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Virtual Baseball Season/Franchise Updates

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Printed Date: 03-29-2024 at 4:15am


Topic: Virtual Baseball Season/Franchise Updates
Posted By: Slumberland
Subject: Virtual Baseball Season/Franchise Updates
Date Posted: 04-27-2009 at 11:06am
A little place for people to post about their current season/franchises?  I always like reading about this stuff.

The Show Franchise '09 (Mets): 4-7
Game 11: W, 4-2, over the visiting Brewers.
Johan puts end to four-game skid, Turnbow has successful hold in first appearance after signing as a free agent, and Putz notches his first save, filling in for the injured K-Rod.  Delgado goes deep, sneaking one under the Pepsi Porch, which Ramon Castro comes up big with a pinch-hit, two-run double.

This game is HARD!




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Replies:
Posted By: TedSGN
Date Posted: 04-27-2009 at 7:06pm
MLB 2k9 Seattle Mariners:  14-11

We just finished sweeping the A's and Felix Hernandez will face off against Kevin Millwood and the visiting Texas Rangers.

I only play the first game of each series and sim the rest of the series.  My W-L of the games I played is 4-2.  In my last start we beat Oakland 3-2 in extra innings.  RP David Aardsma tore his achilles and is expected out for 88 days.  Pretty short for a torn achilles if you ask me, but that's ok.


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Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 04-28-2009 at 8:21am
Originally posted by TedSGN

Pretty short for a torn achilles if you ask me, but that's ok.


We can rebuild him.  - six million dollar man

Inijuries are a bitch.  My second baseman Castillo went down for two months diving after a ball I didn't even really have a chance for, and losing my closer to a broken hand, just from throwing a pitch?  Ugh.






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Posted By: Derek
Date Posted: 04-28-2009 at 9:06am
I haven't started a 'real' season with the Yankees yet, though I have just finished playing every game in spring training.  I can't recall what my actual record was, but my winning % was around 35% and I finished next to last in the Spring League.  (Hall of Fame difficulty)
 
I haven't moved on from there because
 
1) I'm suffering a bit of Roster Paralysis.  Injuries have futzed around with the Bombers current lineup, and I don't know that I want to start the long season with the current crew. (Still can't update rosters in the middle of a season, right?
 
2)I'm still having issues with how the game plays for me.  Not the fact that I am losing, but that I do seem to be experiencing a lot of what seems to be 'fakeness' by the game, both for and against me.  I'm not saying that there is catch up code or anything like that, but there are times when I know from the first batter that THIS is going to be the inning that I do or the computer does well.  Sometimes I feel things are taken out of my hands somewhat.  I may try both Legend and All-Star to see how those feel, though I'm pretty sure pitching will be too easy for me on All-Star.
 


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Posted By: TedSGN
Date Posted: 04-28-2009 at 9:21am
D, 2k9 or Show?

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Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 04-28-2009 at 9:42am
Derek, aren't injured players still available somewhere in the rosters, either inactive or in the minors?  I believe you could re-jigger them yourself on the fly... I think.

As for the second point, I don't think you'll find anything different on Legend.  In my first go around, just a short season with the Mets while I waited for the opening day rosters to come out, my hitting sucked but I had little problem holding leads.  When I started my real Mets franchise, my hitting vastly improved (mostly because I've finally trained myself not to jam the stick down on every pitch) but all of a sudden my pitchers were guaranteed to have one awful inning, and leads were routinely blown in the 8th and 9th.  So I was winning consistently on the first go around with a batting average of about .230 and then getting swept this time around while hitting .280. 

I'm just going to chalk it up to streakiness, and that things can start to snowball in any given situation.  I let the first two batters on, I get nervous, miss the meter, etc.  I'm trying to take Santana's real life approach into the game now, where no matter what happens, just focus on this batter, even with two on and no out.  Fatigue seems to be a factor too.  Who knows.  The game drives me nuts sometimes and is bliss at others.  I'm hoping that signing Turnbow will help in the pen... he throws in the mid '90's and really seemed to have the Brewers off-balance in his first appearance.


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Posted By: Derek
Date Posted: 04-28-2009 at 11:09am
The Show for me, Ted.
 
I may rent 2k9 to play some games with you folks if you guys give it high marks online, but after some burnout from going slider-crazy with the game the last two years and then seeing how easy it was to homer in the demo, I decided to give it a pass for 1p play.
 
I haven't looked too hard at roster management stuff yet, Slumber, but I bet you're right.  I can't wait for the day where you have the option to have injuries/rosters/etc sync up with the real club for actual dates in these type of games.  I'd let the Yanks get a few games ahead of me, and then simply go play the games with the same lineups and rosters that they had on that day!  For now, I'll probably wait for the next roster update and then go with that.  (The current one has some oddness like Mo Rivera being a setup man, etc)
 
I obviously still enjoy the game tons, having played through every inning of every Spring Training game.  My difficulty complaint that the game was too easy has been demolished this year, so no issues there, but I just wish I could trace my good and bad performances more to something I was doing well or wrong in the game, be it pitch selection, poor timing, etc.   These things seem irrelevant to the runs me or the CPU tend to go on.  More than anything, there seems to be a very, very powerful 'confidence' or 'momentum' or 'clutch' situation or something behind the scenes that seems to have more impact than it should.  I know for a fact that in the case of pitchers, confidence has far too much of an impact. (IMO)
 
But as you say, for a good portion of the time, what you get out of this game is just Pure Baseball, and it does it wonderfully.


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Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 04-28-2009 at 2:28pm
I would also love to have that option of playing the season with the exact day-to-day replica of that team's lineups for the year.  I think NBA Live is scratching the surface with some of that stuff, but it's an area that the Show devs seemed unable to anticipate, based on some of their reactions at O.S. when people started to call for complete roster control in-season, to that end.  162 games over the course of a year is about the ceiling of what I could put into a game (with some detours and other modes peppered in), and as a fan of verisimillitude, playing alongside the actual season in real time would be the bee's knees.

Speaking of Pure Baseball, one thing the game has gotten me thinking about is how, I don't know, accurate the idea of contact is in the game.  Specifically, my success in the game seems directly linked to my making the opposing pitcher throw a lot of pitches.  And yet it's still relatively easy to make contact, but super hard to make GOOD contact.  I feel like I could easily get up there and put the ball in play, but when I get too aggressive in The Show, it leads to a lot of four or five pitch innings with nothing to show for it.  Do major leaguers feel that way?  That it's not about putting their bat on a pitch, but putting it on the right pitch?


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Posted By: Mike_S
Date Posted: 04-28-2009 at 4:34pm
High Heat 2004 Career Mode, started on XBox last summer (when my wife decided she'd start spending at least 2 nights a week trying to trap feral cats).  Playing as Red Sox, Fantasy Draft Rosters, 48-game schedules.  Would have preferred to get in the modern rosters and play with the real teams, but they change too frequently to keep accurate. 

It's the first time I've ever played (for fun) an extended career mode -- no money, contracts, or free agency, but trading allowed including CPU-proposed trades.  The Fantasy Draft rosters element helps with this, since I don't mind trading away guys who aren't "real Red Sox" the way I would with standard rosters.  Anyway, trying to improve your team when you have nobody decent you're willing to give up is quite challenging and fun (when it actually works)!! :-)

Anyway, the background history:

MVP Difficulty, limited slider modifications (mostly making human hitting more difficult and human K'ing more prevalent).

2003 season: 5th in AL East, horrible batting and pitching.  Spent the season re-learning the game and some of the lesser-known players.

2004 season: 5th in AL East, good power, was really charging at the end of the season, but still horrible pitching did us in.

2005 season: 5th in AL East yet again, bad hittting, improving pitching.  Many of our decent guys who did well in 2004 did much worse in 2005, so I started moving a lot of our aging players who weren't productive in exchange for a lot more, younger, and/or better pitchers.

2006 season: 4th in AL East, 22-26, but only 4 games back on division winning Baltimore.  We were legitimately hanging alive in the race until the last 8 games or so, it was super-fun after so many poor seasons.  Great pitching, we led the AL in ERA.  Decent batting average, good team speed, but almost no power (last in HR, runs scored) which was our ultimate demise.

Our current team core is Carl Crawford (RF), Carlos Beltran (CF), Aubrey Huff (3B/1B), and Cristian Guzman (SS).  Current top pitchers are Mark Mulder and Tim Hudson, with strong bullpen of Todd Zimmerman, Eddie Guardado, Steve Karsay.  Added an aging Sean Casey during offseason to hopefully bolster our power a bit, as well as Colby Lewis and Michael Tejera for added pitching depth.  I try to keep mostly real-life players on my roster, but a lot of other teams have developed new stars.  Once in a while I'll bring up some fictional minor leaguers.

So far in 2007: Tough-luck 2-5 start.  Pitching has been great again, power much better so far, but our Batting Average sucks so far.  We took 1 out of 3 in Baltimore (who have a great pitching staff) to open the season, then were swept in Toronto featuring two amazing losses that felt like they should have been wins.  One saw sure-handed Guzman make 2 consecutive errors with one out in the 8th followed by a JD Drew 3-run HR,  and a 3-1 lead became a 4-3 loss.  The other saw a 4-3 lead in the ninth become 4-4 when a throw from RF beat the Toronto runner home but somehow Victor Martinez missed the tag and the run scored -- something I don't believe I have EVER seen in High Heat before --  and we lost it in 11 innings, 6-4.

Finally had a good-hitting game at KC (Central Division defending Champs) last game, won it 6-1 and pounded out 13 hits.  Mulder is now 2-0.  We have one more at KC with Adam Eaton going (who did well for us last season, had about a 3.30 ERA) and then go to Boston for an extended homestand. 

My wife has cat stuff tonight, so hopefully I can get in 3 or 4 more games... :-)






Posted By: K_Mosley
Date Posted: 04-28-2009 at 8:04pm
Originally posted by Slumberland

I would also love to have that option of playing the season with the exact day-to-day replica of that team's lineups for the year.  I think NBA Live is scratching the surface with some of that stuff, but it's an area that the Show devs seemed unable to anticipate, based on some of their reactions at O.S. when people started to call for complete roster control in-season, to that end.  162 games over the course of a year is about the ceiling of what I could put into a game (with some detours and other modes peppered in), and as a fan of verisimillitude, playing alongside the actual season in real time would be the bee's knees.

