If hitting is the hardest thing to do in sports

My observations are that it is very, very rare that a player who is not an above average HS hitter at 16 will have any success at a decent college program.  I can think of a few who came close to breaking through that late but didn't quite get over the hump.  Just my experience, I'm sure there are exceptions.

Unless a player is completely new to Baseball at age 16, i.e. Lorenzo Cain, they should be able to hit vs their peers

Most very good Baseball players can hit fastballs.  The difference maker at each level a player moves up is can they hit pitches with movement?.  Sliders, changeups, curveballs etc

Take a look at the All State teams from any particular state.  Almost every guy hits .450 or above for the season.....with low strike out numbers.   I know not every one of those guys ends up playing in college.....some because they choose not to....but some others who just don't find a place.  My son hit .395/.448/.478 his last year years of HS with 15 or so K's total......3 his senior year.  Every guy they brought in to his D1 program had similar numbers in HS.   I would think there are some kids who may made a big push in their last couple years....but I would say if you're a junior and can't hit HS pitching pretty well, your odds of hitting college guys who could be 3+ years older may not be great

Well,  I think it depends a lot on exactly WHY  the kid  "hasn't hit" if he hasn't so far.  

Notice I said  "hasn't."  Not 'can't."     There's a big difference between "can't" and "hasn't."    Hasn't is a result focused word.   "Can't" is a process focused word.

  I would think you should care  more about the process than the result in evaluating a hitter, especially since over an  entire HS career,  a hitter is likely to get  fewer varsity level AB's  total than the average major league gets in one season.   No way the results of that amount of AB's tells you a complete story about a hitter.  

So,  judging a HS hitter is, I would think,  a tricky thing.  I would think a hard nosed evaluator would be focused more on process than results. 

If it's something intrinsic to a kid's hitting process that explains lack of results,  that would matter the most, I would think.   But even if it was something intrinsic to the process, it would matter if that thing was something easily correctible or not.  

For example, if it's a simple lack of bat speed and an inability to catch up with average HS fastballs -- which typically aren't all that terribly fast, except at the elite levels, anyway  -- then that HS hitter is  probably doomed forever not to be much of a hitter. 

If it's a bad approach -- like  being  too pull crazy and not working  to use the whole field -- well  that can be overcome through good coaching and good in the cage work habits. So I if it was me I would want to know if the kid was coachable and had decent work habits before consigning him to the dust heap of non-hitters. 

(Though one thing I have learned about college is that there isn't all that much coaching that goes on.  It's actually more step up or step over.)  

Then there are questions about makeup.  Is the kid a head case who can't take failure and presses too hard in response?   Or does the kid have ice in his veins?   Is the kid a warrior or a wimp?  

Maybe the kids got lousy mechanics at the moment.  Maybe he's never had high quality coaching.   But if he's coachable and athletic,  even these can be overcome.

When my guy was 13U,  he tried out for this supposedly "elite"  travel team.  Coach came to me after tryouts and said, something like. "Your kid is mechanically a mess , but he is incredibly athletic.  I  want him on the team. I think I can take him to a different level."   I can see something like that being true of a 16 year old too.  Maybe even an older player.  

Also at 16,   kid could have a good swing,  be athletic, but lack even the beginnings of man strength.   Might not be able to drive the ball with manly  authority, but if he can touch the ball with regularity,   he still has a chance to become a dynamite hitter as he develops.  

On the other hand, I've seen big strong kids who swing the bat with power,  and drive it when they do touch it, but can't manage to touch it regularly for one reason or another.  Some coach might take a flyer on a kid like that, even if he hasn't had great results so far. 

Point being,  there are lots of things that explain lack of results up till now.   I'd want to know what explains the lack of results before deciding whether the kid was a lost cause or not myself.

cabbagedad posted:

My observations are that it is very, very rare that a player who is not an above average HS hitter at 16 will have any success at a decent college program.  I can think of a few who came close to breaking through that late but not quite get over the hump.  Just my experience, I'm sure there are exceptions.

