Changing pitching strategy.....

my opinion is bad things happen when you are up in the zone - don't miss up in the zone...IMO

You are not going to be successful as a pitcher over the middle of the plate too much. You will also keep your team in a game if you are down in the zone, that said there are times to come up, however until your velocity is high enough to challenge a batter you run the risk of getting a tomahawk hit off you for extra bases. 

UCLA won a College world series living up in the zone....BBCOR bats, big ball park...up in the zone was very effective.

I do typically agree that up is not necessarily the best place to, but most typical hs hitters aren't strong enough or have a developed swing to cause havoc with that type of pitch.  In last nights game the Ump was very generous on the top side, talking CB's hitting the mitt at chest high generous....lol

That is very generous and you need to take what the umpire gives you.  In this thread though I believe what you saw was a very rare thing in an umpire that generous.  Majority of the time they will have a realistic zone which working up in the zone will not be beneficial.  Do you really want to change a philosophy that overall works based on one game?

At each level of baseball, the tactics change based on the pitcher's ability to locate, the vulnerabilities of the hitters, and the hitters' ability to punish mistakes.

The comments I make are limited to JV and based mostly on what I've seen umpiring at that level. 

JV hitters are more likely than varsity hitters to be startled into chasing a high fastball they can't handle, especially a high inside fastball that a) looks big because it's closer to their eyes, and b) has a faster relative speed than the low outside pitch that preceded it.  They are especially prone to chase this pitch when they have two strikes.

However, I advise against exploring and nibbling around the top of the zone.  When you throw high, do it with the intention of getting a swing and a miss, not a called strike. And you're most likely to get a swing and a miss on a high fb if you have focused most of your effort to expand the zone down and away.  Don't let them see enough high pitches that they can grow accustomed to them.  You want the hitter to have a poor sense of the top of the zone, and you want him not to have much practice timing the high pitch.

Use the high hard one as an occasional finishing pitch to the hitters most likely to chase and least likely to catch up to it. But don't live there, even if the umpire is calling high strikes. It's not a safe neighborhood to live. 

If there are coaches instructing their pitchers to through the ball down the middle at any elevation there is likely a problem.  I took a look at the previous posts on Stats thread and there were some general agreements that appeared consistent.

All of these are what I would refer to as general guidelines and should not be expected to be advice for every pitcher against every hitter in every situation. For example if you have a kid throwing 94 from the mound there is a lot of latitude in HS because few hit them no matter where they throw. So in general:

1. Pitchers should understand their capabilities, strengths and limitations. (If a players is pitching but is not a pitcher i.e. cannot locate pitches, cannot mix speeds for strikes etc. you may have to approach things differently.)
2. At the beginning of the game pitchers should attempt to establish, understand and then expand the umpires strike zone. If the umpire does not force you to throw obvious strikes then don't. Two years ago I had a pitcher with a 78 m.p.h. FB and a nice curve pitch 7 innings of 2 hit baseball and threw maybe 4 "regulation" strikes. Starting on the corner by the 2nd inning he had the umpire giving 3 inches off the black outside and lived there.  The more the opposing coach complained about the zone (never to the umpire just loud dugout talk like "Don't worry, no-one can hit a pitch that far outside") the zone grew. 
3. Do not give free passes when in most situations less than 50% of the HS roster is dangerous at bat
4. Once you have an idea of what the umpire will allow work within those boundaries to keep pressure on the batters by working positive pitching counts 0-1, 0-2,1-1, 1-2, 2-2
5. If you get to a 3 ball count assess the situation carefully.  Where are you in the order? Can the hitter hurt you if you throw a sure strike?.  Will the hitter take a 3-0 pitch? Are their runners on? What is the score? What is the inning?  Unless you feel it is in your teams best interest to "give in" and grove a pitch, or a walk is unacceptable then keep pitching to spots.
6. Working down and away or up and in is preferable unless you have a pitcher who has exceptional stuff and can dominate all areas of the strike zone or an umpire that is calling high strikes out of the zone.  Even in this situation I would recommend getting ahead on good pitches and changing eye level of the hitter up to set them up for the final strike, not living in the high zone.  
7. Know what happens when you get tired.  Do you miss up?, get a little lazy on the finish and start hitting the heart of the plate. 

To me these are just general thoughts and there are tons of exceptions and "but this kid" stories. Best of luck this year and in the future.

I thought about this as well. We had a particular HS ump last year that did a good number of our home games. When my son was pitching, we'd keep track of when he was going to be behind the plate. if at all possible, My kid wouldpitch those games. Why? This ump would give pitchers a VERY generous low outside corner and my son had become very adept at hitting that corner. This ump behind the plate and my son pitching was almost a guaranteed no hitter.

That is an absolutely awful "strategy".  

If more pitchers did that when I played, I would have been a better hitter.

at this point i dont even think 12u players are taught to throw down the pipe.   

I'd also add that the first strike % is a strange animal. You want it to be good (say 52%), but not too good. I've kept track of that for years and, invariably, the guys with the highest first strike percentage (56% and above) were the same guys withearned run averages in the 8.00+ category.

Originally Posted by roothog66:

I'd also add that the first strike % is a strange animal. You want it to be good (say 52%), but not too good. I've kept track of that for years and, invariably, the guys with the highest first strike percentage (56% and above) were the same guys withearned run averages in the 8.00+ category.

Yes, it is a strange animal, but I have nothing that even remotely shows the relationship you say you see. In fact, the data I have shows the higher the FPSPct the more likely the pitcher’s one of the better pitchers on the team.

stats from MLB 2012 on 1-0 counts and 0-1 counts.

Split         PA      AB     BB      SO      BA  OBP  SLG OPS

After  1-0    73837 61839 10741 11602 .270 .379 .443 .822

After  0-1    90061 84413 3968   24824 .226 .265 .346 .612

Note I specifically excluded professional baseball from my analysis.

Sort of ties in with what I think about showcases that start the hitter off with a 1-1 count. Big advantage for the pitcher.

I did an analysis on this myself about a year ago. It involved youth ball from 9u through 13u. The data was, of course fairly limited, so I don't claim it would hold over a better data set. However, what I found was a curve. I'll be trying to pull exact #'s from memory, but I'll try and find my data later. FSP between 0 and 45% showed a coorelation with higher earned run averages, as did FSP of above 58%. However (again, if I'm remembering correctly), in the middle - above 48% but below 58% - there was a very strong coorelation with higher FSP indicating better era's.

Actually, looking back, I didn't make that exception in this thread. However, stats has the same thread running on another board and there is another thread here dealing with the same thing. So, I'll do it now. I'm talking youth & hs ball. Above that level you don't have a lot of guys who are just throwing meet down the middle of the strike zone at 65 mph.

What you're missing in tying these two together is the number of first pitches that don't end in a 1-0 count but are actually put in play. Those numbers don't get included in the 0-1 stats. Of course a FPS that actually is a strike puts the pitcher at a major advantage, but remember that first pitches put in play are statistically counted as FPS's.

Jv pitchers have a wide range of abilities and to my horror I call way more fastballs down the middle than I ever expected. Sometimes for jv, high/low.    Inside/out  is as exact as you need to get.