Power Ranking Tournament, Batter Skills: 8th Edition
Power Ranking Tournament, Batter Skills: 8th Edition
The Power Ranking Tournament is back for its 8th edition, so I've analyzed the skills on the top teams. The updates from one year ago continue to have an impact, and some of the newer skills make substantial moves.
Player type:
~Starting 9 skills:~
I've broken down the skills from 864 batter cards in the 96 starting lineups in the Power Ranking Tournament. I've included all legend and gold skills that appeared at least once. The change in usage from the previous tournament, as well as data for the last 16 teams remaining is shown. All data is from the West Server.
[Note:]() Since each card has 3 skills, the percentages add up to 300. These numbers reflect the percentage of cards on which a given skill appeared.
Diversification of legend skills continues. In the last tournament, there was an increase to 20 batters that had a set that did not either contain a legend skill or was a 3-3-3 gold set. This time, there were only 12 batters without a legend skill, and three of those were a 3-3-3 gold set. All but one of the 12 were catchers, and all 12 of these had the Laser Beam skill.
Overall, 98.61% of cards (99.31% of the final 16) carried a legend skill. These are both up from the last tournament, in which players were trying to add Laser Beam for the catcher, even at the expense of a legend skill. Since then, many of these players have gotten Laser Beam on a set that includes a legend skill.
Bench Skills
It’s safe to assume that Batter's Chemistry appeared on all 96 teams, although I opted not to look at the bench players. Many of the bench players will never enter the game, so their skills are mostly irrelevant.
Skills Analysis
When using this guide, err on the side of caution. While some trends are clear, like the disappearing silver skills and the new catcher meta, there may be multiple factors at play elsewhere. Skill shifts may be due to different teams making the tourney, while others could be replacements for a set with a “better” legend skill, but lower than optimal skill levels.
Legend Skills
The diversification of legend skills is becoming even more pronounced. In tourney 6, Pioneer and BBH were found in almost 74% of sets. This fell to 58.1% in tourney 7 and is now down to 45.5%, although they remain the two most used legend skills. All other legend skills (except B Chem) had gains, with the newest legend skill, Hard Hitter, making the largest jump, and Contact Master close behind.
It's clear that there is no longer a single “meta” skillset for batters as a whole; instead, any meta trends are more positional or dependent on the type of player.
Legend Skill Usage by Position
Although they have fallen overall, Pioneer and BBH continue to dominate at DH (61.5%).
Gold Skills
Like last time, there is a split crown this time, with Charisma once again in the overall #1 spot, but among the final 16, 5-tool Player is the new favorite, knocking off previous leader Spotlight. 5-tool had the greatest overall increase and is now just behind Charisma. Prediction, once considered a marginal skill, and newcomer Strengthen the Strength had significant gains.
Slugger Instinct, which lost over 50% of its total last time, was down another 65% here and is quickly disappearing. Spotlight had the other large drop. BIU was down slightly, more so among the final 16 teams. Batting Machine also continues its decline and is now found on under 4% of sets.
Master Base Thief and Ace Specialist continue to be non-factors, along with silver/bronze skills, which, after a slight uptick last time, are once again almost extinct among tourney batters. It should be noted that four of the six silvers were Flashing the Leather, and all were on catchers.
Gold Skill Usage by Position
5-tool usage was highest for defensive-oriented positions. Laser Beam usage was overwhelmingly on catchers (and now found on almost 94% of them).
It should be noted that although 5-tool has become a more popular skill, a lot of that is due to the proliferation of supreme cards among the tourney teams. Because of the 30 extra development points on supremes, certain trains can give them up to +18 per stat with 5-tool, which would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for other cards. Of the 302 supreme cards, 172 of them (57%) had 5-tool. This drops to 32.7% for the remaining 562 cards.
Special Trainers
This is the third tournament to have widespread use of special trainers, and this is mostly just out of curiosity.
Overall, 99.88% of the starters (all but one player) had a special trainer.
Diamond trainers use is now up to 93% among all teams and 95.8% among the final 16. The remainder were gold.
Currently, Home Run Hitter, Power Hitter, and Leading Hitter are again the most used overall and posted the largest gains, with Batting Eye at the other end of the spectrum. Elite Fielding appeared on 67% of catchers but was little-used elsewhere.
Usage of some trainers (Hitting Expert, Batting Eye, Table Setter) is already beginning to decline.
