Power Pros Forum

As I've been playing with the Sluggers in my season log, I use a LOT of breaking balls, and almost no fastballs. I discovered that if you use breaking balls the first time through, it works well. Then the CPU starts to pick up on your good breaking pitches, so I'm forced to throw fastballs. I discovered that throwing fastballs with 2 strikes the 2nd time through the order, is EXTREMELY effective. When I'm pitching with Ryan Techer I use this, and the CPU almost always judges it like a slow curve, swinging late, low, and to the right of the ball. Anybody else notice how effective a fastball can be?

Interesting, but what if your pitchers don't have good breaking balls?

It still kind of works, since they judge it to break, and it doesn't. It results in a lot of shallow pop flies too.

I usually use one of two strategies.

A) Randomly choose pitches and randomly choose locations.
B) When I feel like trying hard, I constantly mix up locations and throw mostly fastballs, using one breaking ball as a strikeout. The second time through the lineup, I use a different breaking ball for strikeouts and occasionally mix in the first one (since they might expect all fastballs again).

I find that throwing mostly offspeed stuff only works if it's a 3 or higher. Fastballs with different locations (& preferably some movement like a 2sfb) are very effective - if my pitcher can generally throw over 90, or my guy who has 3 fastballs, i can generally get through the lineup throwing fastballs 99% of the time.

For my pitchers with 1 low 80s fastball, i often need to throw offspeed to get to 2 strikes and then a fastball for the out pitch.

For pitchers with so-so stuff, Joel Peralta has very effective pitch combo. A 4sfb, a splitter, and a curve. With only 3 pitches, it is still a very nice combo.

I find that cut fastballs however, are generally a waste.

I just picked up a pitcher in the draft with a knuckle ball. Is there any advice for throwing this pitch, like if the break is truly random, should i just throw it high in the middle of the strike zone, or will it usually break into the zone, so throwing to the corners is better?

This same pitcher has a listed quality of "shuuto spin". Not the shuuto pitch, but the spin. Did a little checking on this website and in the game and it says this meams that his 4sfb will break left or right sometimes. Any way for me to choose when it happens?

It's listed as a red (negative) ability, so I think it's meant to throw off your pitching by making you unable to predict its movement.

I guess that makes sense. It is red. I thought of it as a positive since a hitter cant tee off on my fastball, but i see the downside now

The positive of it definitely outweighs the negative though. If you make a mistake pitch but it has the spin on it, it can easily turn a home run into a flyout.

I got Shuuto spin in success mode, and it definitely helped against Siitch and the Galaxy Sharks.