Speaking of Pure Baseball, one thing the game has gotten me thinking about is how, I don't know, accurate the idea of contact is in the game.  Specifically, my success in the game seems directly linked to my making the opposing pitcher throw a lot of pitches.  And yet it's still relatively easy to make contact, but super hard to make GOOD contact.  I feel like I could easily get up there and put the ball in play, but when I get too aggressive in The Show, it leads to a lot of four or five pitch innings with nothing to show for it.  Do major leaguers feel that way?  That it's not about putting their bat on a pitch, but putting it on the right pitch?
 
FYI - You can do this in Diamond Mind Baseball, albeit a year later.  And, it's manage only.  And, there's no career mode.  But, you can do it.  Smile
 
PS - Diamond Mind is my favorite replay simulator on the market.  They've moved mostly to online stuff now, though. 
 
Kevin


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Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 04-29-2009 at 8:59am
Wow Mike that is intense.  Awesome.

As for Diamond Mind, manage only stuff gives me no charge at all.  But it's good to have a reference that I can drop into my wishlists for the Show devs over at OS.


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Posted By: Mike_S
Date Posted: 04-29-2009 at 4:02pm
As for the player rosters updating: I'm a little surprised this isn't a regular feature on all games, but the potential hassle I could see is with licensing issues.  When we did final rosters on High Heat, the approvals we needed from MLB and MLBPA were both painful.  I'm not sure either of those entities would care enough about "better user experience" to loosen their approval process, though I'm sure if a publisher would show them more sales/money they'd be willing to do it.

As for my season: Some more terrible results last night.  KC unexpectedly hit 4 HR off of Adam Eaton for an 8-5 win, Brad Penny (my 5th starter) walked the bases loaded to start off the 5th inning after which Toronto blew it open, and Toronto then outlasted us in a 14-inning marathon when we just couldn't get the key hit and get the winning run home.  We're now 2-8 on the year, mostly due to terrible hitting (.220 or so as a team through ten games as opposed to .265-ish last season -- on the same settings, with almost all the same players), and have lost 4 out of the 5 1-run and 2-run games we've played.  I can't explain why it's so much fun despite all the losses, but it is.  Probably won't get another chance to play 'til the weekend, but who knows.  Fingers still crossed that we can get hot and get back into the race.


Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 04-29-2009 at 6:51pm
I downloaded the new patch for The Show.  Now I have no post-game highlights, and if I go into the replay vault, none exist past the 6th inning, and if you view the ones prior, there are no players on the field.  Well done!  Apparently this is a common thing, but I figured I was just seeing the reports of outliers at O.S., so went ahead and downloaded anyway.  Still plays fine, so I'm okay with things for the time being.  Had a great game, a 7-4 win over the Brewers to improve our record to 5-7.  David Wright is leading the team with 15 RBI'S... so, not realistic.  Ah, but Oliver Perez's ERA is over 9.00, so yes, quite realistic.

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Posted By: Derek
Date Posted: 04-30-2009 at 2:23pm
My end of game highlights are gone too. :(
 
Any dev word on how long it will take to fix?


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Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 04-30-2009 at 2:24pm
No word yet.  My highlights were back in the second game I played post-patch.

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Posted By: Derek
Date Posted: 05-01-2009 at 8:14am
Originally posted by Slumberland

No word yet.  My highlights were back in the second game I played post-patch.
 
I played three games since the patch, had end of game highlights in the second, but not the first or third. Ouch


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Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 05-02-2009 at 1:20am
Took two out of three against the Brewers and then the Cardinals (after dropping the first game of each series) to get my virtual Mets back to .500.  Oliver Perez finally has a good outing in game two of the series against the Cards, but we still needed a 9th inning comeback to win it.  Game three saw a nice offensive effort from the club and yeoman's work by Livan Hernandez.  Some highlights of game three, with a two rare dingers on the day:

[TUBE]NnaOBrfjwo8[/TUBE]

[TUBE]1Q8giBhyeCA[/TUBE]


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Posted By: TedSGN
Date Posted: 05-02-2009 at 11:17am
The Mariners go to 15-11 with a 5-1 victory over Texas in game 1 of a 2-game series.  We got out of the gate well, scoring 4 runs in the first 3 innings.  Felix Hernandez was outstanding over 8 innings giving up just 3 hits and 1 run while striking out 9 and walking 1, improving his record to 2-3.  We had 14 hits lead by Beltre's 4 for 4 performance.  Kevin Millwood struggled most of the game and seemed to be leaving a lot of pitches up in the zone which led to a game high 4 doubles hit by Mariner batters.

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Posted By: Derek
Date Posted: 05-03-2009 at 11:41am
This doesn't really belowng here since I still haven't started my season 'for real,' but I dropped down to All-Star level and played the first four games of a season with the Yankees, and went 0-4 agaionst the Orioles and Royals, giving up 6 runs per game. Dead

Apparently, I've simply forgotten how to play baseball games!

(On another note, easily much more solid contact exhibited on AS level vs HOF, for both the CPU and me)


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Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 05-03-2009 at 8:11pm
I feel your pain.  I just got swept by the Nationals at home.  Sometimes I don't know what the game wants me to do at the plate.  Nothing works.

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Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 05-04-2009 at 9:09am
Though it hurts my pride, I think I'm going to drop it down a level from Legend.  I can win some games there, but the frustration level is such that I'm scared what the downstairs neighbors must think of me after all the high decibel F-bombs I was dropping this past weekend.  There's just a little too much wonky stuff still going on in an otherwise excellent baseball engine, and the concentration level needed to compete on Legend is so grueling that when one of these things goes wrong I want to throw my PS3 out the window:

-low line drives hit just to the side of infielders, where if you take control to get them in position, the fielding animation never kicks in, and the ball sometimes goes right THROUGH them.

-balls hit to the wall where my guy gets thrown out at second... I can understand this happening to a catcher every once in a while, but it happened to Jose Reyes the other day.

-entire games where I feel like I've got a wet noodle in my hands instead of a bat.

I love how much harder hitting is now, but I still need it to be fun, I guess.  These little flaws don't bother me too much when scoring runs isn't such a ridiculously hard proposition.  So HOF here I come.


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Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 05-05-2009 at 9:30am
I restarted my franchise, since a crash was apparently only a matter of time with any pre-patch 'chises due to schedule adjustments made in the patch.  Sort of a bummer, but sort of nice to start with a clean slate on HOF and have a bit more fun.

Lost in the opener to the Reds, 6-5, after taking the lead in the bottom of the 11th, and then giving up a two-run walkoff bomb with my closer on the mound.  Fun game though.  Santana was sharp early but had one rough inning.  We gave up three homers as a team overall.


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Posted By: Derek
Date Posted: 05-05-2009 at 12:03pm

Were your Legend games largely low-scoring, Slumber? 



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Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 05-05-2009 at 12:26pm
Not for my opponents! Smile

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Posted By: Mike_S
Date Posted: 05-05-2009 at 3:34pm
"Lost in the opener to the Reds, 6-5, after taking the lead in the bottom of the 11th, and then giving up a two-run walkoff bomb with my closer on the mound.  Fun game though".  That's the type of thing that happens in my season all the time!!  :-) Don't mind too much as long as it's fun...

Anyway, got in a two-game set in my season against Detroit last night.

Tim Hudson pitched well in the first game and picked up his first win of the season.  Carlos Beltran who has been hitting around .150 for the year so far finally busted out with 3 doubles.  We won, 6-3.

The second game was an odd one.  It was a pitcher's duel at first that became a slugfest late.  Mark Mulder was awesome early, and El Duque pitched well for the Tigers.  The early highlight was that El Duque tried his "El Droppo" lob ephis pitch for the first time in the fifth inning, and Sean Casey deposited it in the bleachers!  Unfortunately, Mudler then tired and walked some guys and then gave up some runs -- and then the bullpen got absolutely destroyed with 2 three-run bombs.  We went down 10-2, then had an unexpected big rally in the last two innings, but it wasn't enough.  Lost it 12-9.

We're now 3-9, 5 GB in the East, with a big 3-game division series against TB (7-5) coming up.  TB has two great players in A-Rod and Gus Campbell (a former Rookie-of-the-Year fictional player who just kills us) but the rest of their team is typically only fair.  For us the hitting is starting to come around, but the bullpen has been pretty bad lately, I think I'm going to try to re-arrange the roles a little bit, we need a nice stretch to get back toward .500.





Posted By: TedSGN
Date Posted: 05-05-2009 at 5:28pm
Mike, I'm tempted to hook up my xbox and play high heat again.  What settings do you use?

Edit:  Went back and read your first post.  MVP level.  So what exactly are the small slider adjustments you made?  I'll just try MVP for now.


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Posted By: JasonSGN
Date Posted: 05-05-2009 at 5:45pm
Originally posted by TedSGN

Mike, I'm tempted to hook up my xbox and play high heat again.  What settings do you use?


Is High Heat 2004 not compatible with the Xbox 360?

I've been tempted to play my PS2 version.


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Posted By: TedSGN
Date Posted: 05-05-2009 at 5:48pm
The lists say it is, but every time I put it in the 360 it just spins and then doesn't play.  Like it doesn't recognize the disk or the game.  It works in my xbox so it isn't the game.

Is there something I have to do besides just throw it in the 360?


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Posted By: Mike_S
Date Posted: 05-06-2009 at 3:42pm
No idea if HH2004 is compatible with the 360 or not.  I think it SHOULD be, we weren't doing anything strange that would make it non-compatible, but who knows.

Both PS2 and XBox versions of the game play well.  The XBox got a bit more late development time, so a lot of very small "odd and end" bugs occur in PS2 that I have not seen in XBox. 

The last few versions of HH are "meant", in theory, to be played on MVP settings.  If you are an "average" quality arcade player -- by "average", we're talking about the average of gamers who worked in our office and helped play-test tuning, so that's actually pretty good by real world standards -- your player stats and game results should come out very close to what you'd expect.  Pitching is harder, as you need to be knowledgeable and quite unpredictable to get "standard" stats on MVP.  All-Star is a little easier for both batting and pitching, but not much.  Without question, All-Star and MVP difficulty settings are the only two I would expect to give you relatively-true stats without much slider tweaking.  And HOF is just super-hard unless you are a great reflex/arcade player.

Now here's where things break down a bit, hence the need to utilize sliders a little:

- Most of the game tuning was done on the PS2 version.  XBox has better frame rate, so doing well on hitting is slightly easier.

- Different parks will give slightly-different results than they should, in that the sim engine deals with things like park effects internally, but then the 3D models of the stadiums affect the game physics in ways that aren't always exactly corresponding.  If you choose a team that plays in a "standard"-size, limited-odd-angles field like Yankee Stadium,this problem is minimized.

