Community Forum

To start this off I should say that I'm not elite at this game but I'm usually good for a few BR 12-0 runs per year and I got one the other day so I thought I would write a guide on how I draft and people can share strategies. This year is very different from other years with no inside edge boosts so far, 3 batter minimums for pitchers, and stamina that carries over between games so I'll discuss this year in particular and some of the guys that I look for in drafts.

To start, I think that your bronze cards are what makes or breaks a team, especially the 70-74s. The hitters I really like to grab as starters are 2B Keston Hiura, LF Khris Davis, RF Franmil Reyes. As for pitchers, I wouldn't mind grabbing a decent 70-74 lefty starter just so I can use him as a RP when needed. For lefty RPs I like Zach Britton, Jose Alvorado, AJ Minter, Tony Watson, Amir Garret, Jake Diekman, Aaron Bummer, and Tanner Scott. There are fewer bronze rightly RPs I really like to hit but Pat Neshek, Emmanuel Clase. Jordan Hicks, and a few other hard throwers I like.

Now for hitter drafting strategies. I prefer to draft for power over other attributes and 1B, LF and RF are positions you can reliably get a good silver at so I prefer not to draft these positions until a good silver shows up. 2B is by far the hardest to find in my estimation so if I can find a guy like gleyber torres, Howie Kendrick, a good 85-94 diamond, or an infielder with 2B as a secondary I make it a priority to get those guys.

To reduce the risk of missing out on a position of need, I try to make sure I grab at least 6 or 7 guys I want to start before I draft my full lineup so im not relying on luck to get a position of need in the bench spots.

For my rotation, I rarely draft a good or better SP and prefer to only draft 1 or maybe 2 silver SPs so I can save the silvers for the lineup and bullpen. I try to fill my bullpen as much as i can with good bronzes since there are quite a few of them compared to at other positions, and fill the rest of my pen with mostly good silvers. Generally I like to have 2 or 3 LHPs in the bullpen but I could go with 4 if I get some good bronzes or 1 if I have at least 1 LHP starter I can use out of the bullpen. While I try to avoid commons or bad bronzes in the bullpen (since you'll probably need all 7 RPs to make a run at 12-0), all pitchers will struggle so I never take diamonds and only occasionally take golds.

Now to talk about specific rarities. For the diamonds, I'm looking for some big hitters to carry my lineup, preferably at positions other than LF, RF and 1B when possible but if I have to take someone like Thames, Sheffield, Gallo, or Taylor Trammel to name a few I will go there. Gold hitters are more of a crapshoot, but if I can find a good 2B/ C, that would be ideal.

Silvers have really nice hitters at most positions so I'll go and list some of my favorites. I'll update this if I remember more.
C- none, try to get schwarber or a gold/diamond if possible
1B- Encarnacion, Eddie Murray
2B- Howie Kendrick
SS- Tim Anderson, Mondesi
3B- Sano, Moncada
LF- Schwarber(can play C too), Joc, Eloy, Kingman
CF- Hicks
RF- Soler, Conforto

Sorry for the long post and I hope it was helpful. I'll update this as I remember more things

Mantle is probably the best player in the game and getting him also gets you trout, Sheffield, biggio, Wagner, etc to use so if you have the stubs go for him.

On the other hand, the gap between mantle and the other top CFs is pretty small at this point so if stubs are an issue you might be better off with bellinger, Dawson, or Eric Davis in center

Good work on this. If a big collection like that comes im sure we will see cards spike when it becomes confirmed and some cheaper or rarer cards may rise a bit in the long run, but since it happened last year a d people expect it again I don't think things will permanently spike.

Take the damon and Hayward you mentioned. A gold like Damon too me is way overpriced for a collection at 15k, while I could see Hayward staying at 15k or rising a bit after a collection barring a flash sale. 15k for a good like Damon is already very expensive and will upset people so I have to imagine they will release some kind of way to get him if he's needed for a big collection

Bunting used to be a problem when fast guys could bunt for hits easily no matter what you did. At this point though, hunts are easily stopped so if you get "bunt cheesed" that's on you

Has anyone been doing that this year? I think it could make sense, especially if you have both lefty and righty SPs, and/or you have one or two pitchers much better than the others. I just got Kluber to go with Newhouser at the top of my rotation, so I was thinking I could use an opener and then depending on my opponent's skill and lineup, I can choose either Kluber or Newhouser or if I think I'm significantly better or worse than my opponent I can go to one of my back end SPs and save my good guys for a tighter game.

The game was from his pre knuckleball days ('07) and he has very little to do with why the game is being shown but I thought it was funny to see him on TV

People undercutting like that is bad for flippers but not everyone is trying to flip items and the undercutting is actually good for buyers so it's not even a negative thing overall

It sounds like you left a pitcher in for too long and your opponent took advantage of it

I made a thread about this a few days ago and I think a huge reason for this is the lowered pitcher energy which, among other things, makes it harder to hit corners and therefore it's much easier to hit

That might be the most efficient way of getting XP but the best way is just playing the game for your enjoyment and racking up XP along the way

I guess I'm in the minority on this one but it's easy enough to hit HRs in this game, the last thing we need is to play in a stadium where you can hit a HR to dead center at 96 mph or to straightaway LF or RF at 89 mph. If your'e someone that regularly chooses Shippet stadium (or something like Colorado or Laughing Mountain), I kindly ask you to reconsider your stadium choices in the future.

