I'm seeing most starters if still in the game begin the 5th inning with roughly 60-80 pitches thrown. League is set in 1979, so I'm still seeing some complete games and getting quite a few games with pitchers going 7 and 8 innings. One thing I'm not seeing is pitchers completing a game with 100 pitches or less. If a pitcher makes it into the 8th or longer, it's a given that they will have 120+ pitches thrown. This morning I had a pitcher begin the 5th inning without having given up a hit, yet he still had 60+ pitches thrown. He'd only walked 2 batters.

[R. Hansh]

David, what are your game times? I am playing a 1971 carrer league and my game times are usually 3.00 or above. Back then it was rare for a 9 inning game to last over 3 hrs.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by R. Hansh

David, what are your game times? I am playing a 1971 carrer league and my game times are usually 3.00 or above. Back then it was rare for a 9 inning game to last over 3 hrs.

I can check when I get home. I can't remember the last time I have looked at a game time, what you ask makes a lot of sense.

[Todd R]

Those of you experiencing high pitch counts, relax and quite fussing. Yes, its inconvenient for those who play pitch by pitch. But otherwise it affects nothing. Your league will perform normally. What a shocker, eh?

RPs throw too many pitches. They are pitching tired. They presumably should be less effective. Scoring should increase. No.

Before you played your season the game tested the season. It had tired RPs just like you do. They didn't perform well. So based on the tests the game adjusted the modifiers to provide normal performance. The function of auto-calc is to correct errors in the game engine and the data. It is doing its job. So just relax, quit fussing, and play your game. This is a cosmetic issue not a functional one.

[Lukas Berger]

This should be better now in the next patch.