MLB The Show 22 hitting tips Reddit

What hitting settings do you use? A lot of it is preference, but there are some community accepted settings that are seen as the best.

Otherwise, the tips I see most often are to work on your batting approach: not swinging at everything, being okay with taking pitches even if they're strikes, waiting for "your" pitch etc... And to look at the ball the whole way through while batting, and letting your body place your pci sorta naturally.

There's a lot of good videos on YouTube you can search for help too. I'd say to try watch those to be able to identify where you think you can improve in batting, and then just being mindful of those improvements the next time you go up to bat.

Good luck my man you got this.

Much harder.

Putting aside the nonsensical outcomes, the PCI is much more sensitive, to the point where it's skipping frames. It's really apparent on AS and above - you only have to move the stick ~75% to the edge and the PCI will be maxed out in that direction (ie. any further movement is just dead zone).

Zone hitting in general needs to be re-evaluated. Brain-numbingly stupid that you don't directly control the bat. I get they're doing it to hide RNG, which eventually leads to more stub sales, but it just doesn't feel right a significant part of the time.

I know servers suck but I wanted to put this out...

I came up with this list many years ago (MLB The Show 17) but with the integration, I figure these tips will help many of the new players. When I first started playing in 17', I realized how hard the learning curve was in this game and I sucked horribly even on rookie. Eventually, I progressed throughout the year and made WS and hit rank 1000. I've been a WS player since when I find the time or nerve to grind out RS. Anyways, here's how I did it and some tips that can help you do it.

Find a pitching type that you’re comfortable with

• I strictly used meter in 17' but I have since switched to analog. I find analog to be pretty responsive and decent enough. However, they have added pinpoint this year and it might be the best of the bunch. I highly recommend going in practice mode or playing the CPU to figure out what you are comfortable with. You can probably find guides for all of them on YouTube.

Strongly recommend switching to Strike Zone camera for batting

• It makes a world of difference in seeing pitches, I could never go back to any other camera. Doesn’t matter to me if I can’t see the full batter if I’m lining doubles and home runs consistently.

Zone hitting is a must for driving the ball online

• Directional hitting will never be able to get pitches that zone will and it makes a big difference for power. I personally use: Diamonds, PCI Inner/Outer: None, Blue, 70%. I think this gives me a good indication of the ball and it is not obtrusive. If blue does not work in a stadium for you, change the color so you can see.

Find players that you are successful with and ditch ones that you are not (SWINGS MATTER)

• Do not get attracted to player overalls. There are a bunch of players in this game that have glitchy swings that do damage. Gallo, Mercedes, Dom Smith, etc. Try out players and find ones you can mash with. Some players have slow swings and you might never be good with them.

Sinkers and cutters rule the Show

• Pitchers with sinkers and cutters are almost always the best pitchers and it’s not even close. The sinker is a very effective pitch in this game when combined with another great pitch like a cutter. Look for hard sinker pitchers if you have the stubs and need to fill a spot. Down and away/down and in, up in the zone on higher difficulties. Both sides to both L/R batters. Mix with changeups/fastballs/sliders/cutters. Sinker on the hands when you have R vs R or L vs L is also very effective. Cutters into the hands when facing opposite handed batters.

Baseball is a game of attrition

• TAKE PITCHES. Here is something I’ve learned, if you swing first pitch, you most likely will hit the ball weakly unless it’s right down the middle. It seems like the game rewards patience at the plate. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve worked pitchers into a 7+ count only to hit a single on the 8th, 9th, or 10th pitch and it crushes the other players will. If you don’t like taking pitches, never swing at the first pitch with a guy on 1B, it is almost 100% of the time going to be a ground ball right into a double play. It seems glitchy but it happens so often.

Your lineup should be varied both in player and handedness

• Never have more than two of the same handedness in a row if possible. My lineup goes L, R, S, R, L, R, S, R. It’s extremely hard to pitch to. It’s also important to have speed, power and defense in your lineup. Don’t get caught up in only having power. Mix your lineup because you need a little of everything. Also, don’t have slow guys bat fourth or fifth. Put them near the bottom at 7th or 8th. You want them to get a hit and be bunted over by the pitcher so that your real great hitters at the top can bat them in. Lead the top of your lineup with speed and power if possible and use them to generate most of your runs. 7th/8th/9th is for creating ancillary runs so keep the slow pokes at the bottom.

Speed/Defending in CF, best arm in RF, weakest arm in LF, 80+ speed highly recommended

• Simple but if you want to take away extra base hits then you need this in the OF.