@DoIHearBossMusic said in Can someone briefly explain the good swing timing results?:

OK cool, yeah just happened again, same results from the same hitters. So basically there is no skill involved just luck on directional. Great product SDS...

If you want control of the PCI use zone. If you prefer to use directional that's fine but it's unreasonable to expect to crush the ball every time when you choose to leave the PCI placement up to the CPU

It's possible that his price has risen due to the stubs sale which ends tomorrow. It was only 15% so I wouldn't expect a huge effect, but it's worth considering

@adam_sheffield said in Nothing is more satisfying...:

This is one of the things I'm happy I play the game muted while I'm watching Netflix or whatever on my other tv lol....I wish they had the Yankee sound I think from when they strike someone out it's like a whistle or something

Fun fact, that's actually a PC Richard & Son jingle so I have to imagine the marketing person that made a deal to get that as the Yankees' strikeout sound got a big fat raise

My guilty pleasure is the Polo Grounds. I used to be much better at this game in the earlier days of DD and I would set my defense to play the CF deep with the corner OFs regular depth and shifted towards center to cut off the gappers. I rarely play there these days due to a combination of the defensive shifts changing on their own too often and feeling cheesy by playing there, although I do enjoy when my opponent chooses Polo Grounds.

With the way this game is, I'm happy to play anywhere other than Coors, laughing mountain or shippett. MLB stadiums don't bother me but 91 mph HRs to left/right or 96 to dead center cost me far more joy when I allow them when I hit them so high elevation parks are not for me

I know people say that plate vision is crucial on higher difficulties but in my experience, it really doesn't matter and could in fact be a negative in some scenarios. Obviously high plate vision makes it easier to hit the ball, but my feeling is that unless you need to get a runner in from third or just want to extend the AB with foul balls, it just doesn't matter than much especially with how power focused this game is.

Maybe this is a function of the type of hitter I am (power and patience), but outside of those scenarios I mentioned above, I would rather swing and miss than make weak contact early in the count, and based on my experience, I'm hurt just as much if not more by hitting the ball weakly early in the count than I am by failing to put the ball in play on a tough pitch when I really need to just hit the ball.

Obviously, plate vision often goes along with contact so it's hard to separate the two, but I look at a hitter like Trout with high contact and power but a relatively low plate vision rating, and he is year in and year out one of my best hitters. This year, Trout is clearly my best hitter even though I've had great hitters like Mantle, Sheffield, Reggie Jackson, and a CAP for just as long as Trout, all of whom have better attributes if you just look at power and contact. I don't remember my stats from previous years, but I've usually been just as good if not better with Trout as I am with other high end players. I've also used all of those other guys other than the CAP of course in BR so they have inflated stats, while I don't think I've ever used Trout in BR this year.

Now I don't want to claim that one person's anecdotal evidence is enough to say that plate vision is useless or even is harmful, but I did want to provide it as context to see if other people don't think it is important.

TL/DR Plate vision might be overrated since it helps you avoid Ks, but the trade off is that it might make you more likely to make weak contact early in the AB

@KommanderNKeef9 said in Chapman vs Dibble:

@jonnydaman said in Chapman vs Dibble:

Both are great but I think the live series Chapman isn't that far off of the 97 Chapman so I would go with dibble

He is 150% different that the LS. The added change up is the difference. Can be thrown to righty’s or lefty’s effectively. Also the outlier sinker helps big time as well.

The changeup is nice but I think the fastball/silder combo is good enough to not really need the changeup and I prefer the mid 80s slider on the live series Chapman more than the 90 mph slider on the 97 Chapman so I think the difference is small.
The 97 might have outlier on the sinker but im not a fan of the sinker for either card so that's only a small deal in my opinion

I try to power swing when I'm in a hitter's count and I'm looking to do damage. Honestly if check swings weren't so easy with X swings I would probably be power swinging a majority of the tine early in counts because I'd rather swing and miss than make weak contact with <2 strikes

@ItsaCanesthing said in TA3 SP:

Everyone knows AJ Burnett from my Miami Marlins is the best TA3 card.
No Debate

AJ was my one of my favorite players in baseball a few years ago so I'll have to try him out. The low control might be tough but he's worth a try

They absolutely should give us back the option to have seperate lineups vs LHPs and RHPs like they used to. I know the main reason they changed it because people were backing out before the game but they can easily work around that issue.

To people against this because people could keep 5 righties on the bench to start vs a lefty: if someone wants to platoon to that extent then let them because they're only hurting themselves if they go that far. Most people would use one or two platoons which isnt that big of a deal and is much more realistic than we have now