There’s a couple things about that post I think should be talked about in greater depth. The 1^st is how the “average HS hitter” is defined.  I’ve been trying to do that for a lot of years now and haven’t had any more luck doing that than I have being able to define the “best” hitter.

The 2^nd thing is how to define a “decent college program”. Should every college at every level be compared to all colleges or should every college be compared only to those schools in the same division, region, or student base?

3and2Fastball posted:

Most very good Baseball players can hit fastballs.  The difference maker at each level a player moves up is can they hit pitches with movement?.  Sliders, changeups, curveballs etc

IDK, we went to a seminar by a pretty high level hitting coach (with MLB level students). First question he asked the group, "how do you hit a MLB level curveball.....you hit the fastball before it". Because, he said, at that level, unless they make a mistake, you aren't hitting their junk.

As to stats to judge a HS batter, good luck. There is such a wide discrepancy as to the pitching and umpiring at the HS level that batting average means nothing. Hell one night my kid might face a 2A school with a kid throwing low to mid 70's, the next a 4A team with a kid throwing 90+.  Also take my kid, his freshman year hit .491 (played varsity  half the season so AB's were limited). As a soph .449 full season varsity. His jr year started out with him hitting a few HR's right away. It didn't take long before teams just started throwing around him. Very rare to see a FB. Given the generous K zone of HS umps it was difficult year, hit .402. So he went backwards. Why? Fresh/soph year mostly unknown, plenty of fastballs down the middle. As soon as the HR's started his JR year everything changed. Hard to excel when umps are calling curves 6" off the plate a K.

To me you have to look a plate awareness, swing, athletic ability, power, and then guess? LOL

In my opinion, the good hitters consistently get in done in the games. I have seen lots of kids who look great in the cage but it never translates to the real games. I think that it gets really hard to figure it out after 14/15 if you haven't done so yet because after that you can run into some really good pitching and it's hard to figure it out facing top-shelf pitching. 

Great hitters know they can hit. "Inner arrogance" no fear of failure. They study the game. 

they feel sorry for pitcher. Great hitters will " beat you". When I coached hitters at SSU on road trips only hitters rode in my car to Cal Davis.

Bob

I think your instinct typically knows earlier than your mind. There is a clear difference between players who are struggling to keep up and those who are just struggling for the moment (a slump). BUT, there is no rule. I struggled a lot at times in college but it was an experience issue. I needed more time to work out my issues. So just because one is failing it may not be a talent issue. It could be a time or growth issue. Players develop at different paces.

I would suggest using practice as a gauge. Is the player keeping up and looking like one of the guys day in and day out at practice? Either way I think you have your answer (or at least a best guess).

____

Amazon: Going with the Pitch SE

Author of "Going with the Pitch: Adjusting to Baseball, School and Life as a Division I College Athlete" (Second Edition)

hueysdad posted:

By the time a kid turns 16 should he be able to hit? I was trying to figure out a better way to phrase the question. Now , let me narrow it down some . A player playing with the intent to play baseball in college. Against pitchers who also aspire to be college players. Now I assume both pitchers and hitters improve as they get older. But at what age do people who know baseball say with almost certainty , This kid isn't likely to ever be a good enough hitter for the level he wants to attain . Please leave out the defensive wizard. I understand it takes different kinds of players to make a team .

Any position player has to have a certain amount of tools.  There are very few who even have 5.  Running speed, arm strength, hitting for average, hitting for power, fielding.  The amount of tools and position determines how far the player will advance.

Its not all about how well you hit.

hueysdad posted:

By the time a kid turns 16 should he be able to hit? I was trying to figure out a better way to phrase the question. Now , let me narrow it down some . A player playing with the intent to play baseball in college. Against pitchers who also aspire to be college players. Now I assume both pitchers and hitters improve as they get older. But at what age do people who know baseball say with almost certainty , This kid isn't likely to ever be a good enough hitter for the level he wants to attain . Please leave out the defensive wizard. I understand it takes different kinds of players to make a team .

