Perhaps a more realistic development of pitchers?? (Pitch Types)

[randomlefty10]

Keeping the Stuff, Control, Movement ratings, institute a specific rating and velocity for each pitch a pitcher throws and have that go up and down with development instead of some overall number.

For example in player development you don't get a message that says XXXX has improved his control, you get a message saying XXXX has mastered the location of his curveball or XXXX has put more movement into his fastball or XXXX split finger is looking unhittable.

This would give us more realistic pitchers. A young pitcher may have one great pitch but is lacking in others. Also, the development of a new pitch, like in real life, could skyrocket a pitcher's value, see Randy Johnson's slider.

I think this would help distinguish between good junk ball pitchers (Maddux) and good power pitchers (Johnson).

Also this creates a new addition in the drafting of pitchers. The high schoolers might have a great fastball and an ok slider but the college pitcher has a good fastball a good slider and a developed changeup which makes him more ready to jump to the big leagues.

It doens't seem like it would take much editing, it's kind of like the LH/RH splits which are already in the game, you just have to make each pitch rating independant of the others.

Then the overall rating looks at the pitch repetoire as a whole not just the average of the pitch ratings. You would have to balance between a pitcher with say 4 good pitches versus someone with two great pitches and two bad pitches. This could also bring velocity more into it since the difference between fastball and change up would increase the effectiveness of both pitches.

[andymac]

This would be great if it can be implemented.

[randomlefty10]

On the flip side. For batters, the scouting of rookies could focus on bat speed, ability to hit fastball, ability to hit breaking pitches, bat control, power, eye, patience (eye and patience are two different things).

[CaramonLS]

I really like this Idea Lefty... hope they implement something like this.

Also the possiblity to ADD pitches to a certain pitcher. I mean if a Reliever is a 2 Pitch pitcher, maybe he can add a slider, curve, or something else and get his endurance up.

Thats just an Idea, but I really like the idea of ADDing pitches, even if it take a while for the pitcher to get good with a certain type of pitch.

Adding on to this, maybe even customizing certain pitches I.E. Yellow hammer curve, 2-8 curves, stuff like that.

But I really like Lefty's Idea with types of pitches... because Colon's 2 seamer is something special and I am not sure the game can quite capture that aspect yet.

[Steve Kuffrey]

First of all for these ideas to matter AT ALL "pitch types" need to mean something. Currently ALL they are is for play by play color. We want to add this but do not know when.

[randomlefty10]

I understand that it's for sure more complicated that I know, but in principle couldn't you replace vs. LH with fastball and vs. RH with curveball and you have the beginnings of what I was talking about?

If it is indeed far more complicated, then I hope that when you do get the pitch types to mean something, than you decide to switch the pitcher's ratings into this model since I really believe that it would give us a more realistic view of pitching.

[Dan Theman]

The problem with isolating pitches goes far deeper than simply adding a few more ratings to the fold. To obtain true accuracy, it would almost necessitate switching the game engine over to a pitch-by-pitch model. In order to do this correctly (defined as: "not the way any graphics-based baseball game currently does it"), it would require so much coding that we'd basically be talking about an entirely new game - probably a really good one, don't get me wrong, but a new game nonetheless that would involve a much larger number of issues, tweaks, bugs, and betas to get through.

The only way I see adding something like this into the current game model would be to incorporate pitching and batting styles and creating some sort of interaction effect between them. Exactly how these would be derived for use in roster sets I'll leave up to the nightmares of the roster set makers

Anyway, I'd then add to that some sort of game ambience enhancement within the development reports. For example:

Current style - "(your player here)'s pitches have more bite now, the movement has improved!"

New style - "(your player here) is gripping his (random pitch here) in a different way, now. This has improved the movement on the pitch!"

Within the actual game, there would be no difference to how the game handles it now. The only difference would be that it would present us with a bit more of a personalized feel.

Perhaps the last aspect I would contemplate would be that besides the aforementioned interaction effect between batter and pitcher style, a different development interaction effect could open up as well. For instance, left-handed junkballers would very likely see fewer talent or rating jumps in "Stuff" but more in "Movement." Now of course this is all more or less a thought experiment, but that's what this board is for anyway . I hope this all made some sense.

- Dan

[randomlefty10]

Ahhh. Now I get what you and perhaps Steve was saying. Yeah, in the future, a completely pitch by pitch engine would be great, but that wasn't what I was thinking about.