- It's hard to strike out much for experienced HH players batting at default settings; it was tuned that way because most gamers don't want to strike out unless "they" miss the ball arcade.  Especially on the XB version due to the improved frame rate.  I would personally rather strike out 5-6 times a game for realism, and always have the threat of the strikeout, even if once in a while it feels like I swing "through" the ball.

- The game was made after the 2002 season.  At that time, teams scored around 11 runs per game (between both teams).  Offense has scaled back a bit since then -- now teams are scoring something more like 9 runs per game.  So making it feel "right" for now is not what felt exactly right then.  It depends on your personal level of tolerance in believability...

The key slider adjustments to play with are the Human Hitting, Human Power, CPU Hitting, and CPU Power.  If your stats aren't belivably right after a bunch of games, this is where to play around.  The other key one is about Human Strike Outs (don't remember the actual name offhand, I think it may be "Contact Ease" or something like that).

Slight adjustments to these make a big difference over time in regard to stats.  Moving a Hitting Slider one notch roughly corresponds to 30 points difference in batting average -- which is the difference from a team hitting .270 or .300.

My personal settings are something like (with 5 being default middle value):
- Human Hitting: 4
- Human Power: 7
- CPU Hitting: 6
- CPU Power: 6
- Human Contact Ease (?): 3

YMMV.  I play in Fenway which is not an "average" park.  I also have a speedy, low-power team which might explain the need for Power = 7. 

I think all my other sliders are at default, with maybe injuries and errors bumped up a little (7??)

One other interesting slider is "Simulation".  At default, this balances your arcade input and the players' stats in creating results.  If you max this out, your players' stats should come out just about perfect -- but there'll be times when it feels like you barely make contact with the ball and then it goes flying out for a Home Run.  For me, I'd rather play at default and then tweak the key sliders above to balance out any small weirdnesses.

I'd start by playing at either All Star or MVP, play 10 games or so, and see where your team stats are at for Batting, Pitching, and Fielding.  Since my first season (48 games) I don't think I've touched any sliders.

Have fun!!








Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 05-07-2009 at 8:45am
I picked up HH2004 on the way home yesterday on a lark, and yes Ted, it should work on the 360.  Maybe the most recent back-compat update never triggered properly on your system?  Who knows.

It's a shock to the system visually, coming from the PS3, that's for sure.  But I played HH2002 on the PS2 to death, so I'm used to the High Heat "environment" overall and it doesn't bother me too much.  Should be fun to have around and spin out a couple fantasy drafts, etc.  Robbie Alomar is still on the Mets in the default rosters.  Wow, bad memories.  Pitch speed seems crazy slow now, though... is there a slider for that, and does increasing the pitch speed change the physics at all, Mike?

My second game in the new Show franchise was a wild one... a back and forth affair that I finally won 9-7.  Balls were flying out of the park for both teams, which was fun to see.

One thing I'm doing different this time around is guess pitch set to no feedback, which feels a little more intellectually honest than flashing red boxes and an unfair advantage in stealing bases when you know a fastball isn't coming.




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Posted By: TedSGN
Date Posted: 05-07-2009 at 10:16am
My fifth starter, Carlos Silva, edged a win in a 2-1 victory over the Twins in Minnesota.  Silva went 6 innings, giving up 10 hits and 1 ER while striking out 2 and walking two, improving his record to 2-3.  I was able to work out of a couple of bases loaded jams that were pretty tense.  On the first one with no outs, I struck out the next batter and then got the batter after that to ground into a DP.

We got on the board early, but couldn't muster any offense in the last 6 innings.  Good enough for the win, but it was all pitching that won this one. 

After simming the next two games in Minnesota our record is 18-14 as we travel to Texas.


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Posted By: Derek
Date Posted: 05-07-2009 at 1:28pm
I'm now 0-7 on All-Star, a far worse streak than I've ever had on HOF.  Crazy, but the CPU is hitting me like mad at this level.
 
Also, Slumber, I *think* you get highlights if you don't skip over ('x'-out of) an in-game flashback to a previous HR or something. (which if you're like me, you do accidentally all of the time!) This was mentioned at OS, and in a very limited amount of personal testing, seems to be proving true.


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Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 05-07-2009 at 1:37pm
I skip those all the time by accident.  How am I supposed to remember who hit a home run?

I'm hoping they are still going to mini-patch that problem out.


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Posted By: JasonSGN
Date Posted: 05-07-2009 at 2:10pm
I guess there's no two-patch limit on Sony's games?

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Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 05-07-2009 at 2:23pm
I guess not.  I hear the mini-patch to fix highlights drops tomorrow.

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Posted By: Mike_S
Date Posted: 05-07-2009 at 3:15pm
"My fifth starter..." - That's awesome, I love when lesser players play critical roles in season games.  It's one of the reason my franchise mode has been so fun.

"HH Pitch speed seems crazy slow now, though... is there a slider..."  Yes, there are sliders to change all the pitch speeds.  If you speed them up, it will change how well you hit the ball as well as how often you strike out, which may require some tuning on the Human Contact/Human Power/Human Contact Ease sliders to balance.  Additionally, it may change stolen base percentages, which can be balanced by the Human and CPU Catcher SB Throwing sliders.  Other than that, I think the rest of the game physics should work fine.  (BTW, this is an example of why I don't like to change many sliders -- changing one can affect so many others...)


Anyway, we got in two games last night, both against Tampa Bay at home.

First one: Carl Crawford led off the last of the first with an HR, but it was all downhill from there.  Barry Zito held us to 3 hits and Adam Eaton got absolutely rocked for the second straight time as Tampa won it 9-1.

Second one: Brad Penny gave up a 3R HR to A-Rod early, but was otherwise great through 6.2 innings.  We played small-ball and eeked out single runs in the 3rd, 5th, 6th, and 7th to take a 4-3 lead.   I gave Juan Pierre a random start and he knocked in 2 of the runs.  Then Steve Karsay, Eddie Guardado, and finally new closer Colby Lewis kept them down for the win.  The final batter hit a long fly-ball that looked gone but was caught at the wall to save the game -- similar to the end of the actual A's/Mariners game last night that I saw right before playing HH!! :-)

We're now at 4-10, still 5 GB in the East, one more game with Tampa left before Baltimore comes in.






Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 05-07-2009 at 3:28pm
One thing I always loved about High Heat (and it's true in '04) is how the batter's swing is tied 1:1 to how long you press the button, which makes check swings very natural.  I'm not sure it's a mechanic that works well with the kind of pitch speeds you see in The Show now, but it's cool.

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Posted By: TedSGN
Date Posted: 05-07-2009 at 6:53pm
Brandon Morrow pitches a 5 hit shutout, striking out 10 and walking 1 to lead the Mariners 5-0 over Texas.  We jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the top of the 1st after Brandon McCarthy walked the first two batters, the fourth batter and then gave up two hits.  He recovered and pitched two more innings before the Texas bullpen, for the most part, shut us down.  The final run came in the top of the 9th of an off the wall double by Jose Lopez that scored a run.  The simmed games to finish the Texas series results in an overall record of 19-16 as we return home to face Boston.  It will be Felix Hernandez v. Josh Beckett in our first meeting against an east coast team this season.

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Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 05-08-2009 at 9:34am
I had about 20 minutes before I had to hit the sack last night and did a really fun fantasy draft for the Pirates in High Heat.  At this point it looks like an All-Star team but taking into account when the game was made, a lot of dudes hadn't quite established themselves yet. 

CF Ichiro
2B Pokey Reese
LF Carlos Beltran
RF Andruw Jones
1B David Ortiz
3B Mike Lowell
SS Alex Cora
C Ramon Castro

...with guys like Placido Polanco, Todd Zeile, J.D. Drew and all-time fave Tsuyoshi Shinjo on the bench.  Starting rotation:

Roy Halladay
Johan Santana
Cliff Lee
Livan Hernandez

...and someone else who I forget.


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Posted By: Mike_S
Date Posted: 05-08-2009 at 3:44pm
That looks cool.  You're definitely right that as of late 2002 when those rosters were finalized players were much different than they are now.  My first Sox team in my franchise had young Josh Beckett and young Jake Peavy, and they both were pretty bad.  I moved them.  Peavy is still bad, but Beckett has blossomed -- and of course now pitches for Tampa Bay, a division rival :-(

In our league: Jones is very good, Beltran is solid.  Ortiz is decent-at-best (kind of like real-life this season so far).   JD Drew beat me with a home run in a game last week and has good stats.  Halladay is very strong, Santana not so much. 



Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 05-08-2009 at 3:48pm
Fascinating.  Funny you mention Peavy, he's the third starter I couldn't remember.  Maybe I'll find room for Drew in the starting lineup if he's so solid... does he play anything other than outfield?

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Posted By: Mike_S
Date Posted: 05-08-2009 at 4:04pm
I don't know Drew's position familiarity offhand.  In our league he usually bats sixth for Toronto and plays RF.

Some guys definitely played different positions then than now.  For example, Pujols plays LF for the Yanks in the league, and Nomar plays SS for Cleveland...

If you open up the player stats (I think it's Square button on PS2,  X button on XBox) you can go right a screen or two and see the position familiarities.


Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 05-09-2009 at 4:15pm
High Heat... fun stuff.  The pitches seemed so slow because of the default 'zoom' camera.  Changed to low, it's much more normal.  Ted, if you get this working, I recommend 'low' batting cam, turning off the 'action' fielding camera (it's disorienting) and enabling vibration, since any sense of oomph is hard to come by when making contact.

Game one with my Pirates, was down 4-3 in the 9th at Cincinnati when Mike Lowell sent one into the stands with a man on base for an unexpected win.

Game two, Santana puts forth a great effort, leaving after the 7th with a 2-1 lead on the strength of two solo shots by Beltran and Ichiro, then John Franco (remember him?) craps the bed in a setup role, and we lose 5-2.  Yeowch.


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Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 05-11-2009 at 9:49am
I need to take a break from The Show for a couple days.  Something Web has alluded to... I feel like there are shifting variables and conditions put in place to ensure "variety" and mimick the streakiness of real-life baseball, all the while making me feel like I have very little effect on the outcome.  It's more like playing the game so that it can reveal to me over the course of nine innings what kind of game it has decided I'm going to have.

Maybe it's just a phase, but I'm having more fun playing through Lost & The Damned right now (GTA).


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Posted By: TedSGN
Date Posted: 05-11-2009 at 10:33am
MLB 2k9 FTW?

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Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 05-11-2009 at 10:39am
No I hate that game too. Smile

Seriously, All-Star in that game, I feel like I can hit at will, Legend is too hard, and don't get me started on the CPU throwing only strikes.  What do you do with the sliders in that game, turn the CPU Throw Strikes slider all the way down to 0?  It's confusing how it can be at 35 to start with and 9 out of 10 pitches is in the (already enormous) strike zone.


