ROM pitching abilities

[ultimate7]

I think this has been posted before, but my search yielded nothing.

Does anyone know of a good site that rates pitchers abilities for curve, fast ball, etc.  Some pitchers that I don't know so well are difficult to value.

[Gantry]

Not quite sure what you are asking about ultimate...   If you just want RBI pitcher's stats, you can simply go to my team pages on the main site.  All the ratings are there...

[ultimate7]

Sorry, I'm making a ROM and want to know how I should rate the pitchers, some of which I know little about, so I'm trying to a site that discusses or rates abilities of different pitchers.

[TβG]

i don't know of a site to send you to, but one option would be if you could find a guy's average pitch-count, and see how many curveballs or sliders he through, then somehow compare those numbers to a pitcher you DO know.  then come up with a formula to crunch the numbers.  just an idea

[ultimate7]

Good idea, but I think a lot of the pitchers I'd be looking at are from the days before pitch counts.  I think if I just google the guys individually I can get good info, I was just hoping to do some one stop shopping.

[Dryden]

We talked about it a bit in this thread...

http://forums.dee-nee.com/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=3694;start=msg49387#msg49387

As far as actual ratings go, it's pretty much on a by reputation basis.  It's probably also worth noting that for guys with legendary curve balls (Koufax, for instance) a really vicious curve is actually quite a bit harder to use well than a slightly less severe one - it can be damn tricky to hit the strike zone.

[ultimate7]

Thanks Dryden, I'll probably pick up that book

[ultimate7]

BTW from Dryden's link

"The best place for what pitchers throw/threw is probably the Neyer/James guide to pitchers, from your local bookstore.  "

I highly recommend this book if you are making ROMS to get pitchers info, I got it from the Library, but will be buying it, really helped out a lot, especially with the older pitchers.  Thanks again Dryden.

[Dryden]

Glad to help!

[ultimate7]

Another Question maybe mostly for Dryden:

How do you do speeds for guys with great change ups?

Do you have a big diff between fastball and curve or big diff between curve and sinker?

I noticed on the NES guys like Mike Scott who didn't throw a change up has the same speed for CURVE and SINKER, I guess this makes it more of a sinker rather than a Knuckle ball.

[Dryden]

There's a couple of options.  If you want someone (like Scott) to throw a true split-fingered fastball, it probably makes sense to make their sinker the same speed as their curve (or even faster than their curve).  This only works if they have a high drop rating, or else it basically becomes a meatball.

It seems that the best way to convey a good changeup is to have a big difference in speed, as you mentioned.  It's also important to keep in mind the difference between fastball and curveball speed - ideally, someone with a "great changeup" should have a curveball/fastball fast enough that you would have to swing way ahead of the changeup speed.  If you know how fast an actual changeup pitcher throws both his change and curve, it usually makes it easy.

Doug Jones, for instance - fast, 83 MPH, curve and slow, 73 MPH - makes him a 2 pitch pitcher (which he was) and the speeds are pretty much what he threw at.

Hope this helps at all...