Baseball is actually amazing But damn it's frustrating sometimes! I was recently working on the closer mode for AB20 (yes you read it correctly. Keep on reading to learn more). When I got the feature ready for some heavy testing, I tried it on one of my saves.

I had the perfect candidate. A reliever named Griffy. Amazing ERA, young, great stats, throwing fastball like a 2018 Edwin Diaz... And he was already kind of a closer anyway.

First game with my official "closer", he starts the 9th inning, with the team leading 4-2.

Guess what? He blew the save. 3-run home run. How bad is that?

Oh sure, just one game. He came back anyway in the next save situation. Guess what? He gave up 3 runs again.

Baseball... Sometimes you're hard on us. Astonishing Gloves

The last update of Astonishing Baseball 20 included the Astonishing Glove award! A way to reward those who build their team with defense in mind!

More in on the way, with a new multiplayer event and the closer mode! Download it now! Ranked mode

The ranked multiplayer mode is now available on Astonishing Basketball 20! Reach the Astonishing League and become the best player in the world! More improvements to this mode are coming next week as well! Play a ranked game now! From the studio Yes, finally, the closer mode is in beta, and will be available for everybody next week!

I'm still wondering if people will actually like this feature, that has been requested for years. By the way, have you ever thought of how absurde closers are from a statistic point of view? Stats of the week FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) According to Baseball Reference, this is a sabermetric pitching statistic that is philosophically derived from the concept of Defense-Independent Pitching Statistics (also known as "DIPS").



Basically, the idea of FIP is that pitchers have little control over the outcome of an at bat, except for walks and home runs and some other edge cases. It gives you a result pretty close to the ERA, but not quite the same. And it's actually a better predictor of future performances than ERA.



However, FIP is kind of controversial. For example, Fangraphs uses it to calculate WAR, while Baseball reference uses ERA instead. Personally, I do think pitchers have control over the outcome of an at bat. But probably not as much as what ERA gives you. An in-between is missing for me.



FIP is not in AB. Why so? Because, even if I'm not sure how well it works in reality, I know how important a pitcher is in an AB. And it is a lot. Way more than what FIP considers for sure.





Player of the week Monson, aka "Glove of God"

A 12-defense left fielder? Yes ladies and gentlemen!

And a pretty decent batter too!



Can he win games? Yes he can!

Can he allow a steal? Of course not!



Courtesy of Ac0rn, top ranked worldwide on AB20

(If you're wondering how a 12-defense rating can be achieved, you may ask on our Discord server). Random number of the week: 868300 That's the number of training points spent last Sunday. A lot of people have improved apparently! Baseball + PC = <3 AB20 for PC will be available on Steam some time next month! Are you excited? Because I am for sure! And because you're so amazing, here's the official trailer! AB20 for PC Trailer Wishlist it now on Steam! I did not know that! Last time I mentioned the story of Coach John and his defeat during his first two playoffs runs.



For the next season, he recreated the team from scratch. It started badly, and even if the Astonishings reached the playoffs, they didn't get their conference title for the first time in their history.

They eventually reached the finales, against the best team in the league, Baltimore, led by Cross, the reigning MVP. After a fierce series, Seattle finally won the series, and the Baseball Cup.



Coach John and the Astonishings will end up winning 8 straight titles, and the legendary skipper retired after a brillant career.

But how can a dynasty survive after all that? That's what we'll see next week!

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