My suggestion had nothing to do with the play by play workings of the game, but was only tied to scouting/development. I don't know the specifics, but I'm going to guess that while in game, the engine goes on the LH/RH splits for determining the pbp events and I'm not advocating a departure from that at this point.

I was thinking that using my suggested method of scouting/development could be independant of pbp. As I somewhat mentioned, the overall and in accordance the LH/RH splits would be compiled by looking at the pitcher's complete package, and then you can use those numbers exactly as they're used now.

The point was to get a more realistic feel on how pitchers develop and how their overall talent is rated. I have no qualms with how the game engine currently works.

EDIT: Summary.
Basically, all I was advocating was a change in the ratings and development thereof. Like how you recently switched to the Stuff/Control/Movement ratings.

[moore4807]

I like the pitch by pitch idea too... However it IS a whole new headache (and game) to code as pointed out by several posters here.

The mod I ideally want to see is a slider bar choice both for batter and pitcher in game

example: John Smith SP pitch speed is 89-91mph, 63% ground ball avg., Fastball, Curve, Slider.
Power pitching ****+****Off Speed pitching
In Game I probably would move his slider three spots to off speed - to increase his game stamina, and go with his pitching strengths. Now hes facing a 2B runner, two outs, tie score in 6th inning. Do I move the slider all the way to power pitching, going for the infield grounder? Stay at Off Speed hoping the batter whiffs while swinging from the heels?

example: Batter is Jose Oquenda 3B, .269BA, 3star power, 2star contact, 1star Speed, 1star stealing, 3 gold star third sacker, not my 1st choice for hitting for contact! now do I pinch hit? Do I have Jose go for it all?

This makes for so many variables and all within the managers in game choice. The choices made WILL impact the game and the players. Sim the Game and still get a choice how your players play thier game from the roster screen....
Damn I DO dream alot!

Steve K,
Just a note - if we ARE looking at a new system for pitching why not adopt the 5X5 scoring for pitchers, Bell-curve it to percentages and apply it to pitches thrown?

WHIP - easist stat to track, walks, hits vs. innings pitched.
Runs/9 - how many runs scored per 9 innings on each pitcher (includes inherited runners)
ERA - again easy stat to track
PPG - pitches per game
KPG - K's per pitcher per 9 innings

We use this in a fantasy league I belong to - noticing changes here actually works for me to tell which pitchers to dump, ( it shows the small changes before the big stats appear- lol)

[randomlefty10]

As I've stated, I'm not suggesting a pitch by pitch engine, but rather a pitch by pitch rating system. I think that would be far easier to code and seems actually a rather doable task.

[BobBob]

Pitch types and quality could be incorporated simply by using them to calculate STUFF and MOVEMENT.

The program would only need to factor the number of pitches, and their quality into a formula that creates STUFF, so that a pitcher with 3 quality pitches has higher STUFF, while any pitcher who lacks quality pitches would have lousy stuff. Pretty much fits with the way it goes.

This would require only one extra set of calculations instead of a new engine.

This way the engine would be unaffected, but we'd see our pitchers develop in a much more interesting way.

(Also, this would be a great way to have VELOCITY actually matter... it does in baseball.)

[BobBob]

(The only problem is, the game would have to be tweaked so that the averages work out the same with more independant, changing, variables.

i.e. 1-5 pitches of varying quality plus velocity - rather than just averaging STUFF)

[Dan Theman]

As a preface, I understand that this isn't what randomlefty10 was suggesting. It's more of a follow-up to the idea of pitch-by-pitch.

The Potential (problems) for Pitch-By-Pitch

I dunno, guys. The situation is this -

Suppose someone (a right-handed pitcher in this situation) has the following ratings under this proposed system:

Pitch Type. . . . .ST Vs. R/L . . . . . CO Vs. R/L . . . . . MV Vs. R/L
Fastball . . . . . . . .75/65 . . . . . . . . . . 70/65 . . . . . . . . . 45/45
Curveball . . . . . . .55/50 . . . . . . . . . . 45/40 . . . . . . . . . 75/70
Slider . . . . . . . . . 45/44 . . . . . . . . . . 60/55 . . . . . . . . . 60/55
Changeup . . . . . . 35/33 . . . . . . . . . . 75/73 . . . . . . . . . 50/48

We'd need control to be factored individually as well, because as a pitcher I can definitely say that it's a heck of a lot easier to control a fastball than it is to control a knuckleball. Still, that much is fine. Hypothetically, these ratings could be created without much difficulty. We could add them up, divide them as needed, average them out - do whatever would need to be done. Now here's the problem:

How much do you weigh any given pitch when determining the pitcher's actual ratings? To determine this, we'd have to take a look at situational pitching:

This is where Dan goes off the deep end

1) In the above example, he's got a pretty good fastball, decent curve and change, and a poor changeup. In general, let's say he'd likely go with what he's best at, and toss the occassional changeup to keep the batters honest.