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Posted By: Mike_S
Date Posted: 05-11-2009 at 3:14pm
Got in four games late last night in my season...

Final game against Tampa Bay: Nick Neugebauer my fifth starter had 2 great starts so far.  Not this time.  A-Rod homered and Tampa won it 10-6 and it was never close.

First of three against Baltimore (last year's AL East Champs): Tim Hudson was not sharp, and gave up 6 runs in 5 innings.  I tried out a few call-ups in the bullpen and it got completely out of hand.  Luis Brown (their fictional #1 starter) scattered 8 hits and we had by far our worst loss in our 5-season franchise, 16-0.

At this point, I seriously considered tuning the game down a bit, as our pitching has inexplicably been getting absolutely rocked lately.  But I decided to stick with it for at least one more game, and...

Second of three against Baltimore: Mark Mulder, our ace right now, was once again fantastic and just shut Baltimore down.  We had no hits for four innings, but managed 4 in the fifth and scored 2 runs.  Mulder had shut them out for 8 innings on 4 hits, but was tiring in the 9th.  They managed three hits and a run.  Colby Lewis came in to get Richie Sexson on a key foul out, followed by a pop fly from Miguel Olivo to get the save.  Sox 2, O's 1.  Mulder is now 3-1 with an ERA in around 2.30.

Final game against Baltimore: Adam Eaton pitching.  Last season he was really good, but so far this season he's been battered in all three starts.  If he pitches bad in this one, he's out of the rotation.  It looked bleak after the second batter homered to make it 2-0 early, but then he was really strong.  We finally came to life offensively, and blew it open in the late innings.  Eaton pitched into the seventh, Will Cordero hit 2 HR (his first of the year), and we won it in a laugher, 12-3.

So now we're 6-12, still 6 GB in the East.  We're doing OK after the poor 2-8 start, but we still need a nice run to get back toward .500.  The next two games are against the White Sox (who have a worse record than us), then three with the Yanks who lead the AL East.  That'll take us about to the halfway point of the season.



Posted By: TedSGN
Date Posted: 05-11-2009 at 8:43pm
Originally posted by Slumberland

No I hate that game too. Smile

Seriously, All-Star in that game, I feel like I can hit at will, Legend is too hard, and don't get me started on the CPU throwing only strikes.  What do you do with the sliders in that game, turn the CPU Throw Strikes slider all the way down to 0?  It's confusing how it can be at 35 to start with and 9 out of 10 pitches is in the (already enormous) strike zone.


Baseball must be hard for developers because there must be such a vast range of skill levels of people that play their game.

I use these sliders  http://www.operationsports.com/forums/2k-sports-major-league-baseball-sliders/306470-fun-mlb-2k9-sliders.html - http://www.operationsports.com/forums/2k-sports-major-league-baseball-sliders/306470-fun-mlb-2k9-sliders.html    with the only changes being  Human and CPU fielder speed down to 50 from 60 and Human and CPU baserunning speed up to 60 from 50.  Also, I think the camera settings are important with these sliders, especially pitching because from far back it is hard to pin point your aim since the ball aim icon is larger than the catchers glove at this distance.  If you move the camera up when batting it might actually make batting harder since being farther away seems to give me more time to react and I find it easier to differentiate balls and strikes.

I'm probably not anywhere near as good a hitter as you and Web so this might be too easy for you guys.  I actually see about the same amount of pitches from the CPU as he sees from me and I always pitch it where the catcher calls for it even if it means walking in a run or pitching it right down main street for a power hitter.  I get and give about two walks per game and strikes to balls ratios are around 2:1 on average with most games seeing a relatively low 100 to 120 pitches on both sides.

FWIW

Oh and so as not to completely get off topic, my Mariners have struggled a bit late and have dropped to second place in the AL West with a 22-20 record.


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Posted By: JasonSGN
Date Posted: 05-11-2009 at 9:26pm
I may have to give those sliders a try because the ONLY thing bothering me with 2K9 is the outfield play - every other aspect of this game is so much fun, including the infield play. My issue is not with EVERY fly ball to the outfield - it seems like it's just the ones that I don't have to run for.

What I find myself doing is playing my own type of mini-game in the fielding practice option - I play one hundred total pitches and try to get the best hit-to-out ration I can. So far I've held the batter to 30 hits and 70 outs twice.

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Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 05-12-2009 at 10:20am
"Baseball must be hard for developers because there must be such a vast range of skill levels of people that play their game."

Absolutely... plus people want to see results within a certain range of believability, all the while feeling like they are in control of their own destiny.  It's a tough proposition.


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Posted By: Mike_S
Date Posted: 05-12-2009 at 3:00pm
"Absolutely... plus people want to see results within a certain range of believability, all the while feeling like they are in control of their own destiny.  It's a tough proposition."

That's what the skill levels and sliders are supposed to be for -- and then people complain that the game isn't tuned right and that the developers use sliders as a crutch!! :-)




Posted By: TedSGN
Date Posted: 05-13-2009 at 1:24am
Mariners drop to 22-23, getting swept by the Giants at home.  My game was Eric Bedard vs. coverboy Lincecum who was a friggin unhittable robot.  I lost 6-1 and scored the one run in the bottom of the 9th off an Ichiro single, a hit and run Betancourt single, and a Griffey sac fly.  We had 5 hits to their 16, 6 strikeouts on each side, and 1 BB on each side.

I'm in a real hitting slump right now.


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Posted By: Mike_S
Date Posted: 05-15-2009 at 3:22pm
Will be taking two weeks off from work, and probably off-line most or all of that time -- so no updates on my franchise for a while.  May play a few games if time permits though.

Hope to see updates on your seasons when I get back!!


Posted By: Mike_S
Date Posted: 05-18-2009 at 3:18am
OK, played a bunch of games tonight and it was amazing enough that I'm posting from home for the first time... :-)

2-game-set against Chicago White Sox (whose record is similar to ours).

First game: Brad Penny pitched very well and we got lots of singles, but we couldn't string them together and showed no power, and we trailed 4-1 entering the 9th.  Their closer couldn't do much though, and suddenly we had an unexpected rally.  We got it to 4-3 with 2 on and 2 out...and Juan Pierre delivered a pinch hit to tie it up!  Carl Crawford followed with another hit to win it!  4 runs in the 9th, and a 5-4 walk-off win!  This was maybe our third-ever big 9th inning rally in the 4.5 seasons I've played so far, just so unexpected and gratifying.  It also meant a 3-game winning streak for us!

Second game: Riding the momentum of the win, Nick Neugebauer pitched great.  Unfortunately we again couldn't get the key hit, and we were shut out, 3-0.

Next: 3-game-set against the division-leading Yankees.  They have three great RH power hitters in Pujols, Jeff Kent, and Marty Rice (fictional but good), and the top pitching stats in the AL thus far.  I felt like we needed 2 out of 3 to feel like we were back in the race.

First game: Tim Hudson was not sharp, giving up single runs in the first three innings, but he was gritty and kept us in it, as did the bullpen.  Mark Buehrle was phenomenal for New York, at one point retiring 18 straight batters.  It was the closest thing I've seen to being no-hit in High Heat, ever.  I had only 2 singles through 8 innings.  Regardless, it remained 3-0 entering the 9th.  Carl Crawford was hit by a pitch, and with 2 out Carlos Beltran got our third hit of the game.  Aubrey Huff was up next, abd he's our top RBI guy, and I laughed to myself that all we needed was a homer -- remember that we hadn't scored for 17 straight innings since our great rally.  Lo and behold he pounded one into the bullpen and it was 3-3!!  I was freaking out!   Unfortunately, we couldn't finish it off.  In the 11th, two errors and a great bunt by New York led to two runs, and we lost it 5-3.  I just couldn't believe that we tied it but still lost.

Second game: Two of the top pitchers in the AL, Mark Mulder (3-1) vs. Dannys Baez (3-0), so I expected another low-scoring game, and that's what it was.  I decided that if we weren't hitting for power, we were going to play for single runs using our speed.  Both pitchers were outstanding.  We played great fundimental baseball, and got a run on a Huff sac fly in the third.  Both pitchers got into jams, but worked their way out.  New York finally broke through in the 7th, and it was 1-1.  In the last of the 7th we eeked out another run on a walk, a balk, and a Carl Crawford base hit to lead 2-1.  Both teams were into their bullpens.  We survived an error in the top of the 8th, then got another sac fly in the bottom half to make it 3-1.  Colby Lewis saved it for an intense win.  This snapped an 8-game win streak for New York.

Third game: Our hitting finally came to life early with 3 doubles and a triple, and a 4-1 lead after 4 behind Adam Eaton.  I figured with how our pitching had been shutting people down lately, we were on our way.  Suddenly it all turned around.  Their bullpen was fantastic, and David Segui (of all people) hit two 2-R homers as the Yanks exploded against Eaton and the bullpen for a 10-4 win.  Eaton has now had 4 bad starts out of 5 tries, and is being demoted out of the rotation for now.  After giving up only 5 HR all last year in 10 starts, he has given up an amazing 15 this season through 5 starts.

So we are now 8-15, and 8.5 games back of the Yankees.  Remember that we started 2-8, so we're just 1 game under .500 since, but what really hurts is that New York has won 10 of 11 and opened up a big lead on the rest of the division.  We now have a 2-game set in Cleveland (pretty good), and follow that with a short homstand against Oakland (bad) and KC (ok).

I may play a bit tomorrow time permitting, but really am going on vacation after that for over a week.  Will play and post again eventually, and look forward to catching up on others' seasons.








Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 05-23-2009 at 6:55pm
I'm doing my best impersonation of the '62 Mets so far in my post-patch, restarted season (on Legend after all... I just can't resist).  A record of 2-8 in my first ten games, hallmarked by a surprisingly ineffective Santana (0-2 with an ERA in the high 5's) and tons of runners left in scoring position.  

Game 10 really ran the gamut from promising, to infuriating, then back again.  Santana is pitching a shutout into the 5th despite control issues, then lets two on to start the inning.  Gets a ground ball right near third base, I figure I'll step on the bag and then throw to first for the double play, but Wright launches into this awkward tag animation with the runner approaching and misses him all together.  Bases loaded now with no outs, Santana somehow gives up a single to Jeff Suppan next, and everything goes to sh*t, including a David Wright over-throw of first base.  When the dust settles, it's a six run inning and I'm down 6-3.  Yeargh.

