Why is Ichiro Suzuki on my team always batting WAY BELOW the Mendoza Line?

EdgarFan72 · 02-01-2025, 12:14 PM

II'm in the Stone Leauge and in the last three Stone League seasons, he's batted a pititful .130, .125, & .114 and this year he's only batting .114! and in the last 25 AB, he only have one hit & in the last 3 seasons he only has 2 stolen bases but has only attempted a total of 3 bases in those years. He should at least have 25 - 30 or even more Does a player's card rating mean squat in perfet games? If so, then why have the card rating in the first place? I have him leading off the batting order, just like he did when he played for the Mariners, and he only batted below .300 only ONCE in his entire career with them.

WTF is going on? How can I get him to improve or should I just get rid of him?

On the other hand, my team right now is doing great. They started out excellent, but lost ground, but now are 5.5 games out of 1st and their magic number is 20. Out of the past 20 years I've made the playoffs in 11 of them and had only 6 losing seasons., My team have also competed for the world championship a few times, but haven't won one yet. My overall record is 1705-1536, with a 0.526 winning percentage. Not great, but not that bad either.

LansdowneSt · 02-01-2025, 03:59 PM

On a relative basis, he is not as good as the other in-play, league-wide talent. As for the steals, you can go to his player strategy page and adjust his aggressiveness as you see fit.

dishnet34 · 02-01-2025, 04:19 PM

Which Ichiro are we talking about here? There's a few different ones.

Everything Lansdowne stays still applies, yes, but I'm curious.

EdgarFan72 · 02-04-2025, 01:42 PM

The one I got is from the Combined Pack and his card rating is 84, but his boost level doesn't have any stars showing. Could that boost level be why he's struggling at the plate?

dishnet34 · 02-04-2025, 02:04 PM

Here's the thing with Ichiro cards, and that one in particular - he's going to be all contact/BABIP and nothing else. So, you're pretty much subject to the whims of BABIP/batting average fluctuations, especially since he's not going to walk often with that low eye. And especially since the game engine doesn't emphasize contact too terribly much, that Ichiro (and, for the most part, the other Ichiros) is going to struggle mightily no matter what league you're gonna be in and no matter whether or not it's a Combinator card.

EdgarFan72 · 02-04-2025, 03:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dishnet34

Here's the thing with Ichiro cards, and that one in particular - he's going to be all contact/BABIP and nothing else. So, you're pretty much subject to the whims of BABIP/batting average fluctuations, especially since he's not going to walk often with that low eye. And especially since the game engine doesn't emphasize contact too terribly much, that Ichiro (and, for the most part, the other Ichiros) is going to struggle mightily no matter what league you're gonna be in and no matter whether or not it's a Combinator card.

Then why have Ichiro play?!? I guess I should just get rid of him then.

bear_rammedge · 02-04-2025, 03:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EdgarFan72

Then why have Ichiro play?!? I guess I should just get rid of him then.

There's a lesson here for everyone trying to play PT for free - the devs are only going to do two things. They're going to tweak the game to make the whales pay more to compete against each other, and they're going to tweak things to try and turn the rest of us into mini-whales. That's it.

LansdowneSt · 02-04-2025, 04:35 PM

Or the lesson is to play the card with the best stats regardless of the name on the card.

bear_rammedge · 02-04-2025, 06:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LansdowneSt

Or the lesson is to play the card with the best stats regardless of the name on the card.

no need to repeat what i already said

dishnet34 · 02-04-2025, 08:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bear_rammedge

no need to repeat what i already said

First things first, that is precisely *not* what you said, what you said was a screed against the perceived philosophy of the devs, not what Lansdowne mentioned in his post.

And, frankly, going back on topic now, I was just teaching them what the game values and doesn't value when it comes to players' skills. Ichiro has low power and low eye, he's not going to be as valuable to a winning ballclub unless he goes off with batting average. Now, granted, if they're the best outfielder they have available, and there's no other good options (it seems like they're a new player to the game, so I'm willing to cut them a little slack), then by all means play them and look for upgrades via packs and the card shop.

