So it has been a while since I talked politics and much has happened. Obama managed to wrest the nomination from Clinton. I for one was not surprised at Hillary's initial reaction when Obama got the delgates. I was surprised when she back tracked on her vow to fight all the way to the convention in less than 48 hours. I really would love to know the details behind that change of heart. It could have been her already regrouping for another run down the road. Because if she had taken the fight all the way in I think all bridges would have been burnt. The Democratic nomination process got pretty dirty towards the end and I think it let McCain steal a march on them.
Of course we now have the VP nominations to talk about. I think enough dust has settled from the Palin decision to take a better look at it. But first let us talk about Biden. The choice is one I have a hard time understanding from Obama. He road 'change' and 'new' and 'not typical washington' all the way to the Democratic nomination. He flaunted his lack of credentials to a large extent by showing how inept those who had them were already proving to be. Then he picks a VP candidate who pretty much embodies all of those characteristics. Same old washington? Check. Not new? Check. Not someone credible as representing non-partisan change politics? Check. Biden is about as stereotypical politician as you can get this side of an SNL skit. The only reason I could see going that route would be to add some 'gravitas' to the ticket and Biden just does not add that. He is most famous for telling a wheelchair bound person to stand up, and for plagiarizing speeches. On the other hand he is all and all unremarkable and safe in terms of VP picks. He might help swing his home state, he is aggressive and can walk a more dangerous line in terms of his interactions with the opposition. In otherwords picking him was a page out of Politics 101. A very disconcerting move in my mind for a candidate predicated on changing politics.
On the flip side we have McCain breaking new ground, anointing a wet behind the ears freshly minted Governor of Alaska. 2 years state governor experience and prior to that mayor of a flyspeck bush town in the hinterlands of Seward's icebox. To say the least she was not on the radar, and she is NOT politics as usual when it comes to VP picks. In short she is the kind of pick I much more expected from Obama. She enhances aspects of McCain in the way Biden dims down aspects of Obama... the choices here could not be more diametrically opposed. Any arguments about her ability to perform her job or even to step into presidential shoes if McCain dies are largely moot because it would be hard to argue she has less experience than Obama. To debate the differences will only hurt Obama because democrats cannot not shine a light on Palin in that regard that will not also land on Obama. I for one think Palin would be a better choice than Biden in terms of being president. On the other hand I have compared the Republican effort in this election as doomed to repeat Mondales fate when facing Regan... I didn't think they would go so far as to pick a stand in for Geraldine Feraro to boot :-) Ok that is it for reffering to the second major party nomination of a woman for VP and the first republican nod. In my mind it just is not an issue.
So the stage is set. McCain has rolled the dice and for the most part I think he succeeded in showing folks he is still a Maverick, not just a tired cliche. Obama has moved to the center a bit to solidify his shaky party. The question now is did Obama dial it back to much or did McCain reach to far? For the most part it does not matter. Forget the stage that has been set by the past year of posturing by the candidates. The scene has been changed and the stage is fresh. Financial problems are the new Iraq. It is not going to be fixed quickly. In all likely hood it is going to get worse before it gets better. Right now I honestly believe that a presidential win for either candidate is going to be a poison pill "Herbert Hoover" style. For those not up on presidential history, Hoover was the president in office when October 29th 1929 happend and it rapidly torpedoed his administration through no real fault of his own. Of course this situation is slightly different as this election is rapidly going to become focused on this particular problem. So they will have an advantage Hoover did not have. But I do not think that is going to be sufficient to shelter them from the fallout of the first serious economic meltdown of the new millennium. In one sense it could be far worse as they will spend the next couple of months promising they can avert and/or fix the problem and then be clearly 'to blame' when their solutions fail to work. It isn't that their plans have no chance. I just don't see them being able to back out years/decades of problem rapidly enough to matter come the next election cycle. The current attention span of public discourse just is not sufficient which is a shame. To make matters worse the public patience has already been severely tried by the debacle that has become Iraq and the war on terror.