We have an acronym for those kids -- they're called P.O.'s. ;-)

Seriously, the hit tool is the hardest to judge. Running speed and arm strength -- there are measurables for that. Power -- yeah, you can see how far a kid can hit the ball. But the hit tool isn't so easy to project. And I don't think coaches are going to be able to teach a 16-year-old -- or anyone, probably -- hand-eye coordination or bat speed; so if the hypothetical 16-year-old is weak in those foundational areas, it's a tough path to being a college hitter.  

hueysdad posted:

By the time a kid turns 16 should he be able to hit? I was trying to figure out a better way to phrase the question. Now , let me narrow it down some . A player playing with the intent to play baseball in college. Against pitchers who also aspire to be college players. Now I assume both pitchers and hitters improve as they get older. But at what age do people who know baseball say with almost certainty , This kid isn't likely to ever be a good enough hitter for the level he wants to attain . Please leave out the defensive wizard. I understand it takes different kinds of players to make a team .

In MILB there are Young great athletes with good defense who "Can't hit" (especially international Players who are very raw) but are playing because you hope to develope the hit tool and then have a plus Defender and runner who at least hits OK. Billy Hamilton even made it to the Majors that way.

However of course "can't hit" means can't hit PRO pitching. Even the guy who hits .230 with 2 HRs in A ball would be able to smack around HS pitching pretty well.

Hitting can develope over time and if you have plus Speed and defense Teams will give you time (the scouting reports then read like "raw hit tool and bad swing mechanics but has projection") but if you can't even hit 16U pitching chances are you will never hit high Level pitching.

3and2Fastball posted:

Unless a player is completely new to Baseball at age 16, i.e. Lorenzo Cain, they should be able to hit vs their peers

Most very good Baseball players can hit fastballs.  The difference maker at each level a player moves up is can they hit pitches with movement?.  Sliders, changeups, curveballs etc

I think People underrate how hard it is to hit a good fastball. chapman often throws a guy 3 fastballs out of 4 pitches and still he strikes out half of his batters. of course he is far from the average fastball but I would say until college and even MILB Level you can get pretty far if you can recognize offspeed, take it and concentrate on the fastballs.

A guy who can constantly punish high Level fastballs is a very good hitter unless he swings at every offspeed pitch.

TPM posted:

hueysdad posted:

By the time a kid turns 16 should he be able to hit? I was trying to figure out a better way to phrase the question. Now , let me narrow it down some . A player playing with the intent to play baseball in college. Against pitchers who also aspire to be college players. Now I assume both pitchers and hitters improve as they get older. But at what age do people who know baseball say with almost certainty , This kid isn't likely to ever be a good enough hitter for the level he wants to attain . Please leave out the defensive wizard. I understand it takes different kinds of players to make a team .

Any position player has to have a certain amount of tools.  There are very few who even have 5.  Running speed, arm strength, hitting for average, hitting for power, fielding.  The amount of tools and position determines how far the player will advance.

Its not all about how well you hit.

Just to be clear are you specifying having five tools in high school or a college coach looking at high school players he believes will have five tools in college? 

I believe every quality high school program has at least one five tool player relative to high school ball. But for example the big arm in high school is only a better than average arm in college. The kid whose big arm from the outfield in high school is now in college compared against all the big arms from high school. His arm doesn't stand out so much now. Plus  more base runners are faster in college. Everything is faster.

A kid with a very high high school batting average with power is now a split second behind the pitch in college.

When you go to a showcase / pro style work out / there will be a ton of players there. The college coaches are only there to see a handful. Sometimes only a couple. Tools above everyone else's will make you stand out. Tools as good as everyone else's makes you average for your level. Those guys are not who they are there to see. Speed, athletic ability, ability to consistently square it up with power, fielding ability, arm strength. The guys that can separate themselves from every one else those are the guys the coaches are there to see. There were 125 guys there yesterday. I liked 5. One of the college coaches told me he liked 3. Another 2.

