Broken Bat - Help: Small ball

Forum >> Help >> Small ball

Post ID	Date & Time	Game Date	Function

#40764	10/14/2016 8:47:36 am
nojosdad5 Joined: 07/02/2016 Posts: 12 Inactive	I believe small ball is the most underrated part of the game these days. (For those who don't know what small ball is, it is hit & run, sacrifice bunts, bunting for hits, etc... Basically get em on,get em over, get em in) With that being said, does anyone have any advice on how to improve that aspect of my game? I've got my hit & run and bunting turned up to ++/+ on most every player and still not much happens. When it does it is never when I want it to and usually the absolute worse time/players to be trying something. Any advice?

#40780	10/14/2016 2:15:47 pm
Rock777 Joined: 09/21/2014 Posts: 9596 Haverhill Halflings III.1	If you want to be successful with that sort of stuff I would make sure to have speedy guys with lots of Bat Control (Hitting probably doesn't hurt either).

#40804	10/15/2016 7:32:12 am
Seca Joined: 05/05/2014 Posts: 5199 Waterloo Dinosaurs Legends	I think this is a really interesting conversation. I expect you will find some contrasting opinions on it. My own view is that small ball works fine in the lower leagues, but gets increasingly difficult to win with as the quality of opposing pitchers and catchers improve. Part of the problem, as mentioned by the OP, is limited control. Players may not bunt or steal when you want them to. Butler on my team has a "++" bunt instruction, 18 BC, 17 SP. In 20 games played this season he has attempted 0 bunts. The opportunities have been there; he is one off the team lead for GiDP. The second problem is that base stealing is heavily dependent on a hidden quality of the player. Minor league statistics and spring training games can hint at this skill, but the quality of catchers in the minors or spring is often poor, and can send false positives. An 18-19 speed guy can spend 6 seasons developing in the minors, and its only when he gets to the majors that you get a true sense of his base stealing. You can build an offense around stealing bases, but end up with no base stealers in your lineup. The third problem ... and this is coloured by my own perception ... is that (IMO) it is quite difficult to score runners from 3B with less than 2 out in Brokenbat. I read somewhere that the comversion rate in the majors in these situations is around 33%. I feel it is much lower here (at least for my team). If the batter Ks, lines out to either infield or outfield, hits a foul ball, pops up to the infield - the base runner has no opportunity to score. If the batter actually manages to hit a fly ball or a ground ball the base runner still may hold up. Add in that infielders are very aggressive cutting down runners at home, often making the out there ona ground ball even if it is the 2nd inning with the infield back. All that said (and this my seem like I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth) I feel the value of the SB increases with league level. Having a guy who can single or BB and gt to SB is invaluable, giving you potentially 3 shots at a single driving in a run. But there is (IMO) a fairly big difference between having a couple good base-stealers, and building a team around small ball. If you do want to try this, Rock777's advice is good. You'd need speed throughout the lineup. Strike outs are enemy #1, so lots of BC is also important. From ehat I've seen, small ball teams tend to hit a glass ceiling some where along the pyramid. Its not the most well troden road to success.

#40807	10/15/2016 12:56:36 pm
FurySK Joined: 02/07/2015 Posts: 299 Inactive	a major hitch i find is trying to run high contact/bat control into a small park. Some teams build around power and play with unrealistic parks, while other are unrealistic the other way (fewer go huge parks). In reality, the more great middle of the order powerhouse players you have (the 14-15 potential 120+ SI guys) the more immune you are to issues in the type of style you play. I did an analysis of the Greensville team i ran before i got bored with the game, and saw that guys with bat control tended to get more doubles triples an occasionally but no boost to home runs. I think that this is unintentional to the game engine but occured mostly on players with 10+ speed. It is similar to speed in the end effect, as the goal in both is to put a guy onto second, third, or home in a large chunk of the .350 or 35% obp. Getting station to station production requires a bunch of .330-.390 obp guys to get on in short order , at least 3 of 7 if a guy goes second to home on the last base hit. Thats 42%, which is greater than the top end on base percentage. My current strategy is seeking out guys on waivers, free agency, and draft in some areas is to look for the two tool player core of solid or better in the field and very good or great hitting. From there you are better off in most cases finding a player deficient in one stat but great in another. For example, i would be more interested in drafting a 20 year old college player that looked like 11/4/10/7/15 Than i would a player 8/8/8/8/15. If both guys have very good hitting, then it's more likely that i get close to the maximium hitting for the comment grade and at least a 15 plate discipline in the first build, whereas the second guy can be good but not great in everything (maybe a 15 hitting and 13's in a lot of areas otherwise?). We'll see how it goes. I'm losing a lot of waivers to guys in D.II and D.IV, so it's at least conceivable i'm looking in the right areas.