Extended Video Demonstrating Sacrifice Bunting Flaws in MLBTS 20

[JTommy67]

I'm putting links to the Youtube vid at the end so I can be assured more people will read my explanation. It's necessary to set this up so you know exactly what I'm looking at, here. I realize this is not an important issue to many but it's a glaring problem to some.

To the point: I've contended and others have as well that sacrifice bunting in the game has been abysmal for a number of years. While there are a number of ways to look at this, I think the most telling statistic to examine is the number of times an attempt is successful when the bunt is laid down in fair territory.

This statistic can be estimated by looking at MLB hit results for bunted balls (available at baseball-reference)...I posted awhile back about this but essentially, you can get play results for an entire season on bunts...so you remove the hits and strikeouts from the equation and you're left with successful sacrifices out of at-bats....using batting averages for bunt hit attempts, you can then estimate the number of sac attempts.

So in the end you get a rough idea of how many sac attempts become successful once the bunt is laid down in fair territory (in other words, neglecting failures due to strikeouts). The most conservative estimate puts that number at 75% (I actually figured it was closer to 85%, but I'm dropping it as much as I can to be as fair as possible.

For the video, I placed a player on first (speed edited to 50) and used Javier Baez to bunt, with his bunt rating edited all the way to 99. I then bunted in 5 sets of 20 trying to move the runner over. Each set I varied my method...for one I tried to let up on the button at the precise time, others I held it down, others I used the left analog to try to direct...but for all but one set, I used the right analog stick to bunt the ball to the first base side.

I was going to include the stats for the different methods in the video, but in the end, I found that only using the right analog stick (as intended) made any improvement. Nothing else I did showed up in the final statistics. Hit velocity averages were very close throughout.

I did this on HOF skill level, and then I repeated the entire process on Veteran. So there are two videos contains about an hour's worth of practice footage edited down to about 20 minutes total...200 bunts in fair territory. I've removed foul balls and pitches taken so you can see in rapid succession how the game treats these plays. No, I don't expect everybody to watch all of it...but the more you watch, the more obvious the problem becomes. (Also, anybody that wants the uncut hour-long video to ensure I didn't edit out good bunts, just pm me.)

Now, there is the question of whether or not I was bunting good "buntable pitches"...but going back and watching the footage, I can't conclude that made much difference in the final results. Good pitches to bunt seemed to produce the same rate as bad ones...so let's see the rate:

I tabulated 64 successful sacrifices out of 200. Believe it or not, it was exactly 34-100 on HOF and 34-100 on Veteran...This is with a bunter rated 99.

So what do we see:

Yes, the bunt hits are too hard. Average hit velocity was around 35 mph. But you can see the bunts which are in the low-20s and teens actually look more like real bunts. (I recall only two bunt attempts were actually fielded by the catcher!)

Look at the bunt at about 4 min (HOF vid) to see what most of these plays should look like with a really good bunter. While it's a short pop-up, look where it lands and how the pitcher has to come off the mound to get it...a 99-rated bunter should be doing this most of the time. I was able to do it a handful of times out of 200 tries (more actually, when you consider I edited out foul balls.)

So there is that, but, this is what should really capture your attention:

Watch the behavior of the first baseman. Specifically, how often (as a right-hander) he spins and makes a ridiculous throw to second. Sometimes he does this when the baserunner is right in front of him, when he'll pass up the tag to make a super-human throw to get the lead runner. At times it's just silly.

In real MLB, players set their feet (usually) to field a sac attempt, because they know the importance of getting the free out. They normally don't make the throw to second because it's a more dangerous...and yet out of the 200 attempts there was not a single throwing error.

At times, you even see the second baseman's momentum carrying him to the 1B bag after fielding, only to see him spin around and throw to second.

The game treats these attempts like normal ground balls or suicide squeeze attempts in the 7th game of the World Series...especially for the 1B. Most of the plays at second are very close. In real life, you'd have to be certain to get the out at second to even attempt the throw, and most of these wouldn't strike you as sure outs based on player positioning.