Financial Crisis:
This crisis is nothing new. We saw a massive downturn in the late 90's when the tech bubble burst. We saw the savings and loan scandal in the late 80's and now we have the sub prime crisis. They ALL have a very common thread. Irresponsible high risk economic decision making on a MASSIVE scale. What makes this one worse than the previous two is the scale and distribution of the risk. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac alone comprised 12 trillion dollars of assets, much of which has been poisoned by the sub prime meltdown. The securities floated from many other institutions based on the same mess have circulated the globe. A very large part of me wants to say just let them lie in the graves they dug, consequences be damned. The problem with that is this has the potential to destroy multiple national economies as we now know them. How so? Economies are largely based on trust. The higher flying international trade has gotten the more based on trust it has become. Investment is all about trust. I am going to give you X amount of Money in hopes I will get Y amount back. When faith in that process dies it kills investment. As for what actually drives that trust? Good luck finding out or explaining it. Reading tea leaves, monitoring skirt lengths or even super bowl victories have as good a track record of predicting it as 'expert opinion'. What really is not up for debate is that when trust in the process fails it is devastating. Basic economic interaction today is based on trust. Trust that a piece of paper is worth goods and services. Stop and think about that for a second. We accept money in exchange for the lion's share of our efforts through the day. We do this because it is something we trust to be more productive than going out and trying to meet our needs in other ways... like hunting. Trust in the investment processes is fundamental to the monetary system. Without it banks are a non-starter. They can only afford to hold your money if their is profit in it for them, and without investment there is no way for banks to make money short of taking yours. That in turn reduces the appeal of banks in general which starts a vicious cycle. If you want a crash course in some of the potential side effects study post WW 1 German economics, or for a more recent example check out Zimbabwe.
Anyway, when you hit times like this it takes wide reaching leadership from the top to chart a course out of it. In short, problems like this are why government exists. The problem is we have been so prosperous for so long that we have allowed our government to invent new roles and responsibilities for itself and now we are stretched to far to react well to problems like this one. In short, the US government is just as over leveraged as the whole sub prime mortgage industry. Thus we are in a catch 22. A card government has to play is the bottomless bucket of cash card... IE we spend it first and ask where the hell it came from later. It is something of a slight of hand trick and the idea is that the results of spending the money eventually serves to justify from whence it came. Sort of arguing that the chicken comes before the egg, or that the ends justify the means. The problem with that method is it can backfire and it might become obvious to everyone that the egg does indeed come before the chicken and that the means are as important as the end result. Which is right? There is no way to tell. To the victors go the spoils, or in other word what actually happens will in fact determine what was right. The problem is you can only pull so much money out of a hat before people begin to question money period... and the US government has been pulling money from nowhere for quite a while now. You may not think of it as such but I am sure you are familiar with the term 'Deficit spending' as it has been a standard sound bite for most of the war on Terror. When the common person engages in deficit spending we pull out a credit card. It is the same for the government in that they spend money they do not have. The difference is the US government doing it is like you doing it when you own the credit card company. If you really consider that for a while I think you will begin to see the problems. A little is fine, a lot bankrupts the company.
Let me try to place the proposed financial system bailout in perspective. The number being thrown about for it is 700 billion dollars. 1000 billion is a trillion. Government revenue for 2007 was estimated at about 2.4 trillion... or 2,400 billion. Translation. The proposed bailout represents about 30% of the US governments income from 2007. For every $1 dollar in taxes you spent that means $0.30 would go to the bailout. The problem is before the bailout the government already had a budget spending something like $1.14 dollars for every dollar they received. In other words the US government was already spending more money they they collected, and now they are talking about spending ~30% more. Another way to look at this is the government did not even collect more than 700billion total until 1985. The only time we have seen deficit spending in that range was at the hight of the cold war and Reganomics... and even Regan only got it up to 25% ('82). The current 2008 budget is estimating 13.9% deficit spending. This would ADD another 30% to toss us out there at 43.9%. Imagine if you will... that you went out and overan your household budget by 43%. That is you had to go on credit for almost half of what you earn in a year. Assuming 10% of your budget was discrectionary (able to spend on anything) it would take you 4+ years of spending it on nothing else to catch back up. Or you have to impact other budget items... like saving for retirement etc... You could make minimum payments to your card and ease the pain in return for paying back craploads more money over a much longer term. Now imagine if you did this every year. Sooner or later you get so far behind it just does not work and you end up spending all available money just to deal with interest. The US government is rapidly working itself into a similar situation.