Learn how your opponent pitches

• Take mental notes during the game of what your opponent throws in a count or what pitch they throw every first pitch. Therefore, taking pitches is important, it allows you to get an idea of what they’re throwing so you can be ready for it when you get the count the next time.

Face the CPU in practice mode on HoF against Dibble or someone with outlier

• I did this for about 30 minutes each day until I could finally hit. It was an absolute struggle at first but I believe it’s what made me a much better hitter. Dibble is hard as hell to hit against the CPU but if you start getting regular hits and timing pitches while taking bad ones then you can really improve your game. This might be the tactic that helped the most.

I recommend a monitor, a wired connection and if no monitor, TV game mode

• I think it's vital to have a wired connection so that pitches aren't lagging when your batting and you do need a TV with game mode on so that some input lag is reduced (monitor if you can). Don't spend all your hard-earned money on a monitor unless you are already doing extremely well and you're looking to make 12-0 runs/WS runs consistently. You can also try some cheap control freaks from Amazon.

Picking pitchers based on pitch selection

• Pitcher selection in The Show needs to be very precise. This is something that I think most highly competitive players make use of but those who don’t play as much may not understand why it’s important. Several types of similar pitches exist but need to be thrown a certain way to work. If you don’t understand types of pitches, I recommend looking them up and watching some clips of how they’re thrown. The way this game works is that pitchers without good repertoires are easier to hit whether they have good per 9s and whether they’re amazing in real life. Let’s start with two examples: Craig Kimbrel and Andrew Miller. Two of the best closers in baseball but they aren’t as effective in this game because of what they throw. Both feature two fastballs and an off-speed pitch (Kimbrel - knuckle curve / Miller - slider). Since they essentially throw two pitches (fastball and off-speed), it’s very easy to sit your PCI on the fastball and rip it. In the high divisions, these pitchers are basically BP because people will completely lay off the off-speed. This means that you need look for pitchers with good pitch selection. I refuse to use any pitcher that doesn’t throw a 2/4 seam, changeup and slider (sinker/cutter is possible). These are the quintessential pitches in my opinion. If you find a guy with a sinker/changeup/slider/fastball combo then in my opinion, it doesn’t get any better. In general, just try to have those three pitches to keep hitters off balance and to prevent players from sitting on pitches.

Learn to sit on pitches

• Speaking of sitting on pitches, we’re going to focus on that now. You’ve now been practicing and you can lay off junk outside of the zone and it’s time to make pitchers pay for throwing you a pitch. If you take pitches your first time through the order then the second and third time through you should know what your opponent is going to throw in counts, when he’s in trouble, what he throws with two strikes, etc. So, here’s what we look to do, when you get up to bat, you purposefully pick a type of pitch that you’re going to hit and wait for it. You swing at nothing but your pitch. If you pick fastball, then you take until you get fastball and you swing for it. Part of this is also picking a location to keep your PCI. For example, if you pick that you’re going to sit fastball for a batter then you know you’re aiming for the top 2/3s of the strike-zone and mainly up in the zone if you can get it. If you sit off-speed because the guy throws low change-ups all game then you know you can sit down in the zone and when the pitcher gets into his wind-up, you can slowly start moving your PCI down so that you can locate that change-up and hit it hard. The key here is picking a pitch early, knowing what the opponents like to throw and making sure to lay off what you’re not sitting on. The worst thing you can do here is try and cover the whole plate because if you try to sit low in the zone and then rush up to hit a high fastball, you’re going to pop up. Part of plate discipline is simply picking your pitch to hit. Guys in the majors do it all the time and it works here. I recommend sitting fastball most of the time and reacting elsewhere if you get down in the count. If you get two strikes then don’t sit on a pitch unless you are 90% sure you will get that pitch because with two strikes you need to protect.

Pitcher H/9 and K/9 matter the most

• Too many people focus on velocity in this game. Bad players struggle to hit velocity so it’s easy to rely on throwing gas at low levels but good players will eat velocity up if it’s all you throw. Small add-on to the velocity bit: If the guy throws 94 MPH average, then he can hit 96 MPH. This combined with a slider and changeup are enough to keep your opponent off balance. Sinkers at 93+ are even better than fastballs at 93+.

