Quote:
Originally Posted by Syd Thrift
My guess is that if you go in and do a strategy the game will re-calculate what's going to happen on that particular PA but I also am not sure if there's really a difference if you get the K you were "predestined" to get. The take is widely considered to be a thing you don't use except in very specific circumstances for exactly that reason: if you have a .280 hitter and you tell them to take until they get 2 strikes, they'll still be a .280 hitter for the rest of that PA, all else being equal (at the least, if there is a malus it's not super duper noticeable and it's certainly easier for the devs to not make adjustments like that than it is for them to make them). For stuff like the hit and run, I lean towards the idea that the game has a separate "table" or the equivalent that it "consults" the way you do with Strat-o-Matic where a given hitter is much more likely to make some kind of contact and much less likely to hit the ball really far (although of course the hitter and pitcher ability come into account here). I also, hate to say it, very much doubt that the game will cause a hit and run to be more effective on a 1-0 or 2-1 count than a 0-1 or 1-2 if I'm being honest (except of course that if you do miss on a 1-2, that will result in an automatic strikeout on top of the automatic CS that a busted hit and run turns into).
The thing about those raw per-count numbers is that it's reeeeeally hard to separate talent from strategy there. Like, how much of the fact that hitters are .345 on 3-1 counts come from the fact that hitters rarely get to 3-1 unless they're decent and the guy that they're facing is a bit wild? Sure, they'll also get a good pitch to hit but baked into that, too, is the fact that if the next pitch is a ball it's ball four and so there are some outcomes that can't continue. I'm sure that not all or maybe even the majority of that 100 point difference in BA accounts for that but *how* much? Also, are you now supposed to add to pitchers (and hitters) some kind of special ability to get to certain counts more often than others on top of their abilities to walk and strike out guys? Are there guys IRL who just hit to the league average in count situations but hit .300 because they work the count to 3 balls a lot? I'm very skeptical that that really and truly exists as its own skill (I mean, of course some guys get to 3 ball counts more than others but at the end of the day I think they hit well or not based on their ability to hit the ball and avoid strikeouts); why would OOTP spend time doing this if the end result is less accuracy/realism?
I definitely can see the case for just determining the result of the entire PA beforehand and then "retrofitting" the result. I understand that this has weirdness with some strategies but... the game just plain isn't modeled to do pitch-by-pitch strategies. That would require a complete overhaul of the game and in some cases probably some rework as to how some mechanics work at all (knuckleballers never throw a true fastball in this game but IRL they have a 75-80mph gooser that they throw specifically when they need a strike, for example). Long story short, I agree with the others that I don't really want to think about that too much.
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One can always quibble or guess at the details but I'd agree with virtually all of this.
On the bold I wouldn't say the developers have to add any special skills to get to certain counts. I think that would happen generically using the hitter's eye and the pitcher's control, among anything else (framing comes to mind) the game needs to use. The AB's, I think most agree are done in one dice roll, and IMHO there are limited ways to influence it. Take, run and hit, hit and run, sac bunt, etc. I think your theory on the H&R being done in a separate routine, like Strat is correct, and I imagine the same type of thing for bunts too.