VSN Baseball Spring Training Random Thoughts

[Brotha2ThaNight]

GG Rok, tough sledding still for both of us with the sticks...

I still say we need to look at the Fielder Reaction slider. the Jumps the fielders get at the default settings are WAY too good. we should test it with them down and see if we can get a few more singles in front of the fields and XB hits over their heads.

[killgod]

GG Rok, tough sledding still for both of us with the sticks...

I still say we need to look at the Fielder Reaction slider. the Jumps the fielders get at the default settings are WAY too good. we should test it with them down and see if we can get a few more singles in front of the fields and XB hits over their heads.

One of the few things on my radar for adjustments. There was a play in my game vs Virix last night where Bautista got over to the ball on a hard hit to the RF corner, but I don't think I should have got there.

After some more games come in I'm going to evaluate the hitting to see how we can improve. HR's seem to be a bit high and base hits seem to be a touch low overall. Want more stats before I make any changes tho, so another week or so.

[Warner2BruceTD]

I think HR's are only high in proportion to the rest of the hits. Excessive homers aren't the issue. Lack of base hits in general is the issue.

As for fielding, I feel like the fielders are in quicksand and get TERRIBLE jumps. I guess its just me since you guys feel the opposite. Fielding felt much smoother last year.

I think for non league games we should try out HOF pitching with Vet hitting. Making it harder to pitch should be advantage hitter, no? Harder to throw strikes should lead to better counts for hitters.

[Townie33]

OUCH!

Played the CPU (Padres) last night.

Was messing around with ANALOG, but have gone back to the button. Glad I did. Could NEVER touch anything low with that damn stick.

I gave up a dinger to the number eight hitter. Since I was playing the CPU I figured WHAT THE HELL, and I plunk the pitcher. He drops, someone comes out to check on him, he's DONE! Pretty cool.

Of course I still lost. LOL

[Brotha2ThaNight]

One of the few things on my radar for adjustments. There was a play in my game vs Virix last night where Bautista got over to the ball on a hard hit to the RF corner, but I don't think I should have got there.

After some more games come in I'm going to evaluate the hitting to see how we can improve. HR's seem to be a bit high and base hits seem to be a touch low overall. Want more stats before I make any changes tho, so another week or so.

I wonder how many ppl are using power hit more now with the bigger PCI on vet. Just a thought towards the HR/base hit debate.

I think HR's are only high in proportion to the rest of the hits. Excessive homers aren't the issue. Lack of base hits in general is the issue.

As for fielding, I feel like the fielders are in quicksand and get TERRIBLE jumps. I guess its just me since you guys feel the opposite. Fielding felt much smoother last year.

I think for non league games we should try out HOF pitching with Vet hitting. Making it harder to pitch should be advantage hitter, no? Harder to throw strikes should lead to better counts for hitters.

I think using HOF would be a disaster as you would prolly end up with too many meat balls, even now on AS if I miss the maker by just a tick the ball is all over the place. as for fielders, wow really you think your fielders are in quicksand? What settings are you using as Im not sure if the league settings covering that.

Played the CPU (Padres) last night.

Was messing around with ANALOG, but have gone back to the button. Glad I did. Could NEVER touch anything low with that damn stick.

I gave up a dinger to the number eight hitter. Since I was playing the CPU I figured WHAT THE HELL, and I plunk the pitcher. He drops, someone comes out to check on him, he's DONE! Pretty cool.

Of course I still lost. LOL

NICE! But I have not seen an ejection yet for hitting batters

[Warner2BruceTD]

I'm on whatever settings everyone else is on for fielding. One of the first things I noticed online was how clunky and choppy fielding was compared to last year. It takes a second to get your guy moving. It isn't seamless like last year. Idk maybe I'm nuts.

[killgod]

Yeah you're probably more spot on with that first point. I'm going to take a look at the stats to help determine it, but we need more GP to get a better idea.

Infielders I think move fine, Outfielders are too quick. Not sure if we can adjust it like that tho.

One other thing to consider with your comment about better counts, it's nothing the game is responsible for, because I think most people swing at trash. There's nothing we can change in the game to account for guys swinging at junk.



A basic rule of thumb, if you have 0 or 1 strikes on the board and the pitch isn't a hanging offspeed pitch or down the pipe fastball, WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU SWINGING. Strikes on the edge are probably gonna just get you out if you hit them, so just watch them.

It took me a while to learn, but getting past "swing at strikes, don't swing at balls" is not good enough. You need to pick your strikes, or defend at 2 strikes. In a 7-8 pitch at bat, you will likely see a pitch you can wallop into the outfield, in a 3-4 pitch at bat you are cutting that chance in half.

If the opposing pitcher isn't closing in on 100 pitches by the 7th, one of two things is happening.

-You're getting worked by a great pitcher
or
-You're not being picky enough with what you want to hit


Not to pick on people, but when I tuned into Milwaukee vs Atlanta last night, seemed like pretty much every AB was 4 maybe 5 pitches at most according to the announcers. Which tells me there's too much swinging at tough strikes/balls. Cause if the pitches were worth swinging at, base hits would be happening more often than the boxscore showed.


I don't mean to sound like I'm a know-it-all with an ego, but I have been one of the stronger hitting teams in every year we've done this, so I'm on to something with my approach at the plate.

[killgod]

I wonder how many ppl are using power hit more now with the bigger PCI on vet. Just a thought towards the HR/base hit debate.

I used Power in the previous two years until it was two strikes.

