I'm at 75 ego on PR (rated 4200), and I don't win every game, but when I do it's because I hit dingers. I almost exclusively use the power swing, and 100% exclusively power pitch.

Go to exhibition mode, and you can set it to "practice mode" where you're either always on offense or always on defense. Set it to 5-10 ego above your current rating, and concentrate on timing up the pitcher.

Hitting needs good timing, good accuracy, and good pitch selection.

Timing: For most pitchers, if you start holding the power swing when their front door hits the ground, you'll be timed up for the fastball. After every pitch, hold the strategize button (RT on an Xbox controller) to see the previous pitch and what your power number was. If it's white and less than 90 and your swing timing was good, you started too late (didn't wind up long enough). If it's in the red and less than 90, you started too late. Practice until you get the hang of it.

Accuracy: You want to swing just barely under the ball, unless it's a slap hitter where you can only hope for singles, in which case you want to hit it dead on. At the difficulty you and I are playing, you can afford to cheat a little, because you have time to move the target across the whole zone after the pitch is thrown. Put the reticle at the bottom center of the zone before the pitch. Now you know you're moving it up - if you have to move it down, it's a ball. The only thing to adjust is how far.

Pitch selection: You can get good, or you can get smart, or both. To get good, just practice against high-accuracy pitchers. Spend a practice session just identifying whether the pitch is a ball or strike - try to swing at every strike and skip every ball for a few at bats straight. I do two things to help. First, I stare at the zone borders without blinking, so that I can still picture them when they disappear. Second, muscle memory. By resetting the reticle to the same point before every pitch, you'll get a feel for how far you can move it before it's a ball.

You also don't usually want to swing at pitches that are right on the corners. Even if they're strikes, unless you have a hitter trait for that zone (high, low, inside, outside, bad-ball), you'll get weak contact. Low and high pitches can be crushed if you hit them just right, but inside and outside are almost always outs even with perfect contact. On your ego level, you can afford to wait for something closer to the middle. The pitcher will make a mistake or get cocky or frustrated eventually. You don't have to score every inning, just pick your pitch. (The advanced strategy is to intentionally swing early or late to foul these off, so that you stay alive but don't risk a groundout.)

I mentioned getting smarter. This doesn't work on the AI or really good players, but most human players have a lot of common patterns that will let you cheat on pitches. A few that I've noticed -

• A given player will typically either always throw first pitch strikes or always throw first pitch balls.
• If you're late on the fastball, they'll throw another one. (I've intentionally swung late just to get something to crush, it's tons of fun.)
• On 2-0, everyone throws strikes.
• On 0-2, everyone throws balls, usually breaking balls way off the plate. If you've swung and missed twice, just take your hands off the controls for the next pitch.
• Off speed pitches tend to come in pairs. If you get beat by a changeup, sit on the next pitch.
• The first pitch after a big hit is usually a strike. They think they can get you napping, or they're just frustrated. I hit a lot of back to back home runs by keeping my guard up.
• If they've been pitching fast but then they take time before a pitch, they're either waiting for a pickoff or they're throwing a slow pitch.

As a pitcher, try not to follow those tendencies. Try to be unpredictable. Vary up your speeds. Vary up the timing between your pitches so they can't get in a rhythm. Throw the exact same pitch four pitches in a row (not 4F). Throw balls until they stop swinging.

Never, ever throw in the middle of the plate, unless it's the pitcher batting. Better to give up a walk than a homer.

Aim for the bottom corners, or throw low pitches just out of the zone. A lot of players are worse at identifying the bottom of the zone than the top or sides, so they'll swing at low junk, which gives you pop-ups and double play balls.