Pitch Sequence/Location

[Dave Hansen]

In playing out my games, I've included in my widgets in game setup the graphic that shows a batter at the plate and the pitch sequence/location thrown by the pitcher during that at bat.

Is this eye candy only? Or in conjunction with the pitcher's rating for fastball, curve, etc., batter's abilities, does this offer valuable insight into this batter/pitcher matchup?

[Jaxxvain]

I do not know for sure, but my bet is that it is just eye candy.

[TribeFanInNC]

That is my impression as well, but I also do not know this for a fact.

[SteveP]

Eye candy.

Edit: I'll amend that to say that there is one useful piece of information you can get from that widget, which can be harder to get any other way. It has to do with when SPs start losing effectiveness. A starting pitcher will get "tired" at a specific number of pitches based on his stamina rating. As long as the later stays the same, the number of pitches to become tired will be the same. At about 90% of the way to that number, the SP will lose speed on his pitches. It's possible that other dimensions of his performance (e.g., control) are also affected, but speed is the only thing you are check on explicitly. So, in late innings (or earlier if the pitcher is starting at less than 100% rested) you can start to look for the drop off in speed. What you do with the info is up to you, but at a minimum it does add some interest to the pitcher-batter duel at that stage.

[Afino]

Originally Posted by SteveP

Eye candy.

Edit: I'll amend that to say that there is one useful piece of information you can get from that widget, which can be harder to get any other way. It has to do with when SPs start losing effectiveness. A starting pitcher will get "tired" at a specific number of pitches based on his stamina rating. As long as the later stays the same, the number of pitches to become tired will be the same. At about 90% of the way to that number, the SP will lose speed on his pitches. It's possible that other dimensions of his performance (e.g., control) are also affected, but speed is the only thing you are check on explicitly. So, in late innings (or earlier if the pitcher is starting at less than 100% rested) you can start to look for the drop off in speed. What you do with the info is up to you, but at a minimum it does add some interest to the pitcher-batter duel at that stage.

Personally, I think that the "tired" number of pitches should be flexible (within a 10-15 pitch range, tops) based on pitches/inning and pitches/batter, but that's a discussion for another thread

[Cornelius McGillicuddy]

Originally Posted by Afino

Personally, I think that the "tired" number of pitches should be flexible (within a 10-15 pitch range, tops) based on pitches/inning and pitches/batter, but that's a discussion for another thread

It is, but fwiw, I agree.