Chemistry

Chemistry is a feature in the Mario Baseball series. An example of good chemistry is when a character throws the ball to its buddy, the ball travels faster than normal, glows purple, and leaves a purple trail. The character who throws the ball also emits a happy sound while throwing. Chemistry is also useful in batting because a character hits better when one of their buddies is on base (and they will hit even better if two or three of their buddies are on base). Good chemistry is referenced by a musical note. There is also bad chemistry, which is in contrast to good chemistry. When a character throws the ball to another character with whom it shares bad chemistry, the ball travels much slower and in a slanted direction from where the ball was directed. The throwing character also emits an unhappy noise while throwing the ball. Bad chemistry is referenced by a black squiggly line that resembles a tornado. Bad chemistry will nearly always result in a messed-up play which allows the opposing team to score and/or advance on the bases. Unlike good chemistry, bad chemistry only occurs in the field and does not occur all the time.

In Challenge Mode, there is an item called the Buddy Emblem that improves chemistry relations, so that nearly everyone on the team will have good chemistry with each other.

There exists chemistry tables in-game which determine the above features and more. Each character has a chemistry value, from 0 to 100, with every other character in the game. 90 and above indicates good chemistry, whereas 15 and below indicates bad chemistry. These values are also used in calculating Team Stars pre-game. The game will average each player's chemistry with the captain and convert the average to Team Stars. The key is as follows (x̄ = average captain chemistry):
 * 5 star team: x̄ ≥ 70
 * 4 star team: 70 > x̄ ≥ 55
 * 3 star team: 55 > x̄ ≥ 35
 * 2 star team: 35 > x̄ ≥ 15
 * 1 star team: 15 > x̄ > 0
 * 0 star team: x̄ = 0 (occurs with a team of 9 of the same character; only possible with cheats)

A color-coded version of the in-game chemistry tables for Mario Superstar Baseball can be found here.

Trivia

 * The instruction booklet from Mario Superstar Baseball makes several errors regarding chemistry. Some of them include the following:
 * Bowser's good and bad chemistry with Baby Mario and Paratroopa is swapped.
 * Wario's bad and neutral chemistry with Baby Mario and Pianta is swapped.
 * Bowser Jr. is listed as having bad chemistry with Pianta (this would later be true however in Mario Super Sluggers).
 * In Mario Super Sluggers, Baby Peach has good chemistry with the highest number of characters (including alternate colors) at seventeen.
 * The Kritters, Wario, and Waluigi are tied for having the least amount of good chemistry in Mario Super Sluggers with them having good chemistry with only Miis of their color and one other character (King K. Rool for the Kritters, Waluigi for Wario, and vice versa).