LeeD · 02-04-2025, 09:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bear_rammedge

There's a lesson here for everyone trying to play PT for free - the devs are only going to do two things. They're going to tweak the game to make the whales pay more to compete against each other, and they're going to tweak things to try and turn the rest of us into mini-whales. That's it.

As has been said before, you can succeed at this game without spending a dime (other than the OOTP purchase price). Yes, it's getting more and more difficult, but there is a small handful of FTP players who consistently find ways to maximize their points and rosters. I'm not one of them, but I did manage to get into Perfect League last week after an up-and-down season with that particular team. Back to Diamond this week, but I still count it as an accomplishment. I also resisted the urge to buy points at the most opportune time to do so, which is another accomplishment.

TLDR: there's satisfaction in building an FTP roster that competes at the top levels.

LeeD · 02-04-2025, 09:52 PM

To the OP:

No one has mentioned this yet, but you can boost your Ichiro through the card combinator (Main/Card Combinator, if I'm understanding correctly that it is a Combinator card with the red border). You probably have some cards sitting on the shelf (duplicates and other cards that you won't be using) that could be "burned" to boost the Ichiro card. However...

Before spending points on boosts for the 84, look into acquiring the new 102 Ichiro through a buy offer in the card shop (if you can come up with about 40,000-60,000 points). It's a much better card than the boosted Combinator and provides some definite positives in terms of BABIP, defense, and speed. However...

Rob (Dishnet) is right. Ichiro is the kind of hitter who just isn't valued by the PT system. He's an "empty batting average" guy who can theoretically hit for average and nothing else. No power. No walks. Stolen bases, yes, but steals are also undervalued (or properly valued?) in PT.

Quickest solution is to sell the 84 Ichiro for 3K and then buy the newish 84 Jay Buhner for half that amount. Another Mariner who will give you power, eye, and decent defense. He'll probably outhit the 84 Ichiro in terms of batting average as well.

bear_rammedge · 02-05-2025, 07:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dishnet34

First things first, that is precisely *not* what you said, what you said was a screed against the perceived philosophy of the devs, not what Lansdowne mentioned in his post.

And, frankly, going back on topic now, I was just teaching them what the game values and doesn't value when it comes to players' skills. Ichiro has low power and low eye, he's not going to be as valuable to a winning ballclub unless he goes off with batting average. Now, granted, if they're the best outfielder they have available, and there's no other good options (it seems like they're a new player to the game, so I'm willing to cut them a little slack), then by all means play them and look for upgrades via packs and the card shop.

yes it was. he was asking, hey why do i have a card of a hall of famer, but it isnt any good? well, it's because the game isn't based in reality, it's based in making money. They want you to have a card you think should play well but doesnt, in hopes it will convince you to spend money on an even better ichiro card, and then an even better one and so on.

bear_rammedge · 02-05-2025, 07:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LeeD

As has been said before, you can succeed at this game without spending a dime (other than the OOTP purchase price). Yes, it's getting more and more difficult, but there is a small handful of FTP players who consistently find ways to maximize their points and rosters. I'm not one of them, but I did manage to get into Perfect League last week after an up-and-down season with that particular team. Back to Diamond this week, but I still count it as an accomplishment. I also resisted the urge to buy points at the most opportune time to do so, which is another accomplishment.

TLDR: there's satisfaction in building an FTP roster that competes at the top levels.

Think about what you're saying. "There's fun in getting a free roster to the higher levels. there are fewer and fewer of us and they're making it harder every year, but it's pretty cool."

I like the game mode too, it's fun, I spend no money and I thought in particular this year the card art was the best its ever been. But don't pretend this game is for us, we're merely filler to make the mode look interesting while they gouge the whales and anyone else dumb enough to spend real money.

