Contact (not the book/movie)

[MarquisEXB]

I've been playing a lot lately with two high contact guys. I finished off my opponent yesterday with the elimi-team play on the original rom. I needed Boston to finish off my opponent. I think I beat him in three series (5-game series) with the Red Sox. Never did I pinch hit for Boggs, so I got a good taste of him for about 15 straight games. After finishing the original rom, we moved on to my best of the 90s rom (*cough* shameless plug). I've taken Cincinatti, and so far have pinch hit for (Mercedes) Benzinger with Hal Morris. Morris and Boggs are similar players, LH high average hitters with little power. Morris is 8 contact and 828 power, Boggs is 4 & 789.

I've come to this conclusion, contact is good. Never would I ever leave a 789 power guy in, unless he was an ubber-speedster. However Boggs (in Nails' lingo) can rake. He rarely went yard (maybe once in the whole 15 games) but he sure got a lot of hits. It seemed that he was getting a lot of hits over the IF's heads. On the day that the maniacal genius Nightwulf figures out the equation for hitting, we might see that those with a higher contact might have a larger sweet spot on the bat?

I can understand why straight pitch guys would take him out. I rarely used Henderson - for that 1 PH when losing. With the high ratio of home runs in straight pitch, Henderson will probably add a few runs on average to your offense. However in the twisty twirly world of curve (or maybe even slurve), Boggs may be the better hitter, since his propensity to make less outs would probably aid a team more.

M.K.

[ultimate7]

>we might see that those with a higher contact might have a larger sweet spot on the bat?


You mean a lower contact # have a larger sweet spot, right?  I would have to agree that it is something like this.

[Dryden]

It seems that way to me, too - the lower the contact, the more the ball just seems to find its way around/over fielders.  In particular, it seems to bounce just right over a baseman's head for some guys, never for others.  This would seem to be consistent with Nightwulf's earlier post concerning how contact is loaded every couple of seconds while a batted ball is in play.

[nightwulf]

You know what? I just loaded up fceu again to see if power was also loaded at each frame of the ball's movement (like contact), and I'm not seeing whatever the hell I saw before. I'm seeing contact and both bytes of the power number loaded once after the ball is hit, but before the screen is "drawn" to show the playfield.

Maybe I had more than one breakpoint going and got mixed up. I'll have to dig that post up again and figure out what I was working on. Maybe I was on crack. Who knows.

Nightwulf

[MarquisEXB]

Well then I would imagine somehow it makes an equation to send the ball on it's trajectory. I would imagine you would need something like 3 values: horizontal angle (left/right), verticle angle (ground/air), and curve (we all experience this when a ball is hit down the lines... and just curves foul).

Mike

[Gantry]

I still don't put any merit into contact.  Considering the absurdly high contacts of Darrell Evans & Reggie Jackson, compared to the terrible Paul Molitors and Mike Aldretes of the world.  Even in curve, Jackson and Evans get on base, while Molitor and Aldrete do not...

[ultimate7]

I get on base quite often with Aldrete.

[RockRaines4life]

I agree with Ultimate... Aldrete is a one-man singles factory.  We call him the hit machine.  He and Boggs usually get about 2 hits a game, usually singles to RF.