Something has GOT to give and there are only 3 chunks of government spending large enough to even think about carving this kind of money out of in any kind of reasonable time frame. They are DOD, Social Security, and Medicare. All of them sit around 20%, or in other words those three things account for 60% of the US budget year in and year out. Social Security is the piggy bank that gets raided when we 'deficit spend' and it is overdrawn to say the least so we would have to pull from somewhere else. The only other choice is to produce more money. In the past that effectively meant sacking another country for their wealth. Today with paper currency a choice is also to just print more of it. Taking money from any of the three major budget areas has severe consequences. Generating money from thin air has even more severe consequences... and conquest is really no longer a viable option. Now, sit down and try to figure out how you juggle the problems and I think you will see why I think Obama and McCain are completely and utterly screwed. Change... it is an over tired cliche, but change is coming no matter who wins and not just because it is in their campaign slogans. Change is coming courtesy of the financial crisis, ready or not here it comes.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Friday, May 23, 2008
Gas prices solutions: 55mph speed limit vrs Telecomuting
So gas has hit $4 a gallon. Crude has hit all time highs and suddenly everyone is in a panic over what can be done. One proposal in particular is suggesting we go back to a national 55mph speed limit.
NO
It is not safer, and unless people actually adhere to the limit it will not do anything to improve gas mileage. It would improve ticket revenue however.
If you question my statement about safety just go look it up and find whatever sources you deem credible. There were more wrecks and more fatal wrecks by any measure made during the double nickel era and was followed by a sharp decline after it was repealed. Simple physics says it should be safer... less speed less damage etc. That is true enough but the problem is that the vast majority of people paid zero heed to the signs. Average highway speeds did not decline at the onset of 55mph limits... in fact average highway speed has generally increased over time with improved car design. Today's typical sedan is a far cry from a 70's piece of heavy iron with leaf springs. However because a fair percentage of drivers will ALWAYS adhere rigidly to the posted speed limits this meant there was often a greater relative speed difference between cars on the highway. Relative speed difference is what makes wrecks dangerous. It does not matter if we are talking about a car and a light post or two cars. The relative speed difference is the determining factor in how bad it will be. You also have to remember that the equation for deriving kinetic energy is exponential. That means the energy that has to be dissipated by a car moving at 80mph is not 4 times that of a car moving at 20mph... it is more like 16x the energy.
The equation is E = .5 (m * v^2) or Energy equals half of mass times velocity squared.
Use kg for weight and meters per second for velocity and you will arrive at joules. Map some speeds and you will see what happens. If everyone stayed within +- 5mph of 55 it would indeed be safer... but when speeds are split 55 - 85 that 30mph difference is worse than say a wreck between 25 and 55. Highway wrecks involving 55mph difference.. ie running into a stationary object.. are pretty much the same as hitting it at 85... you are just more sure of fatality to a few more decimal places. Crash tests generally take place around 35-45mph and very few cars can maintain their integrity at that speed much less higher velocity impacts.
So barring a completely different and vastly more effective enforcement mechanism there is no chance lowering the speed limit will increase safety or lower overall gas usage. Both simply because people will not obey it... not because the idea couldn't produce those results.
So what can be done about gas prices? Obviously numerous alternatives are in the wings. However for the most part those options are only in the wings because the higher price of gas has made them attractive. If gas went back down to $2-3 a gallon those ventures would dry up in pretty short order. Why? Because the new technologies are going to run consumers at least as much in total cost of owner ship as current cars with fuel costs around that level. Alternatives are needed so I am not that sure lower gas prices are a good thing. But if you want to lower them it is easy. You lower demand.