2) Then he'd have to take into account the kind of batter he's facing at the moment. Certain batters may gear their styles toward certain types of pitches, whether that's a function of their stance or an active expectation of certain pitches in certain situations. For example: on 2-0 one batter may routinely sit dead red, while another looks for the pitchers best pitch. Of course, pitchers have scouting reports. They know the tendencies of certain batters and adjust their pitching to match.

3) Suddenly this opens the door to more possibilities - hitters ALSO have scouting reports, and know that pitchers have scouting reports. Suddenly we're getting in counter-counter-intelligence (a.k.a. "just being plain silly").

4) All is not lost, however - when it comes to pitch selection, there are physical and biological reasons why certain setups work and others don't as often. There's a reason why high-and-tight fastballs are often followed by low-and-away curveballs. This means we'd need to weigh counter-counter-inteligence on one hand, and then the immutable laws of physics and limitations of the human body on the other.

5) So far, so good? Of course we also have to take into account prior at-bats, game situations, experience, how the pitches were flowing that day, AND the fact that both hitters and pitchers are aware of the same things.

Sound complicated? It really isn't because what happens is you wind up getting two best guesses squaring off against one another. That's where we stumble upon ...


... The X Factor
That's why you may see a hitter take a pitcher deep in one at bat, followed by three strikeouts for the rest of the game. A player's at-bat strategy is a moving target, so to speak. You can never be certain of what you're going to get.

Unfortunately, this lack of certainty means that by my reckoning it would be nearly impossible to accurately weigh the importance of any one pitch to an individual pitcher, let alone balance them out in a set package.

I understand the idea of having some moving variables to randomly assign things and this could account for much of the above, but would this really be any more realistic than how we have it now? At first glance it would appear so because the large amount of randomness/"fudge factor" would seemingly be reduced by the increase in variables that would account for it. But would it, really? We'd actually be replacing the large random variable with a composite of several smaller random variables, like so:

X = X1 + X2 ... Xn

Unfortunately, the sides still have equal variance. This means that while pitch-by-pitch could hypothetically be implemented, the end results would be no more realistic than they are right now. The increased number of variables and the requisite increase in computations would actually present more opportunities for bugs to take root, but these could eventually be squashed.

Dan comes back to the real world and the topic at hand and promises to not talk about himself in the third person anymore

Then again, that isn't the point behind all of this. A halfway-step doesn't have to deal with the game engine at all, and it doesn't have to actually make the game more realistic - just make it feel more realistic:

Randomlefty was suggesting a backwards assignment of pitching ratings - you would start out with the general ratings and extrapolate pitches from those. Bob suggested some random variance in there, as well, to account for different types of pitchers - that makes sense and maybe velocity could play something of a role into how that variable is generated. This would mean that anytime there was an increase or decrease in talent (which, to clarify, is still in actuality an overall rating), it would also then extrapolate to the individual pitches in the same manner.

It could work, and I think I'd like the general feel this could give to the game. It would be entirely asthetic, but in those terms it could be seen as an improvement by many. For those who didn't like it, they could just have an option to turn it off.

[randomlefty10]

Thanks Bob and Dan, I'm glad I got my point across at least somewhat. Maybe we're just talking past each other Dan but I wasn't exactly saying to work backward on the pitches. I was thinking that the combo of ratings on the pitches would determine the overall ratings, not the other way around. However, yes this remains a more asthetic change and not a change to the sim engine.

And in development, instead of just raising/lowering the overall stuff/control/movement you raise/lower the individual pitches s/c/m ratings and that, in turn, changes the overall ratings. I think you can just come up with some new phrases to put in the player devel and a cooresponding change to the ratings for each. I'll toss a few exmaples out here.
"XX has become more consistant with his curveball" (Increase in curveball control)
"XX has increased the different in velocity between his fastball and changeup" (Increase stuff for both fastball and changeup)
"XX changed his grip on his fastball and it looks harder to hit" (Increase for fastball movement)

[Dan Theman]

Sorry about the confusion, RL (If I may call you that).

