Someone needs a snickers.

Yeah, not really cheating, it's just not very sportsman like. When I play RS now I take a different attitude. I treat it like a real baseball game. I drink some beers, curse at the screen and scratch my balls a lot. Spitting seed casings on the floor seems to be the line the wife has drawn however...

I know with the weekend coming up some people might just be hitting the 300 stars for the boss pick. I have a few thoughts after using them all for a few days now.

J-Roll. My initial pick. His style jives well with what I'm trying to do on my team, contact, speed, solid D. None of these 3 have affected the outcome of games more than J-Roll. My last game I won 1-0, J-Roll went 2-5 with 3 stolen bases and the winning run off a sac fly. He's as solid as it gets and will impact the game the most often of these 3 picks, he's is in a position to benefit greatly from prestige.

Stan. I put him at 1st replacing ortiz as he's much to slow to be an outfield consideration for me. While Ortiz was solid, Stan is an immediate defensive improvement and will get better with prestige. I was on a tear with him before I got a little lazy with my focus at the plate. His PCI is so big that it's kind of made me lazy. If I focus, he crushes everything. His lack of speed is an issue, but in my opinion he makes up for it with his RBI's. Personally I just have to pick and choose the slow guys as I don't want many of them on my starting squad.

Maddux. He has honestly surprised me. I got hit a bit in my 1st outing with him, but once I got better at using him he's been great. I was worried about his lack up velo but with his accuracy, a 93-94mph fb on the edges is pretty good, especially seeing as I typically use it as a break up/ pace change pitch. He doesn't have the kind of stuff that will blow you away but he induces a lot of weak contact. I enjoy using Orel, I really enjoy Maddux. Since the first game I don't think he has given up a single run. I wasn't sure if I was going to keep him but I'm sold on him now.

Hope this helps some.

Forgive me if this has been addressed, but SDS, can we do something about opposing team stadium sounds playing in my home stadium? Isn't part of the home field advantage forcing them to listen to you're cheesey stuff and you not having to listen to theirs? I don't want to hear cows moo or bells ring or whatever. I'm ok with the announcer yelling about pudding but really I don't want to hear the cheese every time I strike out or their run scores on my home turf.

I like the environment at Polo and enjoy playing there. I'd like to see more classic stadiums like Navin (Old Tiger stadium), War Memorial (Buffalo), even Doubleday in cooperstown. I like the old sandlot feel to these mega stadiums. It would also be cool if you could design you're own park for you're team.

I really do see some really cool possibilities in the future on the PS5... Especially if we can get good VR.

Small joke, but in reality, BLM has turned into a giant marketing campaign.. I think the true meaning has gotten lost. And of course almost noone actually knows anything about the radical Marxists that own the company and what their real goals are.

It seems now that if you don't bend the knee you're on the outs. So... This gives a medium for the game now to include more social justice stuff in the socks... Good enough explanation for you?

@nflman2033 said in Sig Series Greg Maddux:

User error going on here. Sure he is no Orel, but he isnt trash. Like someone said, his sinker isnt the spam high type, pitch like he did, use horizontal movement to paint corners, change speeds, get your opponent so focuses on offspeed low you sneak 4 seam high right by.

I agree, I don't get lit up, even on all star using Maddux. You have to paint corners and mix it up. If you can light me up by hitting my cutters on the hands, fastballs on the edges and changeups breaking off the table followed by a 67 mph curveballs that float like turds in the swimming pool then good for you.

Sore subject for me... When I was a kid (39 now) my Dad was HUGE into collecting... cards, auto's, memorabilia... We lived about 2 hr's from Cooperstown so we were there for every HOF induction and it was always a great time. I got to meet pretty much every living member of the HOF plus all the living Negro Leaguers.... The Players that stand out in my mind were Stan Musial who played a mean harmonica andTed "Double Duty" Radcliffe. They were genuinely nice guys. At one point we pretty much had every baseball card minus the the nosebleeds like Wagner, rookie Mantle, etc. But the $$ we had invested in that stuff was staggering (for example we had a pair of Ty Cobbs spikes, and one of Babe Ruth's bats). My dad even lent some stuff to the HOF from time to time.

Long story short it's all gone, it's one of the reason's I don't collect things to this day. There aren't any things you can collect that you can't lose or someone can't take away from you.

I have controlfreaks and I've taken them off of the controller and hitting has improved. They essentially make the stick more sensitive and allow larger movement of the PCI with shorter movement of the actual stick because it's taller. I have found more success in All-Star by leaving the PCI centered unless I'm cheating on a fastball leaving. In HOF, Legend, I have found more success by setting my PCI slightly high and inside for a lefty and high centered for a righty. I will still guess pitches and pre set the PCI but typically fastballs come high and inside, most breaking stuff is slower and finishes low and away so you have more time to drop it.
For this reason I have found a lot of success with low inside fastballs when pitching. I get a lot of swings and misses or no swings.