Most of the best hitters at 16 will be the best hitters at 20. But there are always exceptions. There is a guy playing MLB and starting who couldn't hit a lick so we turned him into a Pitcher only. After a torn labrum in college he went back to the outfield. He figured it out. Something clicked. Just because your a good HS hitter doesn't mean you will be a hitter in college. So basically one would have to know why the 16 year old couldn't hit. Simply doesn't have the ability? Physically has not matured? Lacks confidence? Poor swing mechanics that can be fixed? Doesn't have a solid approach? etc etc. And sometimes there simply is no explanation. Even the player doesn't know why. I coached a future first rounder in showcase ball and one summer he hit under 200. He hits close to .400 as a freshman in college on a team that went to Omaha. I asked him what clicked. He said "I don't know coach I just started hitting." Yes there was a reason. But who knows what it really was.

There was a kid in this years All Star game I saw as a 16 year old at a WWBA tourney. Loved his athletic ability. Could flat out defend and run. But he looked like a clown at the plate. I saw him in college and thought "Man if he could just hit a little he would be a stud." His Jr year he started hitting. The rest is history. If there was a secret potion it wouldn't be a secret. So if I had a 16 year old I would simply make sure he was being instructed in good solid hitting mechanics. Teach him a solid approach that worked for what he brought to the table. And then sit back and let the cards fall where they fall. He might blow up or he might not ever hit. But I certainly wouldn't say he's done at 16. There are too many examples of guys finding it.

SomeBaseballDad,

I guess you didn’t notice that I said absolutely nothing about using batting average for anything, so I guess on that we completely agree.

But what you said here was really interesting. To me you have to look a plate awareness, swing, athletic ability, power, and then guess?

What I posted about was what cabbagedad said. How do the parents or players determine whether a given player has a better than average swing or athletic ability? But there might be a way to gauge “plate awareness” or “power”.

Power is many times thought of as being measured by the number of XBHs. It could be expressed as ABs/(total bases – singles). Of course that gave me the opportunity to see what it would look like as a statistic. Please see Attached.

SomeBaseballDad,

There was another part of what you said that caught my interest and that was plate awareness. How would anyone judge that?

Coach_May posted:

When you go to a showcase / pro style work out / there will be a ton of players there. The college coaches are only there to see a handful. Sometimes only a couple. Tools above everyone else's will make you stand out. Tools as good as everyone else's makes you average for your level. Those guys are not who they are there to see. Speed, athletic ability, ability to consistently square it up with power, fielding ability, arm strength. The guys that can separate themselves from every one else those are the guys the coaches are there to see. There were 125 guys there yesterday. I liked 5. One of the college coaches told me he liked 3. Another 2.

Most of the best hitters at 16 will be the best hitters at 20. But there are always exceptions. There is a guy playing MLB and starting who couldn't hit a lick so we turned him into a Pitcher only. After a torn labrum in college he went back to the outfield. He figured it out. Something clicked. Just because your a good HS hitter doesn't mean you will be a hitter in college. So basically one would have to know why the 16 year old couldn't hit. Simply doesn't have the ability? Physically has not matured? Lacks confidence? Poor swing mechanics that can be fixed? Doesn't have a solid approach? etc etc. And sometimes there simply is no explanation. Even the player doesn't know why. I coached a future first rounder in showcase ball and one summer he hit under 200. He hits close to .400 as a freshman in college on a team that went to Omaha. I asked him what clicked. He said "I don't know coach I just started hitting." Yes there was a reason. But who knows what it really was.

There was a kid in this years All Star game I saw as a 16 year old at a WWBA tourney. Loved his athletic ability. Could flat out defend and run. But he looked like a clown at the plate. I saw him in college and thought "Man if he could just hit a little he would be a stud." His Jr year he started hitting. The rest is history. If there was a secret potion it wouldn't be a secret. So if I had a 16 year old I would simply make sure he was being instructed in good solid hitting mechanics. Teach him a solid approach that worked for what he brought to the table. And then sit back and let the cards fall where they fall. He might blow up or he might not ever hit. But I certainly wouldn't say he's done at 16. There are too many examples of guys finding it.

