2036.19 Who's Next?

[Ted]

Actually, the two real pitches and a change with a 1 or 2 potential is what bothers me the most. That's not a pitch. I don't care if it makes the player marginally better. If it does, that means the game engine is wrong. It shouldn't be listed. It's so below average that no real scout or GM would consider it a pitch in the pitcher's arsenal. Go find me a scouting report that says "Pitcher throws a heavy fastball, really seems to explode up in the zone. Tops out at 98 mph, probably a 70 pitch, a 50 curve-ball that flashes 60 at times, and a ten change up that is basically just him screwing around with a grip." If a pitch is less than a 30 on the typical scouting scale, no scout ever lists it as a viable option. Every pitcher has dicked around with different grips and motions to see if they have other pitches. THEY ALL HAVE 10 and 20 grade other junk . That doesn't make it a pitch. Heck, it's rare to even see a 30 grade pitch listed in a scouting report.

I think there is a mechanic when some of those 2 changes suddenly become 8-10, which is probably the game trying to say he "figured it out". I get that a change is one of the hardest pitches to develop theoretically. It takes a lot of experience and feel. I also wonder if that's why the slow development exists. What this would mean then is that the game has TWO separate mechanisms that poorly describe the development of a difficult pitch. They should both be scrapped. I don't buy the "change ups are hard" argument anyway. Lots of kids come into the league with well above average changes.

[RonCo]

And finally, finally, since we're on the topic, the logic we use for conversions from reliever to starter makes only limited sense. I mean, we can only convert a guy with two pitches. So someone like my own Curt Phillips (who has one of those tiny changups ... in this case, a "2") cannot be converted. This is silly. One would think it would be much more successful to convert a guy like this to a starter by simply focusing on the changeup he's already got rather than teaching a totally new pitch.

A two-pitch guy who converts to a starer does have to create a new pitch...but a three-pitch guy who "converts to a starter" should just build on what he already has--or, arguably, discard a pitch and use its points to add to a different third--so, for example, Phillips could kill the "2" changeup, and use its points in addition to points taken from the cutter/curve he'd give up, to create a different third.

But for whatever reason, we can't craft the process to allow this?

That seems illogical to me.

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But, regardless, I'm still not really sure there's really any great wisdom in allowing the modification of performance ratings that go directly into the game results engine. Indirect stuff (personality mods, age checks, etc) is more easily arguable, and cosmetic, financial, and stadium items are certainly items that allow GMs to put their own stamp on the team.

[RonCo]

Actually, the two real pitches and a change with a 1 or 2 potential is what bothers me the most. That's not a pitch. I don't care if it makes the player marginally better. If it does, that means the game engine is wrong. It shouldn't be listed. It's so below average that no real scout or GM would consider it a pitch in the pitcher's arsenal. Go find me a scouting report that says "Pitcher throws a heavy fastball, really seems to explode up in the zone. Tops out at 98 mph, probably a 70 pitch, a 50 curve-ball that flashes 60 at times, and a ten change up that is basically just him screwing around with a grip." If a pitch is less than a 30 on the typical scouting scale, no scout ever lists it as a viable option. Every pitcher has dicked around with different grips and motions to see if they have other pitches. THEY ALL HAVE 10 and 20 grade other junk . That doesn't make it a pitch. Heck, it's rare to even see a 30 grade pitch listed in a scouting report.

I think there is a mechanic when some of those 2 changes suddenly become 8-10, which is probably the game trying to say he "figured it out". I get that a change is one of the hardest pitches to develop theoretically. It takes a lot of experience and feel. I also wonder if that's why the slow development exists. What this would mean then is that the game has TWO separate mechanisms that poorly describe the development of a difficult pitch. They should both be scrapped. I don't buy the "change ups are hard" argument anyway. Lots of kids come into the league with well above average changes.

Yes. That's the argument I'm discussing. You're not wrong. But that argument places subjective baseball neep into the equation that probably isn't applicable to the game engine. If you want to say that means the game engine is broken, I get that. But the entire history of OOTP is about backing baseball language into the numbers that go into a results engine that calculates outcomes on the basis of a plate appearance. This means that, until the game engine is fundamentally re-coded to resolve things on a pitch-by-pitch basis, at some point things will almost always break down the deeper you dig into the process and attempt to make it match nuance.

This kind of issue is related to the whole issue of why AVK is slightly over-powered when it comes to BBA batting averages, too. As pitcher Stuff raises, low AvK hitters strike out more, so get to their BABIP ratings less often. The game doesn't know our ratings are skewed, so their displayed CON is then technically wrong. The game engine is very, very baseball-like, but it has gaps that cannot be filled.

But, yes, on the whole I agree with your general view.