Ver 1.35 — Pitch Call Mode / Roster Sorting / Baseball IQ

Version 1.35 is now live, bundling everything we have shipped since the last announcement.

The four pillars this time are the new Pitch Call mode, a much stronger roster screen, the new Baseball IQ ability, and a rebuilt postseason. Pitch Call takes pitch-by-pitch managing one step further and hands you the battery's brain. The roster screen improvements come straight from community feedback.

New: Pitch Call Mode — Call Location and Pitch Type, Every Pitch

• Pitch-by-pitch mode gains a new "Pitch Call" switch. While fielding, pick a target from the 5×5 location grid and a pitch from your pitcher's arsenal, then press "Throw". You call the game
• Selecting a pitch shows a trajectory preview of how it will break on its way to the target. The bend scales with that pitcher's arsenal quality
• After you throw, the ball comes at you from the mound and its actual arrival point stays on the grid, with a line showing how far it missed your target. You will feel your pitcher's control — whether the ball goes where you called is up to their arm
• The batter's reaction is drawn with the bat itself: a whiff, a nicked foul, solid contact or a bunt — you can read the outcome at a glance
• "Back to Auto" returns to normal flow at any time. Keyboard supported (arrows = location / Tab = pitch / Space = throw)
• A compact play log and mini field view keep you on top of the game while calling pitches

The Zone Chart Now Shows What Was Thrown

• On the in-game ZONE tab (this at-bat), marker shapes now tell you the pitch type: circles are fastballs, triangles are breaking balls, and each triangle points in the direction the pitch breaks
• Hover over any dot to see that pitch's type, velocity and result

New Manager Calls

• Added a "Sacrifice Fly" call on offense. With a runner on third, your batter swings with the outfield in mind
• The two-strike bunt confirmation now explains the stakes: "Keep bunting? A foul now is a strikeout"
• The command panel was reorganized into two rows of offensive commands for readability

A Much More Usable Roster Screen

• Bench hitters, minor-league hitters and pitchers, and prospects can now be sorted. Press the same key again to flip ascending/descending. Even with a big roster, the player you need is easy to find
• Hitters sort by Contact / Power / Speed / Defense / Age. Contact blends contact and eye; Speed folds in base-running sense; Defense folds in fielding, position aptitude, arm and throwing. Look for a pinch hitter, a defensive replacement or a pinch runner directly
• Pitchers sort by Velocity / Breaking / Stamina / Role fit / Age. Velocity factors in heaviness and rise; Breaking factors in sharpness and repertoire size. Find power arms and finesse arms separately
• Role fit orders starters → relievers → closers, so you can spot a great reliever buried among your starters at a glance
• Added a dedicated preseason lineup editor: a third "Preseason" view next to 1st Team and Minors, with its own batting order and rotation. Everyone on the roster can play in preseason games, so you can audition minor-leaguers and prospects freely
• The preseason lineup is auto-drafted from your current best each season — then slot in the youngsters you want to see
• Minors and preseason now have reliever / setup / closer slots too, managed with the same controls as the first team and fully independent from it
• Groom a future closer in the minors, or hand a rookie the 9th inning in preseason to see what they are made of

New Ability: Baseball IQ

• Every player now has Baseball IQ — the ability to read the game
• For catchers, higher IQ means game-calling that brings out each pitcher's best. Who wears the mask changes how your staff performs
• For fielders it sharpens defensive judgment; for runners it feeds into base-running decisions. Some players are not fast, yet always take the extra base
• Convert a light-hitting but sharp-minded player to catcher and let his brain carry the position — a new way to build a roster

See the Quality of a Pitcher's Stuff

• Player details now show "Sharpness" and "Heaviness". Sharpness is how well breaking balls miss bats even at the same movement; Heaviness is how heavy the fastball plays
• Traits you could never read from velocity alone: a soft-tossing sinkerballer who gets outs, or a true power pitcher with elite ride
• Roster sorting ("Velocity", "Breaking") uses these too, so quietly great arms no longer slip through

Postseason Improvements

• The Japan Series now follows the 2-3-2 home-site rotation instead of playing every game in one ballpark (the Climax Series remains hosted by the higher seed)
• Postseason starting rotations now advance correctly — no more one pitcher starting every game of a series
• Stamina consumption, recovery and back-to-back fatigue now apply in the postseason, so short-series pitching decisions carry real weight
• Postseason DH rules now follow the ballpark's league setting

Choose How Player Names Are Displayed

• Name display can now be set separately for Japanese and foreign players — for example kanji for Japanese players and the alphabet for foreign players
• Added a katakana option for Japanese players
• Fixed some player and team names reverting to Japanese when playing in English, Chinese or Korean. Settings now shows which data files are in use, with a one-click restore to the bundled data
• Fixed a data error where some players' English names belonged to other players, and unified romanization

CPU Teams Now Sign Foreign Players

• CPU clubs previously had no way to acquire new foreign players, so they slowly disappeared from long saves. Clubs now scout overseas in the offseason to keep their rosters stocked
• Long-running leagues keep their international flavor

Draft Improvements

• Once you draft one player found by your domestic scouts, the rest become visible to every club. Hide them all the way, or cash in one early — a new layer of draft strategy. Can be toggled in settings (default OFF = classic exclusive behavior)
• Fixed auto-draft occasionally passing on all picks
• Fixed development-player picks counting against the main draft quota
• Fixed auto-draft stalling when the 70-man roster is full
• Added a button to check your own roster during the draft

More Natural Game Flow

• Runners on third now break for home on infield grounders. Whether they score depends on the batted-ball direction, the runner's judgment and the infielder's throw

Cloud Save Improvements

• Fixed custom data (edited players, teams, stadiums) not syncing through Steam Cloud to other PCs. This is a server-side fix and is already active — launch and quit the game once on the PC with your custom data, then start the other PC
• Data now also syncs between Windows and Steam Deck / Linux

Display Safety

• Resolutions larger than your monitor can no longer be selected
• If a saved resolution does not fit the screen, the game now falls back to the largest size that fits on startup (this also rescues anyone already stuck)

Other Improvements

• Hover over a substitution candidate to preview the comparison card — no more clicking through the whole bench
• Other clubs' stat pages now show league ranks, so you can tell at a glance where an average or ERA stands
• The schedule tab now shows the interleague period as a band with markers on the month rail
• Automatic call-ups now consider position fit, so the same position no longer piles up
• The draft screen's team-needs display was tightened up for readability mid-draft

Bug Fixes

• Fixed pitch-by-pitch mode stalling when the opposing batter bunted (or on an intentional walk)
• Fixed the free-agent negotiation form and buttons being pushed off screen with long player lists
• Fixed month-skip passing over unplayed preseason games
• Fixed the farm-size warning before the draft pointing to a screen you could not actually return to
• Fixed player details always opening on career stats when opened from the career tab, ignoring your priority setting
• Fixed the DH row always showing a warning color on the substitution screen

In Closing

Pitch Call mode is our push to move pitch-by-pitch managing from "watching" to "deciding". The craft of calling a game, the agony of a missed spot, the joy of a swing-and-miss right where you wanted it — we hope you enjoy baseball's battle of wits.

Almost everything else in this update came directly from your feedback: roster sorting, preseason lineups, CPU foreign signings, postseason scheduling and fatigue, cloud sync. Thank you, as always — and keep the reports and ideas coming.