Just wanted to add changes/corrections in vision as a reason for non-hitters to become hitters, or vice versa.

"Plate awareness" this is easy to judge. The batters box is the hitters classroom. While sitting on the bench and in the "on deck" circle, the smart hitter is studying the pitcher {not the girl in the front row]. He now has a "game plan".

Torii Hunter [Korea Goodwill Series]  told me about the batting helmet - turn it around look thru the ear holes to the pitcher, freeze the pitcher's arm action in your mind. Visualize success and total focus on the "white" ball.

Bob Williams

In young kids I look for natural hitting ability.  Hand eye coordination, hand speed, natural coordination, things like that. Even the way you see things could be considered a natural ability.

Sure hitting mechanics can make a big difference as well as repetitions.  But I have seen many fundamentally great swings that are extremely polished, that don't really have natural hitting ability.  I've seen others that need to improve their mechanics, but they can hit.

I think we all know that at some point hitting becomes just as much mental as it is physical.  Hitters hit best what they see the most often.  For most that is BP!  But in games it depends on the level.  For MLB hitters it would be the 90-92 MPH fastball, depending on movement of course.  Or the ave. MLB breaking ball.  When a pitcher does something very unusual, not many hit well off them.  MLB hitters love fastballs, but when that fastball has plus movement or is thrown over 100 mph, they don't hit as well.  When Kershaw throws his curve ball it is different than other curve balls. When Mariano Rivera threw his cutter it was unusual to the hitter.

Point is, there is development involved in everything.  There is also natural ability involved in everything.  If you lack the required natural ability there is no amount of development that will help enough.  Every level gets more difficult.  BTW, IMO pitching is the same way.

back to the question... Is hitting the hardest thing in sports.  IMO it might be for some, but not for the best hitters.  I mean if you can't jump high enough it would be harder to dunk a basketball, but it is very easy for others.  If your not big and strong enough it might be much harder to block a defensive end.  If you can't run fast enough, some things become extremely difficult.  To be one of the best at anything is very difficult.  And every athlete that becomes one of the best has something in common... And that is a lot of natural ability that they worked at developing.

Stats4Gnats posted:

SomeBaseballDad,

 

There was another part of what you said that caught my interest and that was plate awareness. How would anyone judge that?

I guess I used the wrong phrase. What I meant was an ability to read pitches and judge balls and strikes. It goes without saying if a batter is looking at strikes and swinging at balls he probably isn't going far. I've seen a lot of good players that struggle at the plate due to this. On the other hand I have watched kids that can go down 0-2 and draw a walk and do it on a consistent basis. 

To me the ability to make the pitcher come to you and not take yourself out of an at bat is as important to a batter as the ability to throw strikes is to a pitcher. 

SomeBaseballDad posted:

I guess I used the wrong phrase. What I meant was an ability to read pitches and judge balls and strikes. It goes without saying if a batter is looking at strikes and swinging at balls he probably isn't going far. I've seen a lot of good players that struggle at the plate due to this. On the other hand I have watched kids that can go down 0-2 and draw a walk and do it on a consistent basis. 

To me the ability to make the pitcher come to you and not take yourself out of an at bat is as important to a batter as the ability to throw strikes is to a pitcher. 

Thanx for responding. I had a feeling that’s what you were talking about. But as you can see from CONSULTANTS response, there are other thoughts as to what it means.

I’ve tried to quantify the ability to judge balls and strikes, but in order to do that accurately you’d have to have a way to know whether every pitch was in the strike zone. Unfortunately, without something like Pitch F/X there’s really no accurate way to know whether a pitch swung at was a strike or not.

The best I’ve been able to do is look at the called pitches. Please see attached.

SomeBaseballDad posted:

Stats4Gnats posted:

SomeBaseballDad,

 

There was another part of what you said that caught my interest and that was plate awareness. How would anyone judge that?

