Home Runs in Baseball Are Pulled - rudyjuly2's Blog

rudyjuly2's Blog

Home Runs in Baseball Are Pulled

Posted on February 12, 2012 at 08:09 AM.

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This is the one area of video game baseball that has always remained arcade like and a sore spot for me. Far too many home runs are hit to the opposite field. I saw an interesting stat that Orlando Cabrera retired with 123 career HRs and not a single one was hit to the opposite field. All 19 of Jose Batista�s HRs at the Skydome last year were pulled with a few hit to CF. None were to the opposite field.

Here are some hit charts for big sluggers like Jose Bautista, Albert Pujols, Nelson Cruz and Prince Fielder.

Here are some average power hitters like Brandon Phillips, Jhonny Peralta and Johnny Damon.

As you can see the vast majority of HRs are pulled. Not all of them but most of them. More powerful batters have the ability to hit opposite field HRs at a greater percentage and light hitting batters may never hit an opposite field HR, like Orlando Cabrera.

There are a few areas that baseball video games can improve upon to make this better.

1. Opposite field power is often nearly the same as pulled power.

Every player hits the ball further when they pull it. Just look at the distances on those charts (outs too). The farthest hit balls are pulled or hit to CF, not the opposite way. MLB 2K10 pretty much had power equal to all fields and was horrible in this area. The Show does a better job but I would love to see a Power Slider that is split between pulling and pushing power.

2. Rigid hitting models compound this problem.

If the hitting model requires you to hit every outside pitch to the opposite field, you will see far too many opposite field HRs. A perfect example of this is MLB 2K11. It forced you to go the other way with a pitch. If this was true in real life, every pitcher would simply throw outside fastballs to Jose Bautista as he didn�t hit an opposite field HR all year at Rogers (or in 2010 for that matter). So why don�t pitchers do that in real life? Because Bautista can still pull those outside pitches with power. Batters also cheat inside a bit to be able to still reach those pitches. That�s why pitchers throw inside and knock down some batters with a little chin music. It�s too prevent them from cheating too much on the outside fastball. Personally I feel the MLB 2K11 system was horribly flawed in this area. The Show does a much better job here and I like the way they handle it.

3. The final problem in this area is pitch speed.

This is the one area that has always bothered me with the Show based on my slower reflexes. The pitches would come in so fast that by the time I could judge a ball or strike I would almost always go the opposite way with any decent fastball. It also leads to less walks. There are a few ways to help this. One is to simply slow down the pitch speed or make the slider more responsive. The Show 12 is supposed to have improved this. Other methods are tied to guessing systems or indicators to help alleviate this problem. One of them is �Guess Pitch� in the Show which I refuse to use because no batter can ever guess 100% correctly on a pitch in real life (guess pitch isn�t tied to batter or pitcher ratings at all either). The tried and true method of guessing fastball and sitting on off speed stuff just stinks of cheesy, arcade and unrealistic baseball to me. It ruins those two pitch relievers that are filled throughout MLB (less of an issue with starters). Other methods are 2K�s hitter�s eye or MVP�s method of colour coded pitches. I like those methods better. 2K�s system relied on the batter�s ability as each player was rated to their eye and patience at the plate. The game would flash the type of pitch coming and it didn�t happen on every pitch. It also had a slider that you could use to reduce or increase the frequency of the tip.

In the end baseball games need to do a better job of simulating this aspect in baseball. Let us control the pitch speed a little easier (Show) so we can turn on those fastballs more often and still show some patience at the plate. Tone down the opposite field power (2K) to force users to turn on fastballs for the big payoff and consequently make them look silly on changeups. Give us a few realistic tools like Hitter�s Eye in 2K or the MVP system to help a little in this area but still keep it ratings based and realistic. Give us separate sliders for Power so we can tone down opposite field HRs if they are flying out of the ball park (2K very guilty here). No baseball game has provided all of this.

I do recognize that this is a difficult thing to balance and that full realism may also hurt the fun factor. Being able to turn on fastballs too easily may make hitting too easy as well. I would encourage anyone who cares about this stuff to track their HRs they hit during their times with the demo and games coming out soon. Track how many HRs are pulled, hit to CF or hit the opposite way. I can only hope these new games will be better in this area.

Comments

# 1 ghm125 @ Feb 12

really dont have a problem with the opposite field homeruns! but when I do turn on a fastball oh how sweet it is! understand what you are saying but to me playing mlb the show the game is awesome homers,pitch speed the entire package. but will track and see how many opposite dingers are hit! good read!

# 2 rudyjuly2 @ Feb 13

For anyone that has 2K11, you can see exactly how your hit distribution looks in your VIP tendencies. I took a screenshot after I had started 0-8 in exhibition play. I'm tempted of picking up a used 2K11 copy just to grab more stats again from my season.

# 3 supermanemblem @ Feb 13

No batter can guess 100% on pitches--no but all batters guess pitch and location frequently, whether they are swing at one specific pitch in that at-bat or based on the count. The guess pitch is more realistic than MVP's color coding. I get what they are trying to do to mimic recognizing the pitchers grip, but it doesn't translate well to video games. All you have to do is look for the color and react accordingly. Just like in real baseball, give a batter the pitch type and he only has to deal with location. A much easier process than trying to decipher pitch and location.

As for pitching Bautista outside more, it's not so simple. Batters make adjustments. Also, they try to throw on the outside corner, but if they miss and leave the pitch over the plate, it's getting raked out of the park.

I play The Show and didn't notice opposite home runs being out of whack. Most of the homers is saw were either pulled or dead to center. I played baseball for over 25 years and I poked a few over the right field fence.