Hung in there anyway, scratched back for a couple, then gave up a home run, eventually went into the bottom of the ninth down 7-5.  Single by Daniel Murphy, pinch hitting for Ramon Castro because he is fat.  Alex Cora, the last man on the bench, hits for the pitcher Stokes and grounds one to Prince Fielder at first, who boots it into the air behind the bag... men on first and third, no outs.  Jose Reyes singles to center to get one back, so men on first and second.  Luis Castillo comes oh so close to hitting one down the right field line, but it's just a bit too low and Fielder snags it for the first out.  Carlos Beltran excuse-me-swings one into left to score Cora.  And then Carlos Delgado, who already has a home run, a double off the wall, and 3RBI's on the day sends one back up the middle to bring Reyes home from second for the winning run.

Glad I didn't turn off the PS3 in frustration after the fifth inning.


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Posted By: Derek
Date Posted: 05-26-2009 at 9:36am
2-2 now with my Yanks on All-Star after the patch.  I decided to bite the bullet and make this my 'real' season, using rosters with Arod back but Posada out, etc.
 
Mo blew a save for a heartbraking loss in game 3, but came back strong in game 4 to nail down the game with a 5 pitch ninth.


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Posted By: Mike_S
Date Posted: 06-01-2009 at 3:33pm
Wow, great 8-7 win in the last inning!!

Back from vacation, played a little here and there.  Our Sox 2007 team is now 11-21 and tied for 4th in the AL East -- and starting to play a bit for next year (since I'm only playing 48-game seasons).  The biggest news is that right before the trading deadline I moved the struggling Adam Eaton and a prospect for Carlos Lee.  That made Jacque Jones expendable, and I moved him to take a flier on Eric Milton.  Our hitting is really starting to come on now, but our pitching remains terribly inconsistent.  We need to use the remaining games to figure out who is likely to help next year, then make moves to bolster the staff during the off-season.


Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 06-01-2009 at 3:54pm
At this point my greatest skill is restarting my franchise.  I think I'm on number four or five now!

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Posted By: Derek
Date Posted: 06-02-2009 at 11:19am
I'm 3-5 now with the Yankees, and had a really, really enjoyable game last night against the Rays.  Pettitte started the game and was struggling mightily, mightily, for the first two innings.  He was hitting batters, walking people left and right, had no control and then quickly no confidence in any of his pitches.
 
He fought like crazy, though only giving up 2 runs in the first inning when it seemed headed for 7, left 2 men on, and had thrown 31 pitches!
 
Inning two started the same way.  The guy had nothing.  Somehow he only allowed 1 more run.  59 pitches after two innings.  I have played this game many, many times and usually a guy who was pitching as bad as Andy was would have been past the point of no return. 
 
Somehow, though, he struggled back.  He sucked it up, and with still really no control, he pitched three scoreless following to keep the guys in the game.  His confidence had been only a sliver above empty, and when I took him out after 5 with 111 pitches it was near full.  I have never seen such a complete turnaround in this game.
 
Anyway, I hit back to back HRs with Cano and Swisher after Andy's last inning and took a 4-3 lead.  Then the Yanks bullpen, which is as awful in the game as in real life, managed to give me 4 more scoreless, using a different guy each inning.  Coke's inning was dreadful, too, but he managed to pull it out.
 
I tacked on one more, got the win, and though the score showed a typical 5-3 game, I felt like I had earned it more than almost any other I played, in that I was constantly struggling, constantly dodging bullets, constantly getting out of bad situations.  Neat too that Pettitte is known for that.  (in addition to his pharmaceutical dalliances)
 
I guess I appreciate it more too, because in this darn game at least one of those innings usually explodes into something ugly.


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Posted By: Mike_S
Date Posted: 06-10-2009 at 4:30pm
OK, the 2007 Red Sox High Heat Season is now complete.  We went 19-29, and finished 5th in the East, 13GB of the Yankees, who won their first World Championship.  We probably could have finished fourth or even third, but I was playing to see which pitchers could help for next year and it definitely cost us a couple of games.

Our team hitting ranked 11th in the AL in all key categories: .269 Average, 43 HR, and 219 Runs Scored (4.6 RPG).  Remember that we were HORRIBLE for the first 15-20 games, way last in all categories; the offense really came on strong after we got Carlos Lee, and I'm cautiously optimistic for next season.

On other other hand: Our team pitching, after finishing 1st or 2nd in the AL in most key stats in 2006, was 13th in all key categories this season: 5.08 ERA, 20 Quality Starts, and a 53% save percentage.  Tim Hudson was much worse this season, Adam Eaton went from great to horrible to traded, and the bullpen was inconsistent until we rearranged roles.

The big questions for the offseason are all about pitching, and particularly the rotation.  Right now there's Mark Mulder and a lot of question marks:

- Tim Hudson had a 5.97 ERA, and his ERA has risen each of the last three years; I am probably going to try to move him. 
- Brad Penny had a 4.81 ERA, and seems like a 4th-or-5th starter at best. 
- Nick Neugebarger showed flashes, pitching well late in the year; he was 0-3 but had a 4.44 ERA and is only 26 years old (so he may still be improving).
- Stan Sheridan was my top draft pick in the 2005/2006 draft and he finally got the call mid-season.  He had his moments, but was 1-3 with a 5.73 ERA so I still don't think he's really ready.
- Marc Glenn is my other rookie pitcher.  He had a 3.86 ERA, but only pitched 14 innings and has limited endurance, he'll probably move to the bullpen.

The bullpen was better in the second half, but my big worry there is age.  My top two setup men, Eddie Guardado and Steve Karsay, are 35 and 36 and I've seen a lot of relief pitchers just lose it  in the game as they get older.  Colby Lewis was strong as a closer, and is 27 years old.  I'd consider putting him in the rotation if absolutely necessary, but he wasn't as strong this season in his spot start and middle relief as he was as the closer.

There's not a lot of pitching help down on the farm.  None of my top pitching prospects are ready.  However I do have a number of good position players in AAA who hopefully can bring me pitching via trades.  I am scouring pitching rosters for teams that are pitching-deep but hitting-poor and will see what I can make happen.

With any luck I'll get through the offseason this week.


Are any of you still playing your seasons ?




Posted By: TedSGN
Date Posted: 06-10-2009 at 7:06pm
Great stuff, Mike.

My season is still sitting there when I'm ready to continue.  UFC has all my attention right now.


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Posted By: Mike_S
Date Posted: 06-11-2009 at 3:21pm
OK, had to work late last night and didn't have dinner 'til midnight, but just HAD to do the offseason stuff (stayed up almost all night trying to find the best deals) and here are the results:

Damian Jackson, Wil Cordero, and Juan Pierre retired.  Pierre was turning 30 this season and is coming off of a good year, his is the first retirement so far in my career mode that has surprised me.

Eli Marrero was released.  We signed Preston Wilson as a backup outfielder/possible DH.

We sent Tim Hudson and a top outfield prospect to SL for Shawn Chacon.  Chacon is 30, and was 6-3 with a 3.39 ERA last season.  I love Hudson but he's really been digressing as he ages in High Heat.  I had hoped to be able to turn those two players into two pitchers, but couldn't get two quality starters so I took a flier that Chacon may be a legitimate #2 starter for us.

We moved Tim Spooneybarger, Eric Milton, and a decent catching prospect to Florida for Ben Sheets.  Neither of the pitchers were making our ML roster, but Sheets hasn't been able to crack Florida's awesome rotation for 2 seasons so we'll see how it goes.  Regardless, he hopefully should at least be better than the plethora of #5 starters we had this season.

We traded Jeff Zimmerman, Michael Tejera, and a good 2B prospect to Cincinnati for a fictional Pitcher named Fred Good who's an up-and-coming lefthander (2-1, 2.21 as a starter and long-reliever in limited experience).  Neither Zimmerman nor Tejera figured to play major roles for us this season.

So the pitching staff for the opening day roster shapes up as follows:

Rotation: Mark Mulder (L), Shawn Chacon, Ben Sheets, Nick Neugebauer, and Brad Penny.
Long Relief: Stan Sheridan, Marc Glenn, and Fred Good (L) (all fictional, but all top prospects)
LOOGY: Bruce Chen (L)
Set Up: Steve Karsay, Eddie Guardado (L)
Closer: Colby Lewis

Hopefully this will be a big improvement on last season, but it'll mostly depend on consistency for the rotation and long relievers.

Our lineup is the same as last season, save for DH where fictional rookie Sandy Cox will get the first look, and Preston Wilson a possibility.  Two top prospects will get back-up roles at C and 1B.

Ready to start 2008!!  Probably play some games this weekend...




Posted By: Derek
Date Posted: 06-16-2009 at 9:57am
My Yanks are now 8-6 in the Show.  I've finally realized that unlike many other baseball games in the past, (include previous entries in this series) I cannot play this game while I'm riding the exercise bike.  The little bit of concentration and precisie control that I lose from that distraction is generally more than enough to cause me to lose a ballgame.
 
Jeter has come up amazingly clutch in the last few games after a dismal first few games where he had the lowest avg in my lineup.  I'm starting to LOVE it when it's CC's turn on the mound, as most of my other starters (Joba and Pettitte in particular) force me to endure tough battling/high pitchcount struggles that really make me weary.  CC's got the stuff and the Stamina to allow me some 'let's just see what you got' innings, and that is very, very refreshing.
 
 


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Posted By: Mike_S
Date Posted: 06-26-2009 at 3:50pm
OK, so here's the long-overdue High Heat Red Sox Career Mode update in case any of you care...

Per the last post, the pitching staff for 2008:

Rotation: Mark Mulder (L), Shawn Chacon, Ben Sheets, Nick Neugebauer, and Brad Penny.
Long Relief: Stan Sheridan, Marc Glenn, and Fred Good (L) (all fictional, but all top prospects)
LOOGY: Bruce Chen (L)
Set Up: Steve Karsay, Eddie Guardado (L)
Closer: Colby Lewis

The results early on were distressing:

Great: Nobody
Good: Lewis, Sheridan
OK: Chacon, Guardado
Bad: Mulder, Karsay
Absolutely Horrible: Everybody else.

Our hitting was actually pretty good, and almost every game was fairly close, but the awful pitching staff led us to a ridiculous 1-15 record.  We probably should have won 5 or 6 games, but our starters had poor endurance and our bullpen pretty much blew games time and again.  We lost big leads, we lost games on HRs on the last batter of the game, we lost games on errors in the 8th or 9th innings followed by big hits, we lost games on walks. We were 0-7 in 1-run games, and we got blown out early from time to time; we pretty much we lost in any way you can think of that the pitching could screw up.  I think our team ERA at that point was about 5.75.  When people used to complain of imaginary "Comeback Code" in High Heat, this was the stuff they were talking about. :-)

So I blew things up and tried to start playing in "plan for future" mode.  I cut a bunch of veterans, I tried out a lot of minor leaguers in different roles, and I made a few small trades.  Some things worked, others did not.