I guess I used the wrong phrase. What I meant was an ability to read pitches and judge balls and strikes. It goes without saying if a batter is looking at strikes and swinging at balls he probably isn't going far. I've seen a lot of good players that struggle at the plate due to this. On the other hand I have watched kids that can go down 0-2 and draw a walk and do it on a consistent basis. 

To me the ability to make the pitcher come to you and not take yourself out of an at bat is as important to a batter as the ability to throw strikes is to a pitcher. 

As somebody mentioned upthread,  one  problem with this is  that the umpiring at lower levels tends to be simply AWFUL and awful in unpredictable and erratic ways.  I've seen the bat taken out of  guys hands by called third strikes that were nowhere close to the zone.  

Good hitters watch the umpire from the dugout and at the end of two innings they can determine his "strike zone". They will adjust their approach.

In Brisbane, Australia the umpire [an American] approach our dugout and said "Bob I will have a wide, very wide strike zone". I said OK and told our hitters to swing at the 1st good pitch. Of course, we won the game "making adjustments".

In baseball, nothing is predictable, only your attitude!!!

Bob

SluggerDad posted:

SomeBaseballDad posted:

Stats4Gnats posted:

SomeBaseballDad,

 

There was another part of what you said that caught my interest and that was plate awareness. How would anyone judge that?

I guess I used the wrong phrase. What I meant was an ability to read pitches and judge balls and strikes. It goes without saying if a batter is looking at strikes and swinging at balls he probably isn't going far. I've seen a lot of good players that struggle at the plate due to this. On the other hand I have watched kids that can go down 0-2 and draw a walk and do it on a consistent basis. 

To me the ability to make the pitcher come to you and not take yourself out of an at bat is as important to a batter as the ability to throw strikes is to a pitcher. 

As somebody mentioned upthread,  one  problem with this is  that the umpiring at lower levels tends to be simply AWFUL and awful in unpredictable and erratic ways.  I've seen the bat taken out of  guys hands by called third strikes that were nowhere close to the zone.  

I believe that was me and its one reason I've told the kid he may have even more success at collage ball. Yes the pitchers will be better, but so will the umps (at least I hope, LOL). Gone will be the strikes below the knees and 10 inches off the plate, which we saw called A LOT in HS ball this year. I can only assume in an effort to move the games along.

But you do (more so at TB) run into umps that have a strike zone somewhat over the plate and are consistent in their balls and strikes.

Hitting a baseball may be one of the hardest things to do in all of sports... But teaching it... well any schmuck can do that! Just ask them! haha 

I think it was Willie Mays who studied pitchers through the air holes in the top of his cap.  I did that too but I must have been doing it incorrectly.

SomeBaseballDad posted:

I believe that was me and its one reason I've told the kid he may have even more success at collage ball. Yes the pitchers will be better, but so will the umps (at least I hope, LOL). Gone will be the strikes below the knees and 10 inches off the plate, which we saw called A LOT in HS ball this year. I can only assume in an effort to move the games along.

But you do (more so at TB) run into umps that have a strike zone somewhat over the plate and are consistent in their balls and strikes.

What you seem to be doing is giving an endorsement for having technology call pitches not swung at.

Anyone who wouldn’t agree that umpiring gets better the higher the level, but so do the players and the coaches too. Like you I see a lot of “questionable” calls in HS, but I don’t know if it helps pitching or hitting more.

smokeminside posted:

I think it was Willie Mays who studied pitchers through the air holes in the top of his cap.  I did that too but I must have been doing it incorrectly.

That's because you thought he said "cup."

was it metal or plastic?

Bob

Many words and phrases are thrown around the game of baseball and many times their meaning is ambiguous at best, and one of the most ambiguous is Plate Awareness. My personal belief is that it has to do with a hitter’s understanding of where the pitch is in relation to the strike zone although it may well be understood to be something different by others.

Having determined the meaning, I’ve tried to come up with some way to measure it. Now if the hitters were MLB players it would be relatively simple because there’s so many different ways to do that. Unfortunately though, when you’re talking about amateur players the technology available on a day to day basis is slim to none.

