Originally Posted by cabbagedad:
What would happen if a quarterback completely inexperienced at playcalling was told to call the plays? Not quite as drastic but many valid comparisons. The team would be in a much better position to win if offensive coordinator with a decent gameplan was calling the shots.
The question I asked was directed to chefmike777, but since you felt compelled to comment, and you’re very welcome to do so, why not simply answer the question I asked rather than bring in football? I was trying to dispel one of the greatest baseball myths there is, or at least get him to realize that no matter who calls the pitches, who throws them, or who’s swinging at them, there will never be a time when every ball is clobbered out of the park or for extra base hits. Baseball doesn’t work that way.
Even if the pitcher told the batter what they were going to throw and where they were going to throw it, its unlikely every pitch would result in disaster for the pitcher. There are reasons it won’t happen. The main one is, pitchers don’t execute very many pitches perfectly, injecting problems into the situation. It’s not at all unusual for a pitcher in the ML to miss his spot by as much as 2’, or to not get the amount of spin or velocity expected, and the chances of poor or weak execution increases with the lower the level of the pitcher.
But even if every pitch was executed perfectly and the batter knew where and what it was going to be, the chances of the batter executing his swing perfectly aren’t a lot better than the pitcher executing the pitch perfectly. And, like the pitchers, the chances of weak execution by the hitter increases the lower the level of the hitter. The bottom line is, while it can be a advantage to the team on defense to have very experienced pitchers and people calling the pitches, it’s not like a weak pitcher or pitch caller guarantees the hitters will destroy every pitch. And if you don’t believe that, you’ve never watched many HS or below baseball games.
Because of the likelihood of less than great execution by someone, the importance of great pitch calling diminishes the lower the level, why is there what seems like a mania to do the pitch calling perfectly? To me it makes sense to let the players make whatever mistakes will happen when there’s less of a chance of damage being done so they can learn from those mistakes earlier on in the process.
As many have noted, until relatively recently, no pitch calling was done by anyone other than the catcher, and there was a winner and loser in almost every game, so what do you think would change if baseball went back to that paradigm, or at least got away from the kind of thinking that prompted the OP?