But then a funny thing happened -- We started pitching FANTASTIC and started winning a lot more games!!  We're up to 10-22, which is 9-7 since I started overhauling -- and currently are on a FIVE GAME WIN STREAK, including 2 wins each over division rivals Tampa Bay and New York.  We're only 3 games away from being in 4th place, which was unthinkinkable when we were 1-15.

Our new rotation:
   Stan Sheridan: Our top pick in the 2005-2006 draft has come into his own and currently leads the league in ERA at 1.88.
   Stan Kelly: Our top pick in the 2006-2007 draft is awesome, his ERA is around 3.00, and he has been almost as strong as Sheridan!
   Lafayette Pierce: A lower pick who's been in AAA for a while, he's so-far so-good with an ERA in the 3.70 range.
    Mulder: Getting older, losing control, effectiveness, and endurance.  Sometimes still wriggles out of trouble and has a good game, a decent #4 or #5 starter, but not what he was.
   Chacon: Pretty good, not great, but inconsistent.  Great for a #4 or #5 starter.

Our new bullpen:
   Neugebauer, Sheets, and Karsay are long-relief/mop-up
   Guardado, Scott Stewart, and Carlos Silva are pretty solid set-up
   Lewis is strong at closer.   

...and our season-long team ERA is down to about 4.60 right now, and falling!

Our offense has been fine.  Carl Crawford and Cristian Guzman are hitting and provide the speed, and Sean Casey and Aubrey Huff provide decent power. and clutch hits.  Casey is in the top 10 in the league in RBIs, and Huff is close.  Plus we just brought up Larry Henderson, the top position player taken in the 2007-2008 draft, and he's been doing well at 3B through a few games (4 for his first 8 AB or something like that).

The most amazing thing about it is how much fun it's been to see the transformation, and how optimistic I am for the future.  Sheridan and Kelly are not yet 25, and they've been pitching awesome.  It feels like they could anchor our staff for at least 3 seasons.  It feels like with the appropriate additions, we will contend legitimately in 2 seasons -- and may even have a chance next season if things break right. 

OK, things will probably start spinning badly again now that I've posted this, but we'll see.  Will update by off-season time.

Anyone else still playing their seasons ?




Posted By: TedSGN
Date Posted: 06-26-2009 at 4:06pm
Clap


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Posted By: JasonSGN
Date Posted: 06-26-2009 at 5:59pm
Great stuff Mike. I'm about to start a season with MLB 2K9 which may turn out to be my favorite Xbox 360 game of all time.

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Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 07-02-2009 at 11:42am
I like reading Mike's updates and want to give something similar a spin in The Show.  Did a fantasy draft with the Pirates and am going to run 29-game seasons and see how far I get.  I want to do off-season stuff and see different stadiums and whatnot, because a full 162-game slog with the murky conditions for success that this game has is not that fun.

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Posted By: Mike_S
Date Posted: 07-02-2009 at 4:00pm
Good luck with your "Show" season.  My biggest complaint with that game is how long it takes to play a whole game.  I struggle with High Heat games that take 25 minutes, I wish we could crank the game pace even faster so they would take about 10. :-)

Anyway, my 2008 season came to a close, we finished 19-29, 9 Games Back of Toronto in the East.  This seems about my average record, pretty bad, but considering we were 1-15 it feels like we were really coming on strong.

I went through the off-season stuff last night and just couldn't make any trades.  Nobody I wanted was available for what I wanted to consider giving up.   So I decided to hold my players for now and try to make trades later in the season as makes sense.

All I could do was try to strengthen my bullpen by picking up a few guys who were let go following 2008: Joe Mays, Scott Williamson, and Scot Shields.  I have tried to get Mays and Williamson via trade previously, so I am happy to get them without sacrificing anything. Shields has beaten me as TB's closer a number of times, I'm just happy he's off of a divisional rival, hopefully he has enough left to contribute in a set-up role.

2009 will depend on our young starting pitchers coming through plus our bullpen being more consistent.  We'll see how it goes...



Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 07-02-2009 at 7:47pm
After cataclysmic labor disputes shut down the 2008 season with the Phillies just one game away from World Series victory, the APBA (Abbreviated Professional Baseball Assocation) rose from the ashes in 2009 with a strictly enforced salary cap that put small markets back in the hunt for glory and a shortened season that placed higher importance upon each game.  Due to previously undiscovered loopholes in copyright law, the new league was able to capitalize on the equity of existing franchises and recreate the former MLB's franchises down to the last pinstripe, ensuring continuity and peace of mind for every baseball city, though not as far as personnel was concerned.  No, the great revenue sharing diaspora of 2009 shook the formerly held precepts of baseball business to their very core, with the new monetary framework forcing metropolitan-minded athletes to wonder if there might be beachfront property in Kansas City after all...

Ladies and gentlemen, your 2009 Pittsburgh Pirates!

2B David Eckstein
CF Mike Cameron
3B Evan Longoria
1B Prince Fielder
DH Ryan Zimmerman
RF Jay Bruce
LF Gary Sheffield
C Geovony Soto
SS Troy Tulowitski

Bench:
C Brian Schneider
RF Wily Mo Pena
LF Endy Chavez
CF Brett Gardner

Starters:
Tim Lincecum
Scott Kazmir
Randy Johnson
Andy Pettitte
Mike Pelfrey

Pen:
Phil Hughes
Scott Schoeneweis
Sean Green
Randy Flores
Russ Springer
Damaso Marte
Dan Wheeler

Game 1 (Pirates vs. Indians... the APBA took the rather unorthodox tack of starting the Pirates' season with interleague play on the road) promised to be a pitcher's duel and did not disappoint, with Tim Lincecum and Roy Halladay matching zeroes for five innings until the Pirates managed to push across a run on a sacrifice grounder.  Lincecum remained strong through eight, prompting manager Seth Berkowitz to send him out for the ninth despite a pitch count over the century mark.  Lincecum's magical day soon soured as he let up a leadoff double to Lastings Milledge, followed by an RBI single from Edgar Renteria to left (despite an excellent throw home from Sheffield).  A revolving door of pitchers kept the game tied to send it into extra innings, where after after two singles, Troy Tulowitski singled home Jay Bruce, with Phil Hughes locking down the save in the ninth.

PIRATES 2 8 0
INDIANS 1 7 0

W: Dan Wheeler (1-0)
L: Kevin Cameron (0-1)
S: Phil Hughes (1)


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Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 07-04-2009 at 9:19am
2-2 so far, with another 2-1 victory in game two, followed up by 9-4 and 8-3 losses.  Those losses both featured multi-run 5th innings for the CPU where it felt like nothing I did (managed pitchers according to confidence, made 'good' pitches if the meter means anything) could stem the tide.  Sound familiar Web?

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Posted By: Derek
Date Posted: 07-06-2009 at 9:38pm
I seem to get less of that on All-Star level, Slumber, but yes, I was seeing that all the time on HOF.

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Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 07-07-2009 at 9:27am
Believe it or not I decided to end my co-dependent and abusive relationship with The Show.  Looking at the list of all the things I'd like to accomplish this year, the hours I keep putting in trying to both make sense  of why what happens happens in this game as well as derive some fun from it just aren't worth it.  Alas!

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Posted By: Derek
Date Posted: 07-07-2009 at 12:12pm
Wow, powered off for the last time, huh?  Frankly, I've thought about it from time to time myself. 
 
The new Bigs is out... ;)


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Posted By: Mike_S
Date Posted: 07-07-2009 at 3:13pm
Started 2009 last night with a 3-game set at defending East Champ Toronto.  All games were interesting.

In the opener, Lafayette Pierce had some bad luck (key error, pop fly HR off foul pole) and we fell behind 5-0.  Then in the sixth, with two out, Victor Martinez got a key two-run single and Frank Jones (our second year first baseman -- good hitter, but no power) followed with his first career HR and it was 5-4!  We tied it 5-5 in the top of the 8th, but Joe Mays who had pitched three innings of shut-out relief gave up an HR and we lost it 7-5.

Game two featured the best pitching duel I have ever seen in High Heat Baseball.  Shawn Chacon had his best game yet for us by far -- 8 innings, 2 hits, nobody close to scoring.  On the other side Brad Shea -- the #2 starter for the Jays, has a 100 MPH tailing fastball and a mean splitter -- was also awesome.  We loaded the bases with no outs in the 4th on 2 singles and a walk, but a pop-fly and then an untimely Pitcher-Home-First DP ended the threat.  We had no further threats, and it was 0-0 going to the 9th when Sean Casey delivered a Homer!  In the last of the ninth, closer Colby Lewis walked a guy and got two outs, so JD Drew was up with a man on 2nd.  Normally I would go lefty-lefty, but Drew has beaten us with walk-off hits at least twice before so I left Lewis in and he got a pop-up to end it!!  It was the first 1-0 win I can remember in this franchise!!  Only 5 hits, and only 2 for the Jays!!

Game three was also pretty good -- we went up 3-1 early with our hard-luck starter Stan Kelly pitching well.  As usual, he pitched well but just couldn't get a win.  He lasted 6.2 and only gave up 2 ER, but it was 3-3 when he left.   Our now-utility IF Wally Clark had his first 2 ABs of the season late in the game and had a Homer and a Double to put us up 6-3 going to the last of the 9th.  Lewis came in to close it out and promptly gave up a walk and Homer to make it 6-5.  Another man got on, but Lewis then got the three outs and we held on for the 6-5 win!!

OK, 2-1, 1 Game Back of Tampa, and the next three games are in Tampa.  We'll see how it goes, but so far so good -- and already a heck of a lot better than our 1-15 start in 2008!! :-)



Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 07-13-2009 at 8:51am
I've been giving it a go with my previously formed fantasty Pirates in HH2004.  After winning the first game, we've dropped four in a row to the likes of the Reds and the Phillies (ah, Veterans Stadium).  Offense has been a slight problem, with only three guys hitting a lick; Beltran, Mike Lowell, and Ichiro, who's showing surprising pop.  Everyone else sucks so far (including David Ortiz) and Pokey Reese is lost out there, not getting a hit until the fourth game of the season.  Still, Andruw Jones is set to come back from injury which should help.  The real problem is that I'm getting lit up!  Guys are hitting dingers left and right off of my pitching staff.  Hopefully a short-lived phenomenon.