I kept looking for ways to at least get some idea about a hitter’s plate awareness with numbers readily available in a scorebook. I decided to look only at called pitches in order to eliminate the bad pitches swung at, and of course that means only pitches called balls or strikes. For every hitter I counted all the balls and called strikes and then computed the percentage of total called pitches for each. Please see the attached.

Then in order to put the results in some kind of context, I computed Batting Average, On Base Percentage, Slugging Percentage, OPS, and Runs Created. After that I computed the average for each of them for all the players on the report and turned everything blue that was equal to or greater than average, and turned everything red that was below average. Finally, I sorted the entire thing by the percentage of balls for the total called pitches.

It looks to me as though hitters who have a higher percentage of balls to called strikes “tend” to be the better hitters using BA, OBP, SlgP, OPS, and RC. I know it’s impossible to say anything is absolutely true because of all the different hitting approaches, but logically it sure seems that a higher percentage of balls to called strikes would indicate the hitter is doing a better job of identifying balls and strikes.

Plate plate awareness, discipline, etc.  It's all part of being a good hitter.

The hitter that often chases unhittable pitches thrown in unhittable locations simply won't be as successful as hitters who lay off of those pitches.  BTW, those locations change from one hitter to the next, but not by a big margin.

I have never figured out an actual system to account for these things.  But it becomes obvious if you see a hitter quite a bit.  The count dictates a lot of what happens.  No strike chasing is worse than one strike chasing and especially two strike chasing.  Umpires can definitely make a big difference, but in evaluating a hitter, you also must evaluate how the umpire calls the pitches.

Example, hitter leading off an inning, has a full count.  The umpire has shown a very small strike zone.  The full count pitch is 6 inches outside, but the umpire calls strike three.  In that situation I would write that the hitter did not chase ball four, rung up on a bad call.  

Anyway one thing that I have noticed over the years.  From the lowest levels to the very highest levels hitters become much more disciplined.  Even in professional baseball, most start at the rookie level.  At that level many pitchers have great strike out to walk ratios.  It is because many of the hitters are not disciplined.  They are young and in a hurry to impress.

Then each level a pitcher moves up, the same pitcher ends up walking more hitters.  AAA is extremely difficult, because there are many veteran hitters who just don't chase many pitches out of the strike zone.

Plate awareness and discipline for most, not all, is easy to define. Does the hitter swing at strikes and not swing at balls.  Does he swing at pitches he can hit well and does he lay off of pitches he can't hit well?  Sometimes with no strikes a good hitter will lay off a called strike if it is a pitch he doesn't hit well, like a good slider low outside corner.  The bad hitter swings and misses or worse yet he makes contact and gets himself out.  Every hitter makes mistakes, but most of the best hitters make less mistakes.  Sometimes we make the simple things too complicated.

Also not every chase is the same. Staying in the zone is always better but sometimes a pitch an inch outside or up can be a hittable pitch. However if you chase a shoulder high fastball or a slider in the dirt that is usually very bad.

you don't need pitch fx to recognize when a guy routinely chases pitches that Miss my a lot.

Stats4Gnats posted:

SomeBaseballDad posted:

I believe that was me and its one reason I've told the kid he may have even more success at collage ball. Yes the pitchers will be better, but so will the umps (at least I hope, LOL). Gone will be the strikes below the knees and 10 inches off the plate, which we saw called A LOT in HS ball this year. I can only assume in an effort to move the games along.

 

But you do (more so at TB) run into umps that have a strike zone somewhat over the plate and are consistent in their balls and strikes.

 

What you seem to be doing is giving an endorsement for having technology call pitches not swung at.

 

Anyone who wouldn’t agree that umpiring gets better the higher the level, but so do the players and the coaches too. Like you I see a lot of “questionable” calls in HS, but I don’t know if it helps pitching or hitting more.

There's a couple of things that bother me about the umpiring I've seen at the youth/HS level.

First the very large discrepancy I see from one umps strike zone to another. There was a thread a while back where someone stated "I know every ump has his own strike zone". That blew me away because I thought the zone was defined by the rules of baseball.

