Power Pros Forum

I was looking to get a little help on how to pitch effectively on the higher difficulty settings. I have some created players with some really nice stats and pitches, but I can't seem to figure out an effective strategy for deceiving hitters. I am having trouble in MyLife keeping my ERA under 4.50 and I feel like I'm missing something. I've got a 105 MPH FB, level 3 two seam FB, 7 Slider (Original), 7 CHG, 3 CB. Any tips on how to turn my season around?

How do you pitch? Tell us your general strategy for pitching.

You can try to pitch on the corners, try to pitch around the batter, etc. That's all I can recommend.

Changeups low in the zone, or out of the zone usually work for me, or if you have a curveball, or something that breaks like that, put it out of the zone high, and left if your pitcher is a righty, so it drops right into the top tip of the strike zone. That works for me a lot.

I have a little technique where you throw 1 type of pitch (usually a fastball or a low-level breaker) until you get 2 strikes, then use one of your more effective breaking balls to get the out when they're expecting the same pitch again. Continue this pattern until you get through the lineup once, then change the combination of pitches until you get through the lineup again. This usually works on expert mode. Once, (in the WS on season mode, I don't know if the difficulty automatically goes up there) it wasn't working, so in the next game I threw all fastballs, and somehow that worked. As a bonus, my starter lasted 7+ innings with that, so give those 2 strategies a try.

See: http://www.mlbppworld.com/viewtopic.php?p=83547#p83547

I try to pitch to the corners and keep the ball out of the middle of the plate. I have trouble getting guys to chase the ball or be more aggressive when I throw junk. I was much more effective pitching in MVP05. Ha. I try to paint with my fastballs then finish it off with a change up or slider. It seems like whenever my slider is over the plate, even a little bit, it gets hammered. I might try to make a new player with some more variety of pitches to throw, but I'd like to figure out what I'm doing wrong. Does your cursor position when you release a pitch matter?

On powerful, I throw EVERYTHING down and in on EVERY batter.

I agree with ChiCubs. Down and in is by far the most effective corner for me. I usually throw a slider or cutter down and in, especially to opposite-handed batters, to jam them. 90% of the time, they will either take the pitch, miss, or hit a weak ground ball.
Also, don't mash the A button too much. Although it gives your pitches more power, the computer seems to hit them fairly easily. Also, it messes up your control and drains your stamina. I usually press A 2-3 times per pitch. This way, almost all of my pitchers can throw complete games. My pitchers usually get only about 2-3 strikeouts, but often only give up 1 or 2 runs. (It also helps that my teams always have very good defense.)

I might try playing on expert style pitching (like I'm used to from MVP and MLB2K games) or I might just drop the difficulty back to normal. Ha. No matter how good my stuff is, there are some pitches I just cannot get by hitters (or make them chase).

Well, how do you pitch most of the time, Trich?

Sliders get pretty well destroyed in this game. They can be useful on occasion for a jam shot double play ball against a weak hitter, but even David Eckstein licks his chops (well, he would if he had a mouth) when he guesses slider and gets it.

Just pitch up, down, in, out. Pepper the corners with a good mix of whatever you have from the fork, curve and sinker families (the slower the better) and the odd fastball or cutter. Finish them off with your best/slowest breaking ball, preferably down, but don't be afraid to drop a change into the top of the zone from time to time - very effective, especially when you set them up with something down/hard. If they start hitting your breaking balls, drill the inside middle edges with fastballs/cutters/hard sinkers every second or third pitch, get a few groundouts, and then go back to making them all swirly-eyed with the slow stuff.

I had been trying to pitch to the corners, but I haven't had as much success as I'd like and I think I'm starting to understand why. I'm going to try to use my pitches differently like Eric Davis 44 suggested. Time to bring that ERA down. If all else fails I'll just make another pitcher with a different variety of pitches. What do you find to be the most effective combinations?

I'd say the combination of KN and SCB/DCB are deadly, especially if they're at a high level for both.

Pitching was the easiest thing for me to pick up. Don't forget to through high and inside, too. Curveballs that drop into one corner or cross over the high/outside corner work very well.

Breaking balls that start on the corner and drop below are not effective - the batters know to lay off them.

A backdoor curve/slider (one that starts out of the strikezone and moves into the strikezone) that you through so that it does not actually make it all the way into the strikezone is also very effective, but with sliders, only of it's also pitched to the inside. If its outside, the batter can easily extend that bat to hit it.

Also, if you've thrown a few offspeed pitches that have been fouled off, go with the 4 speed fastball. Computer often can't respond in time to catch up to it.