2017LHPscrewball posted:Does anyone want to share their perspective on how they call pitches from beginning to end? Sounds like some folks will point towards spray charts while others will point towards situations. However, assuming you don't have good spray charts and it is the beginning of the game - what do you call? Are you trying to set up the batter based on the pitcher's arsenal? First pitch FB strikes trying to set up for an eventual 3rd strike change-up? throwing outside early in the AB and then come inside for the KO? Have the pitcher throw an assortment early on and see which pitches seem to be working better than others? Ask the pitcher outright after 1st inning what he thinks is working? Relative bat speed of the batter versus how fast the FB is that day? I would think for a large percentage of high school pitchers, simply throwing a solid FB is priority #1 followed by some FB location/changes. If you have a pitcher with 3 pitches that he commands, then I guess calling pitches may get a little complicated, but the fewer pitches they command, the simpler life becomes. At times I would suggest letting the pitcher decide what his best pitch is (best pitch that particular outing) and let him throw that pitch (tailing FB low outside for strike seems to work well in a lot of situations).
2017 has pitches called by pitching coach and they seem to have some shared appreciation for the pitches chosen. That said, there were time when 2017 said a certain pitch just wasn't working well enough to be effective - or he simply felt that it wasn't working - and as a result did not have 100% confidence in the delivery of that pitch. I realize that there may be multiple reasons why a coach calls a pitch and that there is simply not time to "explain" his reasoning to the pitcher, but to never allow the pitcher to shake off a pitch seems a little counter-productive assuming you have some level of confidence in the pitcher.
Ok, in short here is what I try to do. You should know from warming up in the bull pen what his best pitch is. Most of our pitchers have 3 pitches. FB, CB, and CU. We get ahead with good location FB. We want to see the batters swing and see where the holes in his swing are. If we are hitting spots then this makes life easy. If not we have to call a lot of good location GB and try to keep the ball low. We pitch a batter based on where we think the weak spots in his swing are. Change speeds and hit spots are key of course.