EdgarFan72 · 02-14-2025, 03:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LeeD

...Quickest solution is to sell the 84 Ichiro for 3K and then buy the newish 84 Jay Buhner for half that amount. Another Mariner who will give you power, eye, and decent defense. He'll probably outhit the 84 Ichiro in terms of batting average as well.

Well now can't I sell him! When I go to the manage cards screen under the roster, I tag him but when I click on quick sell all tagged cards it says "no cards are able to be sold." I even tried to deactivate him, but that doesn't make a difference. I tried to google this error but I can't find anything related to the error.

Why can't I sell him?

LansdowneSt · 02-14-2025, 03:26 PM

Is he locked because the card completed a mission?

rburgh · 02-14-2025, 03:27 PM

And so he is now locked. Or, you have the combinator version which you can't sell back to the bank.

dishnet34 · 02-14-2025, 04:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EdgarFan72

Well now can't I sell him! When I go to the manage cards screen under the roster, I tag him but when I click on quick sell all tagged cards it says "no cards are able to be sold." I even tried to deactivate him, but that doesn't make a difference. I tried to google this error but I can't find anything related to the error.

Why can't I sell him?

Because the card is a Combinator Card, like you mentioned earlier in the thread, he cannot be quicksold unless you get rid of the Combinator status of the card.

rburgh · 02-17-2025, 08:14 AM

He hit .287 and failed to win a gold glove in CF, probably because I didn't acquire him until about 40 games into the season, so he only played in 11o games and had only 484 PA's. But he generated 2.5 WAR and projected to be a 4 WAR player because of his glove.

02-01-2025, 12:14 PM	#1
EdgarFan72 Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Jan 2017 Posts: 25	Why is Ichiro Suzuki on my team always batting WAY BELOW the Mendoza Line? II'm in the Stone Leauge and in the last three Stone League seasons, he's batted a pititful .130, .125, & .114 and this year he's only batting .114! and in the last 25 AB, he only have one hit & in the last 3 seasons he only has 2 stolen bases but has only attempted a total of 3 bases in those years. He should at least have 25 - 30 or even more Does a player's card rating mean squat in perfet games? If so, then why have the card rating in the first place? I have him leading off the batting order, just like he did when he played for the Mariners, and he only batted below .300 only ONCE in his entire career with them. WTF is going on? How can I get him to improve or should I just get rid of him? On the other hand, my team right now is doing great. They started out excellent, but lost ground, but now are 5.5 games out of 1st and their magic number is 20. Out of the past 20 years I've made the playoffs in 11 of them and had only 6 losing seasons., My team have also competed for the world championship a few times, but haven't won one yet. My overall record is 1705-1536, with a 0.526 winning percentage. Not great, but not that bad either.

02-01-2025, 03:59 PM	#2
LansdowneSt Global Moderator Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: From Duxbury, Mass residing Baltimore Posts: 6,752	On a relative basis, he is not as good as the other in-play, league-wide talent. As for the steals, you can go to his player strategy page and adjust his aggressiveness as you see fit. __________________ Complete Universe Facegen Pack 2.0 (mine included) https://www.mediafire.com/file_premi...k_2.0.zip/file Just my Facegen Pack: https://www.mediafire.com/file_premi..._Pack.zip/file

02-01-2025, 04:19 PM	#3
dishnet34 All Star Starter Join Date: Feb 2014 Posts: 1,408	Which Ichiro are we talking about here? There's a few different ones. Everything Lansdowne stays still applies, yes, but I'm curious. __________________ OOTP's Official Perfect Team Hype Man / host of TWIPT Saturday Showdown and Perfect League World Series "Find a way to be alone in a baseball stadium at sunrise, when the only sound you hear are about nine birds that got lost, and found themselves in a stadium, and they’re chirping across the grandstand trying to figure out where the f*** they ended up." -Dan Besbris

