Power Pros Forum

You can use this strategy in any part of the game weather you're playing an Exhibition game, or Season Mode, or Success Mode, but I just thought of this strategy for not giving up a home run to the opposing batter.

When you press the button to throw the pitch the batter will either stay at regular swing or "Big Swing" if the batter goes to "Big Swing", you still have time to decide where to throw the pitch, so just purposely throw a ball! Then on the next pitch throw one in or near the strike zone when they don't have it on "Big Swing". If you're in a 3 ball count, you can walk the batter if you want, or just try to get the pitch right on the edge of the strike zone.

I disagree in my experiance throwing a ball doesn't help all you have to do in order to take off big swing pitch inside on the corners and after 2 strikes the batter will take off Big Swing

I agree with SupaClipa. It is a waste of a pitch. You could always see if they have any cold zones, or you could throw it in a really hard to hit area.

Yeah, I actually posted this before I tried it out, and it didn't go over too well. I was just getting so frustrated that I was giving up hit after hit, and the opposing team was having rally after rally, but I seriously found out how to stop those rallies. When you play a game, and you have CPU pitching on expert, the pitcher moves the cursor all over the strike zone to trick you, well I tried doing that against the CPU, and now instead of giving up 8, 9 runs a game, I'm only giving up 2, 3, 4 runs a game, and a WHOLE lot less home runs.

I don't know how you pitch but doesn't giving up 2-5 runs a game get your pitchers ERA WAY HIGH?

I give up about 0-2 runs a game on all-star level and my average ERA is about 1.00

An ERA of about 1 is outstanding in the majors

Well my starting pitchers don't give up 3, 4 runs every game. My starters NOW usually give up 1 or 2, and my sucky bullpen gives up the rest. JK, my bullpen isn't that bad, but it is worse than my starting rotation.

walking guys isn't a bad thing, esp. if you've served up extra base hits to the same guy so he's a single or triple away from the cycle.

For hurlers (guys who rely on fastballs or fast breakers) stick to your strengths. If you need a strike, throw the darn fastball and don't be afraid to try to blow it by him. Your breaking ball pitch is to keep guys honest, once or twice to a batter is all he should see if any (I've thrown nothing but fastballs in one inning simply because they were swinging).

Breaking ball pitchers: keep the ball DOWN and OFF the plate. One cannot emphasize this enough. You've seen millions of times where you see a breaking ball left over the middle of the plate and get crushed. A 70-75mph breaking ball is only a little faster than MLB batting practice to give you the perspective. Tossing around a high (out of strike zone) fastball is nice to get chasers, and remind batters you still throw it.

I give up a HR about once every other series (at All-Star difficulty - I'm no pro) but I also give up a lot of singles instead. So you trade power for base runners, and hope your defense can turn double plays (which I typically lead the Majors in each year).

EDIT: Another thing, same thing for strikeouts, if you start getting friendly with a particular part of the strike zone, they're gonna start waiting for it there (suddenly my dirt-kissing curve is getting wacked for doubles) so remember to change up locations and pitches. I also like throwing a little chin music every now and again (you never see anyone rush the mound... too bad)

My strategy is throw heat on the inside, low corner then throw a breaking ball away. (If you get two strikes with your fastball) I'm also having the same problem with my curveballs.

Not as much on all-star haha. Still pretty amazing. My best guys ERA on all-star is 1.6 and he got CY Young (Phil Hughes). He had a level 6 knuckle-ball, level 5 change-up, something like 88 mph fast ball (max), and a level 3 slider. Having variety and similar pitches works better then every pitch maxed. By the way, I just won and swept through the play offs and World Series on all-star after having a season with a .910 or something along that lines and can finally raise the difficulty!

Nice, I spent the first 4 seasons (2007 - 2010) on Normal because I didn't know you could raise the difficulty. Now I'm on the 2011 season and I've got everything on All-Star. I don't think I'll be raising it higher at the end of this season, it's pretty hard, although I AM at the beginning of the season. Maybe I need more practice with all the CPU levels on All-Star and It'll be a piece of cake by the end of the year.

And how did the playoffs go? What team are you (I'm guessing Yankees, but you never know), and who did you play each round?

Once you get used to it, it might be easy, because my season started out hard and this was the first time I played on all star but now it's extremely easy, showed by my 55-13 record.

I raised it to powerful. It's too easy when you winning 70%+ of the games, your meant to lose a lot too. I had a .800 or so the first month then jumped up. The play-offs went beautifully, for me. I swept every round. I'll make a little chart so you can see how the play-offs went.
Blue means wild card, Green is best record. Bold means winner, Italics loser.
AL:
Yankees:0 ->
Twins: 3 ->
-------------Twins-0
-------------Devils-3 ->
Devils: 3 0>
Angels: 0
NL:
Orioles:1
Giants: 3
-------------Giants: 0
-------------Dodgers: 3->
Dodgers: 3
Toronto: 2

World Series:
Devils: 3
Dodgers: 0
I had 3 walk-offs all of which involved more then 8 runs on each side. I also got CY young (Phil Hughes), MVP (Grim Reaper), Rookie of the Year (Reaper), Hank Aaron (Reaper), Hank Aaron Award (Grim Reaper), Closer of the Year (Flame Thrower), 4 silver sluggers, and MVP of the world series. I signed everyone back for 2 years+.

Wouldn't it be 4 gamess to 0 for the world series and lcs or am I getting the number's meaning wrong.

So you played as the Devil Rays?