by LMBombers » Sun Feb 07, 2010 7:15 am
The F9, F8, etc is pitcher fatigue. When a starting pitcher enters a game he will be at full strength (F9). He starts to show fatigue as his rating decreases during the game. Below is what TSN/SOM provides as an explaination of this:
[b:a960ae8156] Pitcher's Condition (F0 - F9)[/b:a960ae8156]
The pitcher's Condition can be from F0 to F9. F9 means that he is operating on all cylinders, whereas F0 indicates that he has nothing left in the tank. Normally pitchers start their appearance as F9 and maintain that level until they approach or exceed their Suggested Pitch Count.
If a pitcher's Condition drops to F0 he will continue to fatigue the longer he stays in the game. His Condition rating will remain displayed as F0, but he will start to give up hits and walks at a higher rate if you leave him in the game.
The situations wherein a pitcher can reach his Point of Weakness (POW) as per the Super-Advanced POW rules do still apply, but in these cases he is not to be considered suddenly "tired", nor do all "@" readings automatically turn into SINGLE**. But this DOES significantly speed up the pitcher's Pitch Count Fatigue deterioration.
Otherwise, in general, if the pitcher hasn't reached his POW per the Super-Advanced POW rules, he will gradually start losing points in his Condition (e.g. F8 -> F7) as he throws more pitches, once he has exceeded his Suggested Pitch Count for the game. However, if he has been pitching particularly well in his most recent innings, this rate of deterioration will be slower.
[b:a960ae8156]How Condition Affects Gameplay[/b:a960ae8156]
Similar to POW, PCF affects readings on pitcher cards preceded by an "@", but it doesn't automatically turn them all into SINGLE**. Instead, it is a more gradual effect, and the variety of the resulting penalties is greater. Basically, once a pitcher's Condition falls below F9 (full strength), the chance of an "@" reading turning into a hit or a walk increases incrementally with each point descending towards F0. The hits can be singles, doubles, triples, or homeruns.
This is vague with no exact particulars given but you get the idea. Go to your team's pitcher preferences section to set your pitcher's individual settings such as "don't relieve before F(whatever)" if you would like.