Again, we have 34% with a 99-rated bunter. Maybe someone can beat my figure and hit 40%...or perhaps some of you are really good and can get 50%. If that's the case, be reminded that is still nowhere near the actual MLB average.


HOF skill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ2LyUvOaRo

Veteran skill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5w95y7c-no

[Caulfield]

I guess Sony has it the way it because of online cheesers. not saying they're right to do it or even that I agree with that decision (I dont) but I think that's their reason *shrug*

[Syce]

Quote: Originally Posted by Caulfield

I guess Sony has it the way it because of online cheesers. not saying they're right to do it or even that I agree with that decision (I dont) but I think that's their reason *shrug*

ya, that's the unfortunate part about cheaters/exploiters/etc. they ruin it for everyone else.

[JTommy67]

One of the reasons I made the video was to highlight the behavior of the first baseman. If you watch through the vids you see some really ridiculous stuff, and I believe that's Gurriel at 1B, whose defensive ratings are 61-57-57-52, which are mostly below average.

Correcting the play at 1B wouldn't solve the velocity problem, but would make things slightly better. So they can do something about that.

But this leads into the real problem, as you guys touched upon: they corrected an online cheese problem by increasing bunt velocities when there was a better option. All they had to do was ask a MLB manager what they'd do if a team repeatedly tried to lay down drag bunts on them, and then give the defending team the ability to do that. Examples of possible fixes:

*Allow defense to "charge the bunt" by pressing a button before the windup. This would commit the third baseman.
*Modify the "3B cover drag" so it becomes more effective.
*Temporarily drop the drag bunt rating after a successful bunt hit to simulate the loss of element of surprise. (in-game only)
*Increase the infielder's reaction ratings on bunt hit attempts after a successful one has been laid down. (in-game only)
*Have a whole new "3B stop drag" which would be more of a committment than "3B cover drag." Chances of a bunt hit against that alignment would be virtually impossible, but would put you more at risk against a ground ball/line drive to third or first.

Ratings modifications should be possible since I believe this is how they use the clutch rating. Also, we already know that if you press the bunt button, a different rating is used for the hitter instead of the drag bunt rating.

Rather than do any of this they screwed with bunt velocities. One of the clearest examples of a sloppy fix in sports-gaming history, IMO.

You can't cheese by sacrifice bunting...you're giving up an out in the process. The only problem is drag bunting...and they unnecessarily wrecked the entire bunting game because they didn't want to fix the defense.

Imagine in Madden football if there was an exploit which made screen passes unstoppable, and rather than fix the defense, the favored solution to stop cheesers was to make the RB drop the pass on 50% of the attempts.

[OneTonneBaby]

Didnt get the game but its really surprising to hear that the team didnt fix bunts...

[JTommy67]

Quote: Originally Posted by OneTonneBaby

Didnt get the game but its really surprising to hear that the team didnt fix bunts...

I'm not, really, just look at the patches and then the community responses...most people get far more freaked out about stat display bugs, graphical anomalies, and uniform colors than they do about major gameplay issues. It's disheartening to me. Gameplay should come first, but visual aesthetics is more important to most, so that's what they focus on...and anything that affects online play more...

All I can do is repeatedly try to shine light on stuff like this. If few people care, then oh well I guess...

[OneTonneBaby]

Quote: Originally Posted by JTommy67

I'm not, really, just look at the patches and then the community responses...most people get far more freaked out about stat display bugs, graphical anomalies, and uniform colors than they do about major gameplay issues. It's disheartening to me. Gameplay should come first, but visual aesthetics is more important to most, so that's what they focus on...and anything that affects online play more... All I can do is repeatedly try to shine light on stuff like this. If few people care, then oh well I guess...

Wasn't a dig at you. i make you right. More a frustration that bunting has been broken for about 6 years and nothing is done about it.

[kcc3]

I sac bunted into 2 double plays last night. One was a rocket to the first baseman who pulled off an amazing throw to start the turn and the other was a pop up right to the mound with the pitcher nabbing my guy at first. Totally ridiculous in both cases