I was going off of "I was thinking that using my suggested method of scouting/development could be independant of pbp. As I somewhat mentioned, the overall and in accordance the LH/RH splits would be compiled by looking at the pitcher's complete package, and then you can use those numbers exactly as they're used now."

My focus was on a way to convert the current players and format over to what you've suggested, but I do understand your point. My suggestion was made just to point out that the data could flow both ways and you could get the same results - an excellent aspect of what you proposed.

[moore4807]

Originally Posted by Dan Theman

Sorry about the confusion, RL (If I may call you that).

I was going off of "I was thinking that using my suggested method of scouting/development could be independant of pbp. As I somewhat mentioned, the overall and in accordance the LH/RH splits would be compiled by looking at the pitcher's complete package, and then you can use those numbers exactly as they're used now."

My focus was on a way to convert the current players and format over to what you've suggested, but I do understand your point. My suggestion was made just to point out that the data could flow both ways and you could get the same results - an excellent aspect of what you proposed.

Gents,

Correct me if I'm wrong but essentially the formula used is the DIPS engine and the play is still concluded BEFORE the PbP is chosen....
The reason I wrote about the slider bar isnt to change the DIPS engine, its to change the out formula based on the pitcher's vs. batter strengths. While not a pitch by pitch game, these changes seem to be the most likely affected by the manager during the game ( pitch counts, batting substitutions etc.)

I am intrigued by the stats posted by Dan - I agree with the LH vs. RH ratings but I was under the impression those are already "hidden" values used by Markus to determine the play... I agree that something needs to be added, what I'm not sure is - do each of us agree enough to get Markus/Steve to make a general change that MOST could live with in V.7????

[Dan Theman]

LOL - well, I've seen a few models with some potential offered up on the suggestion list in the past.

1) PbP - this is probably not going to happen for a long time, but it would understandably be the desirable choice if it can be implemented correctly.

2) Set Pitching Styles vs Hitting Styles - you could have; flamethrower, finesse, junkballer, knuckler, sinker-baller, etc. as your pitching styles. These could be matched up against; all-or-nothing, slap hitter, guess-hitter, deep count, mistake hitter, etc.. This has some serious potential due to the apparent ease of implementation and the fact that it would give us all something obvious to look at on the player cards. One drawback, however, is that it may be too obvious and that could turn some people off. Still, considering that most players have an idea of what particular "type" of hitter or pitcher they're going to be facing, it seems like it would be a reasonable option to me.

3) Slider bars for individual at-bats/situations - Also an interesting way to go. Considering this is a baseball management sim, and not actually an in-game sim, this idea makes a lot of sense. You could have a slider bar in-game, and you could also have one under team strategies (or, if/when the GM's and Field Managers option is included, it could fall under that category). If you wanted to make it a bit more in-depth (which I personally would), I'd have a few sliders for strategy settings representing different situations that could occur within the game. Other situations could use generic AI.

4) Individual Pitch Ratings - as elaborated upon above, this idea could fly within the confines of a one-pitch-mode game. It would give a more complete baseball feeling and flesh out the players that much more, which is always a nice thing. The game would be one step closer to the (and I hope this doesn't offend anyone) Dungeons & Dragons of baseball, where the players really start to become characters.

Anyway, I think all of these ideas have plenty of merit behind them. I also think any of them would be an improvement from where things stand right now. My only concerns would be the potential for AI issues and also making the game less accessible to new players and those who are not as familiar with baseball. Of course, on/off switches would be a welcome complement to something like this for those two reasons.

In short, I could live with any of them.

[randomlefty10]

Your welcome to call me RL and it's no problem. Like I figured, we had the same idea but were just expressing it from different angles.

Thanks for the could summary of the purpose of my idea. It's not to make anything RUN any more realistic (I think OOTP does that well as is), it's to make it FEEL more realistic, and to that effect, it's really all about cosmetic changes.

[RMXO]

if you are going to do this for pitchers, dont you have to do this for hitters too? like how well or bad a batter hits against a certain type of pitch: fastball, curveball, changeup, etc...

[Smoothie7745]

I love this idea, RL...both of them, for pitchers and hitters. Yeah, and it's more complicated than that, but come on Steve you guys are the geniuses that gave us this crazy awesome game in the first place lol

if y'all can get it, awesome, if not, okay. The game still rocks