The majority of gas demand in the US is driven by the daily work commute of the average American. Cut a day of work and you cut that source of demand by ~20%. But I have to work you say? Fine... work from home. The overwhelming majority of white collar work in the US is computer based. We have this wonderful thing called the internet which virtually all said white collar workers have access to at home. They can do computer work at home and only come on days where face to face events are required. As a standing policy I would suggest a 3/2/2 workweek system. 3 in , 2 out and weekend.
Mon, Wed and Friday in the Office. Tuesday and Thursday as standard remote work days. That would produce a large drop in gas demand if it were implemented across the board in the US. It is realistic, and it is overdue. Lower traffic to work leads to lower gas consumption, less congestion, less smog, less emissions and improves quality of life as you spend less time away from home. It seems so simple. But decades of entrenched thought dictates what the work week is and means. While technically easy to implement this calls for a major change in how corporate bean counters and managers think.
NO
It is not safer, and unless people actually adhere to the limit it will not do anything to improve gas mileage. It would improve ticket revenue however.
If you question my statement about safety just go look it up and find whatever sources you deem credible. There were more wrecks and more fatal wrecks by any measure made during the double nickel era and was followed by a sharp decline after it was repealed. Simple physics says it should be safer... less speed less damage etc. That is true enough but the problem is that the vast majority of people paid zero heed to the signs. Average highway speeds did not decline at the onset of 55mph limits... in fact average highway speed has generally increased over time with improved car design. Today's typical sedan is a far cry from a 70's piece of heavy iron with leaf springs. However because a fair percentage of drivers will ALWAYS adhere rigidly to the posted speed limits this meant there was often a greater relative speed difference between cars on the highway. Relative speed difference is what makes wrecks dangerous. It does not matter if we are talking about a car and a light post or two cars. The relative speed difference is the determining factor in how bad it will be. You also have to remember that the equation for deriving kinetic energy is exponential. That means the energy that has to be dissipated by a car moving at 80mph is not 4 times that of a car moving at 20mph... it is more like 16x the energy.
The equation is E = .5 (m * v^2) or Energy equals half of mass times velocity squared.
Use kg for weight and meters per second for velocity and you will arrive at joules. Map some speeds and you will see what happens. If everyone stayed within +- 5mph of 55 it would indeed be safer... but when speeds are split 55 - 85 that 30mph difference is worse than say a wreck between 25 and 55. Highway wrecks involving 55mph difference.. ie running into a stationary object.. are pretty much the same as hitting it at 85... you are just more sure of fatality to a few more decimal places. Crash tests generally take place around 35-45mph and very few cars can maintain their integrity at that speed much less higher velocity impacts.
So barring a completely different and vastly more effective enforcement mechanism there is no chance lowering the speed limit will increase safety or lower overall gas usage. Both simply because people will not obey it... not because the idea couldn't produce those results.
So what can be done about gas prices? Obviously numerous alternatives are in the wings. However for the most part those options are only in the wings because the higher price of gas has made them attractive. If gas went back down to $2-3 a gallon those ventures would dry up in pretty short order. Why? Because the new technologies are going to run consumers at least as much in total cost of owner ship as current cars with fuel costs around that level. Alternatives are needed so I am not that sure lower gas prices are a good thing. But if you want to lower them it is easy. You lower demand.
The majority of gas demand in the US is driven by the daily work commute of the average American. Cut a day of work and you cut that source of demand by ~20%. But I have to work you say? Fine... work from home. The overwhelming majority of white collar work in the US is computer based. We have this wonderful thing called the internet which virtually all said white collar workers have access to at home. They can do computer work at home and only come on days where face to face events are required. As a standing policy I would suggest a 3/2/2 workweek system. 3 in , 2 out and weekend.