02-04-2025, 02:04 PM	#5
dishnet34 All Star Starter Join Date: Feb 2014 Posts: 1,408	Here's the thing with Ichiro cards, and that one in particular - he's going to be all contact/BABIP and nothing else. So, you're pretty much subject to the whims of BABIP/batting average fluctuations, especially since he's not going to walk often with that low eye. And especially since the game engine doesn't emphasize contact too terribly much, that Ichiro (and, for the most part, the other Ichiros) is going to struggle mightily no matter what league you're gonna be in and no matter whether or not it's a Combinator card. __________________ OOTP's Official Perfect Team Hype Man / host of TWIPT Saturday Showdown and Perfect League World Series "Find a way to be alone in a baseball stadium at sunrise, when the only sound you hear are about nine birds that got lost, and found themselves in a stadium, and they’re chirping across the grandstand trying to figure out where the f*** they ended up." -Dan Besbris

02-04-2025, 04:35 PM	#8
LansdowneSt Global Moderator Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: From Duxbury, Mass residing Baltimore Posts: 6,752	Or the lesson is to play the card with the best stats regardless of the name on the card. __________________ Complete Universe Facegen Pack 2.0 (mine included) https://www.mediafire.com/file_premi...k_2.0.zip/file Just my Facegen Pack: https://www.mediafire.com/file_premi..._Pack.zip/file

02-04-2025, 01:42 PM	#4
EdgarFan72 Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Jan 2017 Posts: 25	The one I got is from the Combined Pack and his card rating is 84, but his boost level doesn't have any stars showing. Could that boost level be why he's struggling at the plate?

02-04-2025, 09:52 PM	#12
LeeD All Star Reserve Join Date: Jan 2022 Posts: 608	To the OP: No one has mentioned this yet, but you can boost your Ichiro through the card combinator (Main/Card Combinator, if I'm understanding correctly that it is a Combinator card with the red border). You probably have some cards sitting on the shelf (duplicates and other cards that you won't be using) that could be "burned" to boost the Ichiro card. However... Before spending points on boosts for the 84, look into acquiring the new 102 Ichiro through a buy offer in the card shop (if you can come up with about 40,000-60,000 points). It's a much better card than the boosted Combinator and provides some definite positives in terms of BABIP, defense, and speed. However... Rob (Dishnet) is right. Ichiro is the kind of hitter who just isn't valued by the PT system. He's an "empty batting average" guy who can theoretically hit for average and nothing else. No power. No walks. Stolen bases, yes, but steals are also undervalued (or properly valued?) in PT. Quickest solution is to sell the 84 Ichiro for 3K and then buy the newish 84 Jay Buhner for half that amount. Another Mariner who will give you power, eye, and decent defense. He'll probably outhit the 84 Ichiro in terms of batting average as well.

02-14-2025, 03:26 PM	#16
LansdowneSt Global Moderator Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: From Duxbury, Mass residing Baltimore Posts: 6,752	Is he locked because the card completed a mission? __________________ Complete Universe Facegen Pack 2.0 (mine included) https://www.mediafire.com/file_premi...k_2.0.zip/file Just my Facegen Pack: https://www.mediafire.com/file_premi..._Pack.zip/file

02-14-2025, 03:27 PM	#17
rburgh All Star Reserve Join Date: Nov 2012 Location: Pittsburgh Posts: 881	You have used him to complete a mission And so he is now locked. Or, you have the combinator version which you can't sell back to the bank.

02-17-2025, 08:14 AM	#19
rburgh All Star Reserve Join Date: Nov 2012 Location: Pittsburgh Posts: 881	I used the 102 Ichiro in CF at the Gold level He hit .287 and failed to win a gold glove in CF, probably because I didn't acquire him until about 40 games into the season, so he only played in 11o games and had only 484 PA's. But he generated 2.5 WAR and projected to be a 4 WAR player because of his glove.