Also don't try to cover the whole plate. Imagine a smaller strike zone, I picture an oval inside the square and I forget about trying to hit pitches on corners, remind yourself it's ok to take strikes sometimes. With all the people complaining about poor pitching results you can count on a ball popping into the go zone if you wait for it. If a guy is trying to paint the corners he's going to miss that spot more often than not.

Another thing to try is turning off the inner and outer, just use light circles or diamonds or altitude, and set the PCI near the pitchers release point and then track it out of his hand.

Smoother, lighter stick control.. I have a [censored] problem, sometimes when I swing I'll mash and yank the stick up or down. I have to really remind myself to be more smooth. I also read, or watched somewhere that it's better to constantly control the stick rather than let it go back to center and then re move it.. It makes sense, I have a tendency to let the stick center itself when crossing the center plane and I've really been trying to break that habit.

Honestly a lot of it comes from taking a structured approach to figuring out exactly what you're issue is and then creating a plan to fix it and sticking to it.

I'm by no means an expert but these are some things that I focus on and it has helped. The biggest issue I have is bouncing between difficulty levels and how different it is...

Or.. water themed teams.. Marlins= Cabrera, Mariners= Griffey, and Rays= David Price... Just spitballin here...

I could see you having to have all the Griffeys in the game to unlock Ken Griffey's Jedi card...

I love Ted, one of my all time faves... But there are so many options for that lefty power spot off the bench, most notably Ruth (after you pick up Gehrig), Musial, harper, Thome, Thames even Walker who's a great hitter and has better speed.

Well, probably not. I've got him in the lineup to prestige him but prestige Walker is pretty beasty. Trout's got speed but not great steal numbers, and if Mantle is in Center you don't really need Trout's speed in Right. Walker has a better arm and is a lefty bat with a great swing.

Now, I can make a much stronger argument for Tatis, which is very close to an infield version of Trout. That kind of pop, speed, defense, and versatility is rare. He's great at Short but also very very good at 3rd and 2B. He has good speed and is a bigger base stealing threat than Trout.

So, this is my first year playing the show and I have found some things through trial and error that have helped. Im still susceptible to low pitches but I've gotten much better, and am now really good at picking up inside and away pitches. I started using Zone 2, slightly farther back, I just couldn't pick anything up in Zone, it was too close. I have now since switched to Zone and hit much much better as it's easier to get the PCI on the ball because you're closer and it's larger, it does for me anyway make it slightly harder to pick up balls out of the zone however, but I have improved on that.

I tend to hit better on HOF than AS, visually it's just a better fit for my eye not having as big a PCI and I am much more patient, I have messed around with no rings, just dots, and now I have settled on inside PCI only with altitude in orange.

For me what has helped most surprisingly is this extreme event. It's one thing to practice on HOF or legend but now to actually have a reason and to be playing for something helps.

My advice, experiment with views like Zone 2 and 3 but always come back to Zone. And play you're conquest games on HOF for practice.

I also had one of those way foul balls off into th estands that amazingly bent space and time to come back into play for the 1b to catch it.

I actually got these moments all mixed together in my head. I played the God Squad game and had a perfect game with Feller going into the 8th, but I thought I needed 10 strikeouts so I missed a few foul balls and ended up walking Gehrig... Got my 10k's finishing a complete game with Feller in the 9th, up 8-0 Yelich jacks one that I probably could have stole had I not been so pissed that I blew the game... Except I didn't blow the game, I only needed to win... Not do any of the other BS.

So im at the 2nd to last one and drew feller... whats the verdict? Skip? 2 runs isnt a lot, but guys saying hes super tough...

@Gbobnick said in Extreme showdown:

@KommanderNKeef9 said in Extreme showdown:

@Gbobnick said in Extreme showdown:

@fresnokid316 said in Extreme showdown:

2 hits though? Lol

Look at it this way. You didn’t have to work for it. I wonder if someone can beat showdown by just setting the controller down and watching.

Klue did it live on stream basically and didn’t swing until he was down two with bases loaded to win it with a slam. Basically laid down the sticks numerous times and didn’t touch them.

I wish I had watched that. I put my controller on the floor a few times to remove the temptation to swing.

I'm probably going to do just that after reading peoples experiences with it.

@Hikes83 said in Bold takes:

So safe to say Cobb > Walker?

Well, yes with a qualifier, Cobb cannot replace Walker in Right, his arm is too weak, but if you have Trout and Mantle (or whoever) you just move Cobb to left. Walker is a stud though and honestly I'm tempted to put him back in right and pull Trout after I knock out his prestige.

I'm really looking forward to getting Gehrig btw, loved his swing. I'll have Ruth and Thomas coming off the bench I think. Now that I have these 2 missions done it's just a time thing. At least with conquest I can sub in different guys to try them out on my squad against HOF or Legend so it's good practice, and I'm 1/3 through the Showdown and it doesn't seem so bad.

The worst part of the Gehrig and potentially Yelich missions is not getting anything to hit. I'd estimate that really, only 1 out of 5 of these starts are actually winnable, 4 out of 5 you've lost before you start as you just won't get enough good pitches to hit.