Mon, Wed and Friday in the Office. Tuesday and Thursday as standard remote work days. That would produce a large drop in gas demand if it were implemented across the board in the US. It is realistic, and it is overdue. Lower traffic to work leads to lower gas consumption, less congestion, less smog, less emissions and improves quality of life as you spend less time away from home. It seems so simple. But decades of entrenched thought dictates what the work week is and means. While technically easy to implement this calls for a major change in how corporate bean counters and managers think.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
MLB The Show '08
Had to toss my two cents out about this game. First off I played ball through College and as a general rule I despise baseball video games despite the fact I always have to try them out 'just to see' if they got it. The last baseball game I enjoyed playing more than five minutes was 'bases loaded' on Nentendo.
So... I don't like the standard game mode for all the usual reasons. Fielding just does not work well when you are bugs bunny (playing everyone). And reactions are always messed up because you don't know which player will be selected. But 'Road To the SHOW' is awesome. At least for a pitcher.
What did they get right?
Setting pitches up realistically, hitters strengths and weaknesses are not givens... IE leave a ball in a hot zone and it leaves the park. Most games just don't do well (like most people) with the fact that even a hall of fame caliber hitter is only successful 3 out of 10 times on average even if they get something to hit. That said, screw up in a count favoring the hitter and mistakes will get hammered. Get ahead and hitters get more defensive and are less likely to jump on something... but its still more percentages than 'given'... ie they will hammer it behind in the count and they will miss ahead in the count. Fielding for a pitcher works fairly well though they seem unrealistic on lack of response on shots up the middle. That seems to be tied to your players fielding ability... ie rack up a higher fielding ability with training and more up the middle balls become playable (tappers etc...).
Variable strike zone with ups is only too realistic and VERY frustrating at times.
What did they get wrong?
Default pitch selection signals are horrendous... or maybe that was supposed to reflect bad calling. The game seems to think you have to mix high and low regardless of the pitcher on the hills capabilities and it will call a crap load of up in the zone pitches. There are only a handful of big league pitchers that are successful up in the zone consistently and even they spend most of their time in the lower quarter of the zone. Watch any game and you will see that it is extremely rare for a catcher to ask for a pitch to intentionally be 'up' in the zone.
If you are going to have a 'sweet spot' release point mechanic and you nail it then the pitch should go to the location or reasonably close.
Players should not start at 'F' qualities across the board. Initial point distribution should allow a good 'all round' player or one strong in a couple of areas to be so weak in others. Choosing starting points seems pointless since everything is so awful anyway. If a player was straight F's they wouldn't be in pro ball. Remember those are the attributes that got them a contract. Applying those attributes in games consistently is then what gets them to the show.
The 'missions' or whatever they want to call them are very hit or miss. For a pitcher they love to have random 'strike the batter out' requests which are mostly silly, especially considering how many other little details they got right. Pitchers rarely are on the hook to deliver a strike out. Runner(s) in scoring position with less than two outs is the ONLY time they would even work with a strike out in mind rather than JUST getting them out. At the least getting an out without a runner scoring should have always been a 'positive result'. Measuring pitching success rarely comes down to individual batters. Instead there should have been a pitching chart evaluation for the cumulative outing. IE what percentage of batters were you ahead in the count on, what was your strike/ball ratio, how many times did not let the lead off man on? Etc... these are all things that could have been standard evaluations after the game that were not really to be seen.
Training... man they really goofed that one if you ask me. What they should have done is provided a basic set of points per period in between games and then made players choose what areas to work on. Great performances in games would then have generated bonuses to attributes that were successfully used. IE if a pitcher got a lot of clutch outs they would be granted improvements to clutch performance and been able to focus training elsewhere. Heavy successful use of a pitch would develop aspects of that pitch etc...
All in all though the pitching experience is fantastic from my standpoint. I play every pitch and can REALLY get into the game. Hitters actually seem to respond to the way they are pitched. IE a hiiter who has their weakness exploited will adjust and you can then get them in other areas of the zone (or get hammered if you keep doing the same thing). Larger game trends like reliance on a certain pitch in certain situations will also get you in trouble. The mental game of pitch selection and location is there better than in ANY other game I have ever played.