Mike, I remember from the 2002 version you could pitch off either side of the rubber... is that still the case in 2004?  I have no instruction booklet.  I also can't seem to get it to remember my home/away camera settings.

The game really flies with game speed set to "fastest".


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Posted By: Mike_S
Date Posted: 07-13-2009 at 3:49pm
Yes you can do the either-side-of-the-rubber thing, but I don't so I don't remember the controls.  I will try to look it up when I next play.  Glad you're having fun with the franchise so far.

My team is now 3-3 in 2009 after losing two of three to the first-place Rays.  We came all the way back from a 5-0 deficit to win the first 7-6, got shut down in a 4-1 loss despite a good performance by Mark Mulder, then came back from 4-0 down again only to lose 6-5 in the final game of the series.  Our starters aren't pitching up to snuff yet, but our bullpen has been great and the hitting has been too. 


Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 07-13-2009 at 10:54pm
I figured out the positioning on the rubber thing... hold direction and then press left shoulder button on 360.  Very nice.

Halladay had a great outing in my sixth game, going the distance and leading us to victory, 3-2 over the Phils.


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Posted By: Mike_S
Date Posted: 07-14-2009 at 1:05pm
I looked it up for you last night but you beat me to it!  Glad you figured it out.

Tough two game set with the White Sox last night.  Lost the first 4-3 despite a good outing from Shawn Chacon, then got ripped in the second, 7-4.  Pat Burrell had 3 HR in the 2 games for the White Sox and was a difference maker.  This leaves us at 3-5 and on a 4 game losing streak going into a long homestand that starts with 2 games against first-place Tampa.  Our starting pitching just hasn't been good enough yet.


Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 07-14-2009 at 11:01pm
Just had an incredible game that I could probably gush about in great detail, but I'll just say that we were losing 4-0 in the 8th, and we ended up winning 7-6 on a walk-off Pokey Reese single in the bottom of the 12th.  Brandon Inge and Ramon Castro both had huge home runs (in the 9th and the 11th, respectively) to keep the game going.  On the downside, we lost Ichiro for what appears to be months (!) with a sprained ankle.  Months for a sprained ankle!

3-4 thus far, 2.5 games out of first.


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Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 07-16-2009 at 8:09am
The injury bug is in full effect early on in my season.  First Ichiro out for months, now David Ortiz out for months as well with a torn tricep.  In Ichiro's case, J.D. Drew was able to step in (but it still threw my batting order into chaos), while todd Zeile does not exactly inspire confidence as Ortiz's replacement.  Jake Peavy also collapsed in the 2nd inning last night with an ankle problem, but he's day-to-day.  There's no one in AAA ready to help and we're already over payroll, so I've got no maneuverability.  It's like the Mets!

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Posted By: TedSGN
Date Posted: 07-18-2009 at 2:23pm
We just swept Baltimore at home bringing us to 29-25 and in 2nd place 3.5 back of the Angels.

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Posted By: Mike_S
Date Posted: 07-20-2009 at 4:52pm
Slumberland: That's amazing about your injury run.  In my 6 seasons so far, I'm yet to see anyone out with a months injury on my team -- hope that doesn't jinx things...

Ted: Cool that you're hanging in and could make a run at first!!

We played four games over the weekend, it was ecstasy and agony...Remember that we had dropped 4 straight to fall to 3-5 at the end of the previous road trip.

First two games against first-place Tampa.  Stan Sheridan was amazing in the opener, went 8 innings giving up only 2 hits and striking out 10!  Only one runner reached second base.  Best single-game pitching performance in my entire franchise so far. Carlos Lee -- who generally can't do a thing at the plate, but always seems to be in the middle of our key rallies -- drove in a run early and scored one later, and we hung on for a great 2-0 win. 

In the second, Mark Mulder was in-and-out of trouble through five, he got them to leave the bases loaded twice, but they finally got to him in the sixth and it was 3-3.  I was thinking "This is the type of game I would lose 9-3 in previous seasons", but the bullpen was awesome and we hit two homers late and won it 6-3.  Colby Lewis now has 5 saves in 5 appearances, and at 5-5 we're only 1 game back of now-first-place Toronto!!

Then two games against Cleveland, who were only 2-8 coming in.  I expected good things, but they didn't materialize as the offense went dead-silent in the first game.  We had a number of hits, but couldn't string anything together and couldn't score.  Down 3-0 in the ninth, one on, none out, Sean Casey hit a sure DP ball to the Pitcher who threw it into CF!  Two more hits and ANOTHER error later it was 3-3 with Carlos Lee on second and only one out!! But we couldn't deliver him and then in the 10th Cleveland scored 2 and won it 5-3.  What a let-down, though to be honest we didn't deserve the win.

Then in the second game Shawn Chacon was hot-and-cold and our offense remained comatose.  Cleveland won it 5-2, and it wasn't real close.

So we're now 5-7, 3 games back of the red-hot Yankees who are now in first place.  Out current homestand is a long and critical one, with Baltimore in for three games next, and both Toronto and New York coming in before we hit the road again.  Hopefully the hitting will wake up again vs. the O's.  Finally being in the race, even kind-of sort-of, even this early in the season, is FUN! :-)



The two biggest differences in this season:

- Our pitching is just SO MUCH BETTER than it has been previously, both starters and the bullpen

- Our team speed has gone from fantastic (from 2003-2007) to horrible in 2009.  We have three super-slow guys who are regulars in the lineup, with only 2 fast guys remaining; and our ability to move guys around the bases and manifacture runs is all-but-gone.

Still super-fun though, hope to play a few more tonight...




Posted By: TedSGN
Date Posted: 07-20-2009 at 6:51pm
Seattle improves to 31-26 after beating the Twins 2 out of 3 at home.  2 games back of the Angels and going on the road for a 9 game trip against Baltimore, Colorado, and San Diego.  Colorado is playing .500 ball and both Baltimore and San Diego are struggling below .500 so I'm hoping to see a strong push here to move us up.

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Posted By: TedSGN
Date Posted: 07-22-2009 at 12:01am
We took 2 of 3 from Baltimore to improve to 33-27 and just 1 game back of the Angels.  We won my game 8-1 with the following events of note:

Eric Bedard pitched a complete game, improved to 6-2 and struck out 11 batters, allowing only 1 earned run and 6 hits.

Ichiro extended his hitting streak to 14 games.

Ty Wiggington of Baltimore had his hitting streak halted at 13 games.

On to Colorado.


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Posted By: Mike_S
Date Posted: 07-22-2009 at 4:03pm
That's a nice touch with the hit-streak tracking.  We were in process of adding that for HH2005 when 3DO died... :-(

Anyway the Sox had a bad stretch, losing all 3 to lowly-regarded Baltimore a few nights ago.  First a 7-6 heartbreaker where Carl Crawford was thrown out at home in the 8th inning, then a 2-0 loss despite a great pitching performance from budding star Stan Sheridan, and finally a 12-3 thrashing in the finale where our bullpen couldn't get anyone out.

Then yesterday we started the Toronto series with a ridiculous 12-11 10-inning loss that I feel personally responsible for -- the wind was blowing out, everyone was hitting home runs, it was NOT an intense game and I wasn't as focused as normal; two bad baserunning decisions in the 9th cost us a chance to win, and not pinch-running for Sean Casey in the 10th (which I pretty much always do late in the game) cost us a chance to tie.  On a 6-game losing streak and fading, we  then rallied for 2 tremendous wins -- first a laugher behind Shawn Chacon (who has been pitching great) that ended closer-than-it-should-have 8-4, then a tight game which we eeked out 3-1 with single runs in the 7th and 8th to win it.

We're now 7-11, not great, but still not too far from .500 if we can keep the pitching consistent.  And our homestand still has 2 games against KC and 3 against the now-first-place Yankees left.

BTW a few pitching changes:

- Joe Mays, our newly acquired long reliever, has been hit hard and dropped in favor of new signing Doug Davis.  Davis pitched decently in long-relief in his first appearance.

- Lafayette Pierce, one of our three good-looking young starting pitchers from last season, has been blasted so far this season.  He's temporarily (at least) banished to the bullpen as a long-reliever, and Davis will get a chance to start in his spot next time around.




Posted By: TedSGN
Date Posted: 07-22-2009 at 8:05pm
We dropped 2 of 3 to Colorado, my game being the only win.  We're now 34-29 and still 1 game back of the Angels.

My start was a crazy roller coaster ride.  I hadn't had a game like this yet with 2k9 so it was very entertaining.  It was both teams 5th starters taking the mound, with mine being Carlos Jimenez who is actually a long reliever filling in for the injured Jarod Washburn.

Their starter was gone after the third and Jimenez only made it through four.

Here is the scoring line.

Team
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
R
H
E
Mariners
0
0
4
2
1
0
4
2
0
13
20
1
Rockies
0
0
3
3
4
0
2
0
0
12
22
1

Beltre was the Pepsi Clutch Performer tonight with a 4-4 performance including a 3 run and a 2 run HR.  It was his 2R HR in the 8th that won the game.

Obviously we went into the 9th up 1 run.  I had brought in Corcoran, our right handed setup/closer, late in the eighth when Lowe got into trouble, two outs men on 1st and 3rd.  Corcoran wrapped it up with a ground out so I continued with him in the 9th.  As a precaution I have warmed up our lefty setup/closer, Rowland-Smith.

Corcoran immediately gives up a lead off double to Tulowitzki.  Crap, we're going extra innings I thought.  And we're down to just Rowland-Smith in the bullpen.  Corcoran also loses some composure and his control gets wobbly.  I send the manager to mound to talk him down.  He seems to relax a bit so I let him continue. 

Man on 2nd, no outs.  Up comes right hander Iannetta.  Corcoran strikes him out looking on 3 straight pitches, the last being a high outside fastball that just caught the black.  Ianetta argued at the plate and went away mad.

Corcoran still in and his composure is hanging in there.  Up comes right hander Baker.  1st pitch a fastball strike.  Next pitch a circle change low and away for a ball.  Third pitch an outside fastball and Baker pops it high and foul between home and 1st.  2 outs.

Now, the batters on both teams have been punching the pitchers in the face the whole game and here comes lefty Todd Helton to the plate.  He's already got 3 hits.  Everyone is friggin hot.  I'm agonizing.  Corcoran is still pretty fresh with less than 20 pitches thrown.  He's looked solid except for that double.  And he has calmed down.  I don't want to manage myself out of the game.  Corcoran has been better than Rowland-Smith so far this season.  Yet, I just think I have to go with Rowland-Smith here and play the percentages.

