Pitchers With Movement

 I had a game with GaMinG_FrEaKzz and his a starting pitcher didn't have any 4-seam fastball in his arsenal.  It's pretty rare to see a pitcher without a 4-seam fastball.  So, all of his pitches had movement including his main pitch which was a 2-seam fastball.  I usually have problems with these types of pitchers but this guy was pretty wild.  In 4 innings I was able to draw 3 walks and his pitcher eventually got tired out.  Then, I was finally able to put some runs on the board.

At least in my game, GaMinG_FrEaKzz would swing at everything he saw.  I can see why because it seemed like every batter I faced in his lineup was trained to tear the cover off of the ball.  The wind was also blowing out at Yankee Stadium so I don't blame him for swinging freely to start the game. 

I was able to hold a 1-0 lead until the 5th inning and then things began to fall apart.  By the 6th inning he was up 8-1.  I was able to get the score to back 8-6 but I eventually ran out of time and lost this one.

Diamond Dynasty Tip of the Day
When facing a pitcher who does not have a natural fastball it shouldn't take very long to pick up his pitches.  Just wait for some movement on each pitch and then swing away.  Also, most pitches are likely to drop down in the zone so you can usually start looking low in the strike zone and swing influence up.

Swing influence MLB The Show

I recently challenged mightymundo7 and the Warriors at Industry Center Stadium.  Starting for mightymundo7 was Chris Sale and he pitched pretty well against me.  I kept hitting pop-ups because he was pitching high in the zone for most of the game.  I eventually adjusted to his pitching style and used swing influence down for most of the game and this allowed me to turn on one that went into the seats for a home run.

Diamond Dynasty Tip of the Day
Adapt to your opponents pitching style with swing influence.  If they pitch low in the strike zone influence your swing up.  If you find yourself hitting a lot of lazy fly balls try influencing your swing down.

Most Important Pitch in Baseball

Diamond Dynasty Tip of the Day
Throw a changeup every once in a while to ensure your your pitch speeds are different.

I faced an extremely good hitter (sodamnrill05) at Polo Grounds last night.  He was able to get a hold of any ball thrown in the strike zone and he was using the power swing throughout the whole game.  I'm perplexed why he currently only has a .254 batting average. 

Maybe I'm not training my pitchers well enough.  I probably should pay more attention to velocity on individual pitches.  There was one weakness sodamnrill05 had that I was able to expose and that was to throw changeups in the dirt.  I think the changeup in MLB the Show is the single most important pitch to have in your arsenal in MLB the Show.  For changups, I always increase the pitch velocity to the max to help ensure the pitch is as slow as possible.

I was luckily able to beat sodamnrill05 (9-8) in the bottom of the 9th after my runner scored from 3rd base when his catcher made a throwing error over the first baseman's head.

Submarine Pitchers

Last night in +diamonddynasty, I got matched up with Gustavo_Fring_BB again.  He changed his team name from the Skinny Pete's to the Tucos.  I've had some very tight, close games with him.  This time, he beat me 4-2.  The game was played at Baseball City, Fl which is a fairly large ballpark.  Gustavo_Fring_BB had a tendency to throw up in the strike zone and this caused me to hit a lot of pop-fly's.

With the score tied 2-2 in the 6th inning, the Tucos brought in a fire-balling submarine style pitching reliever who ended up getting the win after pitching 4 innings.  I still need to work on laying off those high and inside 99 MPH fastballs thrown by submarine pitchers.  Some of the best Submarine pitchers, like the one I faced, also own a loopy curve ball.

Buying MLB Packs

For completing collections which packs should be purchased?  The 15 MLB Pack Pitchers + Position goes for 17.5M, then there's the 7.5M packs:

6 MLB Pack Position Players
6 MLB Pack Pitchers
6 MLB Pack Pitchers + Position

I believe buying all of these every once in a while could help speed up the collection completion process.  For a while, I never even considered buying the 6 MLB Pitchers + Position pack but recently found that a few cards that I've been trying to get for weeks were readily available in this pack.  I even found a Dallas Braden in this kind of pack as well.

Diamond Dynasty Scouting Report

PadChillow
This team used several Baltimore Orioles players.  All of the Orioles pitchers I faced were pretty tough.  Jason Hammel started the game and Jim Johnson had a 1-2-3 ninth. 

The 99 rated arm in CF won the game for PadChillow.  His Diamond Dynasty trained center fielder gunned down two would-be runs at home.  I'll make a note of this and start using the same "blueprint".

+diamonddynasty

Recycling relief pitchers

 Lately, I've been having bad luck recycling relief pitchers with position players.  Usually, the result would be another position player but I've been getting my fair share of relief pitchers and closers back.  When this happens, I try to recycle the MLB reliever with a bronze card and this usually gives me a Diamond Dynasty card that I can at least try to sell.  It's weird.  Maybe I just ran into a string of bad luck with MLB relievers.

Recycling relievers till the preview gets to A- to A+ may not always be a good thing.  I always seem to get the same relievers over and over again.  I might start mixing and matching low end relievers with low end position players and see how that goes.  The goal is to turn those unneeded reliever cards into a position cards - which have more recycler value.

Recycling high end starting pitchers with high end position players has resulted in some pretty good elite cards that usually sell for profit.

Diamond Dynasty Scouting Report

xMeRRiLL
This team uses all MLB players.  I didn't have any problems against his pitching as long as I was patient.

xMeRRiLL tends do a lot of "bunt dancing" and other annoying things.  When he had a comfortable lead he attempted to steal second base when there was a man on third.  I got the runner in a pickle.  The runner on third eventually came home just before the tag.