Road to the show for a fielder is less well done. I don't think they should have limited player involvement to only the plays they were involved in directly. They should have just made it at least every pitch that was put in play. You don't have any chance to get in the 'mental' game of a fielder. Also hitting goals are asinine. Goals like 'reach base safely, or don't strike out' should be for an entire game, not specific at bats. Again hitting just isn't the kind of activity that lends itself well to such specific goals in a given AB. Hit and Run success should be weigted against the quality of pitch received and what was done... getting the ball on the ground to the correct side of the field successfully for a hit is NOT the only means of judging it a success. It is a percentage play in the right counts... which brings up signs. When you bat or are on base then checking signs should be pretty much a given part of every pitch except in obvious 'swing away' circumstances. Also the camera should provide a hitters eye perspective rather than just low behind the catcher... the eye hight is extremely important for pitch recognition etc... Though in the long run for a real decent pitch recognition mechanic in a game they are going to have to have a good 3d image for real depth perception judgement
Speaking of that the camera for base runners rounding second should be given a view of the third base coach... or the third base coach should be in a window. Pick Off warnings should come from the base coach and not from the announcers.
Fielding should include backing plays up... pitchers have a LOT of back up responsibilities but I have yet to see them come into play, and the camera angle for most of the backups of third/home are completely unusable.
Spring training... Why the hell do you only go to spring training if you are auditioning for a new contract? Starters play every year, and up and comers content for roster spots. Top Prospects should always be battling for position in spring training. If you want to give an established 'veteran' the option to skip playing spring training out fine. But honestly I think that is where the 'improvement' dynamic should have been most relevant with it being limited in season by success in games. Practice during the season is largely aimed at keeping sharp.. not on developing except in the minors in some cases.
Foul tips... jeesus H _(*@)(*#&% Christ. Every other at bat sometimes seems like the impossible out where all they do is fould the ball off. It does happen... but rarely does it happen more than a couple of times a game, Early on I literally had like 10 batters in a row where they would foul off an average of 6-10 2 strike pitches... was nutz. Happens WAAAAY to much.
All that said, I love the road to the show for a pitcher. You actually play a game of ball and most of the game is 'right' in terms of what happens though the fielding is sometimes goofy.
So... I don't like the standard game mode for all the usual reasons. Fielding just does not work well when you are bugs bunny (playing everyone). And reactions are always messed up because you don't know which player will be selected. But 'Road To the SHOW' is awesome. At least for a pitcher.
What did they get right?
Setting pitches up realistically, hitters strengths and weaknesses are not givens... IE leave a ball in a hot zone and it leaves the park. Most games just don't do well (like most people) with the fact that even a hall of fame caliber hitter is only successful 3 out of 10 times on average even if they get something to hit. That said, screw up in a count favoring the hitter and mistakes will get hammered. Get ahead and hitters get more defensive and are less likely to jump on something... but its still more percentages than 'given'... ie they will hammer it behind in the count and they will miss ahead in the count. Fielding for a pitcher works fairly well though they seem unrealistic on lack of response on shots up the middle. That seems to be tied to your players fielding ability... ie rack up a higher fielding ability with training and more up the middle balls become playable (tappers etc...).
Variable strike zone with ups is only too realistic and VERY frustrating at times.
What did they get wrong?
Default pitch selection signals are horrendous... or maybe that was supposed to reflect bad calling. The game seems to think you have to mix high and low regardless of the pitcher on the hills capabilities and it will call a crap load of up in the zone pitches. There are only a handful of big league pitchers that are successful up in the zone consistently and even they spend most of their time in the lower quarter of the zone. Watch any game and you will see that it is extremely rare for a catcher to ask for a pitch to intentionally be 'up' in the zone.
If you are going to have a 'sweet spot' release point mechanic and you nail it then the pitch should go to the location or reasonably close.