Lefty v. Lefty.

1st pitch Helton takes a low fastball for a strike.  2nd pitch Helton watches a slider catch the black.  0-2.  I'm a little surprised when Johjima calls for the next pitch high and outside fastball, but still catching the plate.  I think about shaking him off, but don't.  I trust Kenji since he has been calling good games all season for me.  I throw the pitch and Helton hits it well, but right to Griffey, Jr.  who is playing left after pinch hitting earlier in the game.  3rd out, fist pumping time.  It was Mark Lowe, the fourth pitcher of record, who got the win.

On to San Diego.




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Posted By: Mike_S
Date Posted: 07-23-2009 at 3:20pm
Awesome game!!  FWIW Helton is awesome in my High Heat franchise, he has beaten me regularly...



Posted By: TedSGN
Date Posted: 07-23-2009 at 5:51pm
The Mariners finished up their 9 game road trip with slightly disappointing 4-5 record.  This brings us to 35-31 and we've dropped to 2.5 games behind Anaheim.

We dropped two of three to San Diego with my start being the only win again.  In what was a parallel universe type game to my last start, we took a strong lead only to have it whittled away as the innings progressed.  San Diego tied it late on a break out 7th inning that saw starter Morrow crumble and reliever Batista crash and burn.  Tyler Walker held the Padres down in the 8th. 

Corcoran and Rowland-Smith double teamed the final four batters.  After getting the lead off hitter to ground out, Corcoran gave up a hit to lefty Gerut.  He got Eckstein to fly out.  Rowland-Smith came in to face lefty big bat Adrian Gonzales and got him to ground out for the final out of the game.  Gonzales had hit his 14th HR of the season, a three run bomb, in the third inning to put the Padres on the board and start their rally.  And just like the big game in Colorado, Beltre hit the game winner with a solo dinger, his 10th of the season.  He leads the club now in HR's.

The starters for the game were:

Mariners Brendon Morrow 3-3 4.79 ERA
Padres Josh Geer 2-6 5.43 ERA

Scoring line

Team
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
R
H
E
Mariners
1
4
0
2
4
0
0
1
0
12
19
1
Padres
0
0
3
0
1
2
5
0
0
11
17
0

I should have pulled Morrow sooner.  I've been picking up some bits and pieces about when to pull a starter and didn't pull him soon enough according to some of the signs.

Mike, I'll ask you since you seem to be a real student of the game......the signs I start to look for to pull the starter (that I've picked up from different forums and blogs about baseball) are:

1.  Giving up 4 or more runs in 6 innings or less
2.  Giving up his 10th hit of the game
3.  100 pitches (unless it is late in the game and starter is going for something special)

If any of those criteria get met it's probably time for a reliever according to what I'm reading.  Morrow had reached 1 and 2 by the fifth inning.  He gave up two more in the sixth, but since we were five runs up I stuck with him.  Then San Diego exploded in the 7th.  Morrow gave up a single and a double to put men on second and third with no outs.  I brought in Batista.   Batista probably would have been crappy anyway, but I would have caught it much sooner and maybe prevented a save situation. 

Just wonder your thoughts.

We're going home for six games against Arizona and San Diego.


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Posted By: Mike_S
Date Posted: 07-24-2009 at 3:23pm
"Mike, I'll ask you..." (re: pulling a starting pitcher)

I'm not really an expert on this particularly topic, and I think the guidelines your using are decent. But in my experience there's way more "time and place" and "feel" involved (both in real MLB and also in video-game recreations).

A lot of it has to do with the pitcher's historic performance, the bullpen quality and tiredness, and the importance of an individual game.

For example: In HH, my "proven" starters get a lot of leeway.  If a top starter gives up 4 early, I'm usually willing to consider it just a blip and assume he'll settle down.  On the other hand if a 5th starter gives up 4, I expect it to continue and will give it the hook much more quickly.  Also, if I have a reliable long man whose rested, the starter's margin for error will be a lot less than if I only have 4 short relievers available and 5 or 6 innings left -- pulling a starter in that situation can really screw up a bullpen for a week!  And of course it depends if those 4 runs came via bombs vs. a couple bloop hits, errors, steals, etc., as well as if it's the deciding game of a series/pennant race as opposed to just a random game in mid-May.

Also, regardless of pitch count, if there are strong pitchers available in the bullpen I almost always consider using them in the late innings.  Even a good starter with reasonable pitch count is often tiring somewhat by the 6th or 7th innings. 

How long do you typically let your starters go in an average start ?  Mine are usually removed either in the 5th, 6th, or 7th.  It requires either a great preformance or a  weird bullpen situation to get them much into the 8th or 9th.  I think the real-life MLB average is somthing like 5.8 Innings-Per-Start.












Posted By: TedSGN
Date Posted: 07-24-2009 at 6:27pm
Well, I'm always looking for that "quality" start stat, which I think is recorded at 7 innings pitched.  I don't expect to get there though and usually hope for 6 innings.  It depends on the score, but I'm usually looking to the pen as soon as it is a save situation (3 runs or less with 3 innings or less to go). 

I think those two shootouts might have cost me the second and third games of each series, but the other team went through their entire bullpens as well so maybe not.  I do know that my bullpen is below average and my setup/closers are weak, imo.  Heck, my whole rotation isn't that great to be honest.  There is some strength there, but the only dominant pitcher is Fernandez.

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Posted By: TedSGN
Date Posted: 07-26-2009 at 1:00pm
40-35, 2 games back of the Angels.

We dropped two of three to Arizona at home and then took two of three from San Diego before going on the road to the Dodgers and taking two of three there.  Continuing on the road to New York to face the 37-42 Yankees.

In my start against San Diego, Griffey Jr. went 5-5 and hit for the cycle, getting the elusive triple in his last AB.  That was the first time I've ever done that in a video game.


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Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 07-27-2009 at 8:09am
I'm playing The Show again.  Don't tell my therapist.

But seriously, I think I've got it figured out this time.


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http://profile.mygamercard.net/Slumberland">


Posted By: Mike_S
Date Posted: 07-27-2009 at 3:41pm
Good luck with that "Show" thing. :-)

I also look for Quality Starts, which is 6IP and 3 or fewer ER.  But it seems about 50% of the time I get them, at best.

As for my season: Pitching has continued to be pretty good, but hitting has let me down big-time and we've slumped to 8-15.  Still have time to catch up in the second half of the season, but need to hit more consistently.  Team as a whole is OK, and Sean Casey is amazingly hot with 8 HR, but Carlos Lee is around .160 with no HR and Victor Martinez (.280 and .290 the last two years) is a ridiculous .125 with 2 HR.  Those two "automatic outs" are killing me in 1 or 2 run games, and the possible replacements are not significantly better.  Three game set with the first-place Yanks was a painful 5-3 loss in 14 innings, another painful come-from-behind 7-5 loss, and finally a 5-2 win.




Posted By: Derek
Date Posted: 07-28-2009 at 12:43pm
Originally posted by Slumberland

I'm playing The Show again.  Don't tell my therapist.

But seriously, I think I've got it figured out this time.
 
That's it, Slumber!  Get back behind the wheel of that bus! 
 
Sometimes you just have to take your shirt off and get all up in a p***y game's face, show it who is boss!!!
 
WinkBig smile


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Posted By: TedSGN
Date Posted: 07-28-2009 at 4:13pm
46-38, 0.5 game back of the Angels.

We lost two of three at the Yankees and I lost my start 4-3 against a very tough Joba Chamberlain.  We had a chance to tie it late, but Griffey Jr. got picked off third base and killed our momentum.  We really couldn't do anything until we got into their bullpen.

On to Boston where I won my start with Brendan Morrow 2-1 against a very tough Brad Penny.  Morrow went 7.1 innings and gave up 5 hits and 1 ER, but struck out 13!  It was really a fun performance to play/watch.  We went on to sweep Boston in 3 games.

Traveled back home to face the struggling Orioles who we took 2 of 3 from.  I won my start 4-3 with Felix Hernandez pitching a complete game to give the pen a little rest.

We now finish out the home stand against Texas.  Four games against the Rangers and then the All Star break.  This is a big series because if we do well we might take over first in the division and if we do poorly Texas is going to gain ground on us as they are 6.5 back of us.  I think I'll post some player stats at the break.


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Posted By: JasonSGN
Date Posted: 07-28-2009 at 4:47pm
Ted, what skill level are you playing on?

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Posted By: TedSGN
Date Posted: 07-28-2009 at 5:03pm
I'm playing with those sliders from OS that were posted way back when.  With a couple of tweaks.

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Posted By: TedSGN
Date Posted: 07-28-2009 at 5:31pm
http://www.operationsports.com/forums/2k-sports-major-league-baseball-sliders/306470-fun-mlb-2k9-sliders.html

These are those sliders:

And here are mine.  Different in red.

Camera:
Batting: 1, 8.
Pitching: 1, 6, 4.

Pitcher Stamina: 35

Human Batting:
50
30
50
100
100
75
45
45
45
45
45

CPU Batting:
60
40
60
100
100
75
50
50

Human Pitching:
100
70
0
100
100
75
75
75

CPU Pitching:
50
50
0
0
75

Human Running:
60
0
50

CPU Running:
100
90
80
100
100
50

Human Fielding:
35
50
35

CPU Fielding:
35
35

I know sliders are very individual things and these work really well for me and create fun, believable games.  A short time ago I had three starts with over 10 runs and 20 hits in a row.  I thought about changing some things because I thought I outgrew the sliders, but decided to ride it out to the all star break and I'm glad I did.  If you check my last few starts the scoring and pitching have changed again.  And I just had an Xbox freeze that unfortunately lost a game I was losing to Texas 6-1 in the fourth inning.  I guess I'll have to pretend that game got rained out.


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Posted By: JasonSGN
Date Posted: 07-28-2009 at 6:44pm
Thanks Ted, I'll have to try those out.

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Posted By: Slumberland
Date Posted: 07-29-2009 at 8:39am
I'm 7-3 so far in the absolute final canonical Mets Show '09 Berkowitz franchise.

Some key defensive plays in the last couple games.  Church throwing out a runner at home from right to preserve a late one-run lead against the Padres.  Then K-Rod coming in with a 4-1 lead against the Brewers, giving up two quick runs and allowing runners on 1st and 2nd with one out.  Darren O'Day relieves him, gets a sharp ground ball up the middle which Luis Castillo is able to get to and flip to Reyes from his knees to start the game-ending double play.

All-Star defaults.  Commentary off.  Knight's 'Full Minors' rosters.  Digging the 'low' fielding camera.


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