Finding Dallas Braden

Dallas Braden is part of the "Active No Hitters" collection which currently has the highest reward (30M) out of all of the collections.  From my experience, Dallas Braden can be pretty hard to find.  Currently, the highest bid for his card is at 7M so if you find a way to get him you can probably make a nice profit.

I recently got lucky and found him in a 6 card pitcher pack but I also happened to land him with the recycling tool on that same day.  I recycled Trevor Bauer (73 OVR) and Shelby Miller (82 OVR).  This produced a c+ to B card preview and Dallas Braden's OVR is 84(B).  Both Trevor Bauer and Shelby Miller were non-collectable cards and Dallas Braden is a free-agent type card.  Maybe the chances of landing more of these free agent cards are better if you recycle non-collectable cards together. Maybe this was just a coincidence but who knows.

Diamond Dynasty Scouting Report

tiptop00
This was probably the best hitter I've ever faced.  If you look at the Diamond Dynasty overall leader boards nobody else comes even close to his .440 batting average.  He's able to make good contact on almost anything.

From what I recall, all of his big hits were from fastball type pitches.  If anything, maybe next time I'll throw more breaking balls at him but I'm sure he'll adjust.

MLB or DD Starting Pitchers?

If you look at the top 20 teams on the leader board most of them will exclusively use Diamond Dynasty pitchers in their rotation.  I think going with a Diamond Dynasty rotation is probably the most effective approach because you never know how an MLB pitcher is going to perform unless you very familiar with him.

With MLB pitchers, I've had some success with those elite guys like Felix Hernandez, Justin Verlander, and Yu Darvish but it seems like they always have that one bad outing every once in a while.  Also, Verlander was recently selling on the market for 25M.  It's hard to pass that kind of money up.

Diamond Dynasty Scouting Report

sgorm
I had a comfortable 6-1 lead after 5 innings so I brought in A.J. Griffin to see how he pitched.  Griffin's changeup and curve ball are supposedly very slow.  In this game, Griffin got tagged for 6 runs in two innings.  I'm starting to think that maybe using only Diamond Dynasty pitchers is the way to go. 

Every pitcher I faced on sgorm's team was a sidearmer.

JohnnyHopkins_
I faced two of his pitchers and, from what I recall, there were no four seam fastballs in their repertoire.  JohnnyHopkins_ likes to work fast.  He had a few balks and also didn't appreciate my batters calling time.
 
Interestingly, the two pitchers of mine that JohnnyHopkins_ faced happened to be "factory issued" sidearmers.  I have never changed a pitcher's motion to the sidearm type unless I was trying to recreate Dennis Eckersley so having two sidearmers appear in the same game was rare.

KiNgSriz
Game was played at Coors field and the connection was very smooth.  KiNgSriz will swing almost at everything and is able to make at least some sort of contact no matter where the ball is thrown so be careful how you pitch to him.

Industry Center Stadium

Out of the 7 new Minor League ballparks that were released with MLB 13 The Show I'm enjoying Industry Center Stadium the most.  This ballpark is really big with a lot of different fence heights.  The power alley in right center is sort of like AT&T park but is much more expansive.

Diamond Dynasty Scouting Report

nomo17k
Unfortunately, our game ended early due to Traffic Delay and both teams were awarded rating points (Double Wins).  These are games that used to disappear.

Of the 3 innings that we did get to play nomo17k threw a lot of breaking balls.  I don't recall seeing very many fast balls.

nomo17k did me in with his basestealing skills.  He takes a one step lead and then takes off with early steals when the opportunity arises.  I probably should have paid more attention to his baserunners but didn't.

Recycling for Robinson Cano

I finally got Robinson Cano via the recycler.  This allowed me to complete two 10M collections.  This is what I recycled to get Cano:

Anthony Rizzo : 84, Ben Zobrist : 89, Ian Desmond : 84

I really had a good recycling/pack pulling night last night.  I bought several 6 card MLB pitcher packs.  I recycled all relief pitchers until I received an A- to A+ relief pitcher.  Than, I recycled him with a b- to b+ type position player.  I got a couple Miguel Cabrera's.

Also also landed Jeff Bianchi of the Brewers via 6 card pack.  He probably easily could go for about 15M in the marketplace.

Diamond Dynasty Scouting Report

EazyMackaDocious
He was a patient hitter but I also had problems controlling my breaking balls.  While trying to correct my breaking ball control I tended to locate too many balls low in the zone.  EazyMackaDocious noticed this and started sitting on my low stuff.  You can get him out if you locate the ball in the upper strike zone but this may not last very long as EazyMackaDocious is likely to adjust.

The two run home run in the 3rd inning did me in.  I threw a fastball that meant to be a high fastball (out of the strike zone) but it went right down the middle.  The pitcher I was using had 60 control on the FSFB.  You really got to be careful where you locate fastballs early in the game.

RestNPieceZzz
This gamer seems to mess with the network connection.  After the ball is pitched there will be some stutter.  It's impossible to make contact.  Every now and then the same lag will occur when you are trying to field a ball.

He also uses R.A. Dickey every game.  I found success hitting against R.A. Dickey when I influence up and power swing.

This user also seems to try to find games where the DH rule will be used.  When he's the home team (Polo Grounds), the ball marker will be off when you are pitching.