The other, and it goes to the above, is the propensity to call strikes that can't be hit by a batter while staying in the batters box. I've seen this a lot, both HS and TB. Mostly a low outside pitch, into the opposite batters box at times. Saw this a lot last HS season, but see it in TB to. When I do I can only assume it's to move a game along.

And for full discloser, my son is a two way, so at the plate it sucks, on the mound not so much....

PGStaff posted:

Plate plate awareness, discipline, etc.  It's all part of being a good hitter.

The hitter that often chases unhittable pitches thrown in unhittable locations simply won't be as successful as hitters who lay off of those pitches.  BTW, those locations change from one hitter to the next, but not by a big margin.

I have never figured out an actual system to account for these things.  But it becomes obvious if you see a hitter quite a bit.  The count dictates a lot of what happens.  No strike chasing is worse than one strike chasing and especially two strike chasing.  Umpires can definitely make a big difference, but in evaluating a hitter, you also must evaluate how the umpire calls the pitches.

Example, hitter leading off an inning, has a full count.  The umpire has shown a very small strike zone.  The full count pitch is 6 inches outside, but the umpire calls strike three.  In that situation I would write that the hitter did not chase ball four, rung up on a bad call.  

Anyway one thing that I have noticed over the years.  From the lowest levels to the very highest levels hitters become much more disciplined.  Even in professional baseball, most start at the rookie level.  At that level many pitchers have great strike out to walk ratios.  It is because many of the hitters are not disciplined.  They are young and in a hurry to impress.

Then each level a pitcher moves up, the same pitcher ends up walking more hitters.  AAA is extremely difficult, because there are many veteran hitters who just don't chase many pitches out of the strike zone.

Plate awareness and discipline for most, not all, is easy to define. Does the hitter swing at strikes and not swing at balls.  Does he swing at pitches he can hit well and does he lay off of pitches he can't hit well?  Sometimes with no strikes a good hitter will lay off a called strike if it is a pitch he doesn't hit well, like a good slider low outside corner.  The bad hitter swings and misses or worse yet he makes contact and gets himself out.  Every hitter makes mistakes, but most of the best hitters make less mistakes.  Sometimes we make the simple things too complicated.

PG you make a couple points about getting yourself out that I tried to teach to my boys when I coached. 1) Look for a mistake and don't miss it. That means don't hit a pitcher's pitch until you have to with two strikes. I know that there are/were a few guys who carried the 'bad ball hitter' (Vlad Guerrero comes to mind) label but the best hitters seem to make the pitcher pay for mistakes (more often than not) and have the ability to fight off pitches that may be strikes but are tough to drive.

2) Recognize speed and spin. I see talented kids who can't recognize breaking balls at all. If you consistently fail at those two things, you are probably getting yourself out a lot.

I also see kids who are consistently late on average fastballs when they are in favorable counts. It happens to the best of them but you probably won't be a good hitter if you can't take advantage of good counts. 

Did you study Roberto and Henry? They would swing at "bad" pitchers to get the pitches again. They set up the pitcher. Question - who is in control?

Pitcher or hitter?

Bob

Consultant posted:

Did you study Roberto and Henry? They would swing at "bad" pitchers to get the pitches again. They set up the pitcher. Question - who is in control?

Pitcher or hitter?

Bob

I haven't but sounds like good hitters are in control a lot of the times...especially against young pitchers.

PGStaff,

I don’t disagree with anything you said above but I can’t help asking if you’ve seen anyone actually try to track those things in a way they could go back and evaluate them without depending on their memories or perceptions.

It would be difficult for an official scorekeeper, but one could go back and check TrackMan data.  Problem is TrackMan is only available part of the time.

Our scouts are instructed to grade things like discipline. They also include that type info in their scouting reports.  Even noting obvious bad calls by umpires.

While there have been some bad ball hitters, most hitters hit strikes the best.  In fact, they hit best in an area within the strike zone.  Even true for the bad ball hitters.