This year i ONLY use Normal. Power is useless on Veteran IMO, cause Normal swings will put them out of the park pretty regularly.

[Brotha2ThaNight]

Yeah you're probably more spot on with that first point. I'm going to take a look at the stats to help determine it, but we need more GP to get a better idea.

Infielders I think move fine, Outfielders are too quick. Not sure if we can adjust it like that tho.

One other thing to consider with your comment about better counts, it's nothing the game is responsible for, because I think most people swing at trash. There's nothing we can change in the game to account for guys swinging at junk.



A basic rule of thumb, if you have 0 or 1 strikes on the board and the pitch isn't a hanging offspeed pitch or down the pipe fastball, WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU SWINGING. Strikes on the edge are probably gonna just get you out if you hit them, so just watch them.

It took me a while to learn, but getting past "swing at strikes, don't swing at balls" is not good enough. You need to pick your strikes, or defend at 2 strikes. In a 7-8 pitch at bat, you will likely see a pitch you can wallop into the outfield, in a 3-4 pitch at bat you are cutting that chance in half.

If the opposing pitcher isn't closing in on 100 pitches by the 7th, one of two things is happening.

-You're getting worked by a great pitcher
or
-You're not being picky enough with what you want to hit


Not to pick on people, but when I tuned into Milwaukee vs Atlanta last night, seemed like pretty much every AB was 4 maybe 5 pitches at most according to the announcers. Which tells me there's too much swinging at tough strikes/balls. Cause if the pitches were worth swinging at, base hits would be happening more often than the boxscore showed.


I don't mean to sound like I'm a know-it-all with an ego, but I have been one of the stronger hitting teams in every year we've done this, so I'm on to something with my approach at the plate.

Infielders are a tad to quick IMO as well but the outfield is where the issues are, I have noticed offline since tuning the slider for fielder reaction to OFF that the fielders still get good jumps but some balls that would have been caught have become hits in the outfield and balls are sneaking thru in the infield that SS's and 2B's would be eating up at the default slider. Also it opens up hits down the line as the 1st and 3rd basemen are not gobbling up every would be double or triple any more.

As for human hitting everything you sed is CORRECT!!! The majority of the hitting woes are human error. I need to find a better camera angle to help me personally see the balls below the knees better. I was playing Rokbone last night and the 1st inning or 2 he ran up Johan Santana's pitch count fouling of a bunch of pitches but eventually I was able to get him out, while I was either striking out or making contact but on edge of the zone pitches and making outs. Once his pen came in and Liriano was off the hill I saw the ball better and he made more mistakes in the zone. Better pitchers pitcher better go figure ;)

[Brotha2ThaNight]

I used Power in the previous two years until it was two strikes.

This year i ONLY use Normal. Power is useless on Veteran IMO, cause Normal swings will put them out of the park pretty regularly.

my lone HR(hit by Lucas Duda of all people) was hit with the Normal swing...I think I used power swing about 3 times on 2-0 or 3-1 counts with Wright or Ike Davis.

on a side note KG can you place the Orioles under CPU control til they have an owner so I can play them if no one is available tonight.

[Warner2BruceTD]

I have now made one full trip through my rotation.

My #1 SP was back to full stamina when it was my #5 guys turn. This was Bronson Arroy, who has a high stamina rating, and I only used him for maybe 60 pitches/5 innings in his start because I was testing bullpen stuff. So its not unreasonable that he would be available on less rest. I used the #5 guy (Mike Leake) anyway.

Hopefully when guys are used normally (over 80 pitches, 6+ innings) they require full rest.

Anyone else play 5 or 6 games yet?

[Brotha2ThaNight]

I have now made one full trip through my rotation.

My #1 SP was back to full stamina when it was my #5 guys turn. This was Bronson Arroy, who has a high stamina rating, and I only used him for maybe 60 pitches/5 innings in his start because I was testing bullpen stuff. So its not unreasonable that he would be available on less rest. I used the #5 guy (Mike Leake) anyway.

Hopefully when guys are used normally (over 80 pitches, 6+ innings) they require full rest.

Anyone else play 5 or 6 games yet?

sadly I've only gotten one in hopefully that will change tonight!

[Sacrafice]

The Atlanta - Milwaukee game had to be completed as I was late for a draft and was why I didn't really hold out on swinging like the game I played before against W2B which seemed like it took 2 hours to play because of the pitching strategy on both sides and the numerous takes. Should not have played the game with an hour and 10 minutes before a draft, but we both thought the game would be done by then. If it wasn't a test league we probably would have waited.

[Rudi]

I was pretty happy with myself in my game against Milwaukee last night as far as working the count went. Sure things got ugly in the late innings but it was approaching 4 AM and I had class this morning so I wasn't very patient then, but I was able to get a couple walks and put a lot of balls into play. More frustrating thing was my bullpen giving up 6 runs in the last 3 innings including 4 in the 9th

[Sacrafice]

I was pretty happy with myself in my game against Milwaukee last night as far as working the count went. Sure things got ugly in the late innings but it was approaching 4 AM and I had class this morning so I wasn't very patient then, but I was able to get a couple walks and put a lot of balls into play. More frustrating thing was my bullpen giving up 6 runs in the last 3 innings including 4 in the 9th

I was up 2-1 in the 7th with 2 outs and Cory Hart got on base then a wild pitch and error got him to 3rd then another wild pitch scored the tying run. I ran out of time so I let him get a in the park homerun to win it in extra innings. Kick in the butt for sure.