Focusing on pitch selection to gain pitcher confidence

• I think this goes under the radar all the time but pitcher confidence is critical in this game. If you get a pitcher with maxed confidence, then it becomes extremely difficult for your opponent to get hits. The way we work this to our advantage is pitching to contact in early counts if you know your opponent struggles with a pitch. The earlier you get an opponent out in the count, the more confidence your pitcher gains. If you find a weakness in your opponent, you need to try and exploit it. The way to go about this is to mix your pitches up early until you find a pitch your opponent is struggling with and then you want to throw the pitch early in counts. Not the first pitch all the time but 1st, 2nd or 3rd pitch in the location that they struggle with. If you can get an opponent to keep getting out on the same pitch selection, then you will max your confidence on that pitch and it basically becomes unhittable even if they square it up. I tend to do this with sinkers and generally max it out first followed by getting my changeup. If you can max the sinker out, then they will hit ground outs for the rest of the game if you locate well. Try this in your games and see if you can get a pitch maxed out and then work to get your pitchers total confidence close to maxed. This also gets you much deeper into games with your starting pitcher.

Using pitcher reputation to your advantage

• This is particularly useful when using a pitcher that is known for throwing a certain pitch. Let’s take Chapman as our example. Everyone knows that Chapman can throw 100-102 MPH on this game and it’s what everyone who plays him expects. I’ve found that I can use this to my advantage by peppering people with changeups and sliders in every at bat. People consistently wait and wait on the fastball but I almost never throw it and when I finally do, they’re so far behind it that they never have a chance of even fouling it off. This works great because you confuse the opponent and have their swings completely off. This can be done with knuckleballers and side-arm pitchers like Neshek where you can throw the opponent off by throwing two up and in fastballs or up and away. People expect nearly every pitch to be down in the zone and you immediately freeze them at the plate.

Don’t be afraid to throw the same pitch

• If you notice that your opponent lays off a pitch over and over, then you might be able to get away with throwing the same pitch over and over because they either don’t like the location or aren’t looking to hit what you’re throwing. There are times where I will throw 3 or 4 inside sinkers or fastballs in a row and my opponent will lay off until I hit the zone. I then throw the pitch again with two strikes because I might have them. This tip is also very useful when you have two strikes on a guy. People expect your pitch selection to change in 0-2, 1-2, etc. So, if you bust them in with two fastballs on 0-2 and they foul them both off, don’t be afraid to throw a third down and away because it will mess with their timing and location.

Make sure you understand normal splits and reverse splits when selecting batters

• This must be considered when building your lineup because you can leave yourself a little shorthanded in certain spots. Normal hitting splits infers that right-handed batters (RHB) hit left handed pitchers (LHP) better and inverse splits means that RHB’s hit RHP’s better. I think it’s ideal to have guys who can hit both handed in possible (70/70/70/70) but if you can’t afford these players or simply don’t have them then you need to know what to look for when batting. I always prefer normal splits because it means the guy will succeed when pitches come into the plate/batter rather than away. Be sure to take note of this and adjust your lineup accordingly if you have players who have inverse splits. It can also make a difference in your batting order even if you have it L, R, L, R. Be sure to check your opponent’s lineup and look for this as well!

Platooning and protecting

• Don’t be afraid to platoon one spot on your team if the cards you have are capable. A platoon is Voit/Muncy because one kills righties and the other kills lefties. One platoon spot won’t hurt your bench too bad and you might even be able to get away with two platoon positions but make sure to start the player who’s worse or LH near the top of your order. You will more commonly face RHP so you start Muncy and if you get a LHP then you bring in Voit. If you don’t have a platoon guy yet, then you need to make sure you protect players by having a player in front and behind him so that you can prevent your opponent from bringing in a closer who will have a better matchup. Try not to protect too many people in your lineup because you don’t want to roll out platoon lineups in this year’s game.

Vary your pitch delivery

• I’m not saying to be a jerk and hold out as long as possible but don’t be afraid to slow down or speed up your delivery to the plate. Sometimes people get in a rhythm if you quick pitch them and throwing it off a little can affect their timing. Make sure to use slide steps and normal deliveries if possible but be very careful when slide stepping because you lose some accuracy on your pitches. Select your pitch and wait a few seconds at times to throw your pitch and then throw it right in there sometimes. These little delays and speed-ups can work wonders especially if you use them correctly. My favorite is to use the full delivery on fastballs because of the slow windup and fast pitch and then slide step change-ups because the pitcher does a quick animation, the opponent gears up and then you throw a change-up and they’re way out in front. Try to play around with these but make sure you’re careful and don’t wait forever when selecting.

Sit PCI high and in, react everywhere else if facing cheeser

• This has helped me greatly for hitting those players that are extremely pesky and only throw gas up and in. Just place your PCI there and move it anywhere else. You’ll have time to react to just about any pitch unless they throw a fastball down and away or in at 97+. You must be willing to concede that at times and just move on because sometimes players just make a great pitch.

Well that’s about it for my tips, I hope some of this helps and I can answer any questions if you have them.

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