Players should not start at 'F' qualities across the board. Initial point distribution should allow a good 'all round' player or one strong in a couple of areas to be so weak in others. Choosing starting points seems pointless since everything is so awful anyway. If a player was straight F's they wouldn't be in pro ball. Remember those are the attributes that got them a contract. Applying those attributes in games consistently is then what gets them to the show.
The 'missions' or whatever they want to call them are very hit or miss. For a pitcher they love to have random 'strike the batter out' requests which are mostly silly, especially considering how many other little details they got right. Pitchers rarely are on the hook to deliver a strike out. Runner(s) in scoring position with less than two outs is the ONLY time they would even work with a strike out in mind rather than JUST getting them out. At the least getting an out without a runner scoring should have always been a 'positive result'. Measuring pitching success rarely comes down to individual batters. Instead there should have been a pitching chart evaluation for the cumulative outing. IE what percentage of batters were you ahead in the count on, what was your strike/ball ratio, how many times did not let the lead off man on? Etc... these are all things that could have been standard evaluations after the game that were not really to be seen.
Training... man they really goofed that one if you ask me. What they should have done is provided a basic set of points per period in between games and then made players choose what areas to work on. Great performances in games would then have generated bonuses to attributes that were successfully used. IE if a pitcher got a lot of clutch outs they would be granted improvements to clutch performance and been able to focus training elsewhere. Heavy successful use of a pitch would develop aspects of that pitch etc...
All in all though the pitching experience is fantastic from my standpoint. I play every pitch and can REALLY get into the game. Hitters actually seem to respond to the way they are pitched. IE a hiiter who has their weakness exploited will adjust and you can then get them in other areas of the zone (or get hammered if you keep doing the same thing). Larger game trends like reliance on a certain pitch in certain situations will also get you in trouble. The mental game of pitch selection and location is there better than in ANY other game I have ever played.
Road to the show for a fielder is less well done. I don't think they should have limited player involvement to only the plays they were involved in directly. They should have just made it at least every pitch that was put in play. You don't have any chance to get in the 'mental' game of a fielder. Also hitting goals are asinine. Goals like 'reach base safely, or don't strike out' should be for an entire game, not specific at bats. Again hitting just isn't the kind of activity that lends itself well to such specific goals in a given AB. Hit and Run success should be weigted against the quality of pitch received and what was done... getting the ball on the ground to the correct side of the field successfully for a hit is NOT the only means of judging it a success. It is a percentage play in the right counts... which brings up signs. When you bat or are on base then checking signs should be pretty much a given part of every pitch except in obvious 'swing away' circumstances. Also the camera should provide a hitters eye perspective rather than just low behind the catcher... the eye hight is extremely important for pitch recognition etc... Though in the long run for a real decent pitch recognition mechanic in a game they are going to have to have a good 3d image for real depth perception judgement
Speaking of that the camera for base runners rounding second should be given a view of the third base coach... or the third base coach should be in a window. Pick Off warnings should come from the base coach and not from the announcers.
Fielding should include backing plays up... pitchers have a LOT of back up responsibilities but I have yet to see them come into play, and the camera angle for most of the backups of third/home are completely unusable.
Spring training... Why the hell do you only go to spring training if you are auditioning for a new contract? Starters play every year, and up and comers content for roster spots. Top Prospects should always be battling for position in spring training. If you want to give an established 'veteran' the option to skip playing spring training out fine. But honestly I think that is where the 'improvement' dynamic should have been most relevant with it being limited in season by success in games. Practice during the season is largely aimed at keeping sharp.. not on developing except in the minors in some cases.
Foul tips... jeesus H _(*@)(*#&% Christ. Every other at bat sometimes seems like the impossible out where all they do is fould the ball off. It does happen... but rarely does it happen more than a couple of times a game, Early on I literally had like 10 batters in a row where they would foul off an average of 6-10 2 strike pitches... was nutz. Happens WAAAAY to much.
All that said, I love the road to the show for a pitcher. You actually play a game of ball and most of the game is 'right' in terms of what happens though the fielding is sometimes goofy.
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