Quality at bats

Hard Hit Balls. Walks. Sac bunts or flys. Moving runners over.

One thing Cain and Ravizza suggest is let the player fill out a self evaluation form:

1)How many times did I go through my routine?

2)How many at bats did I see the ball well?

3)How many times did I hit the ball hard?

4)Did I play one pitch at a time- (Forget about any negatives)?

5)How many hits did I have?

6)Did I have a successful day at the plate?

This isn't the exact Evaluation form, but it's similar. These are all things your player can control and is focused on the process and not the results.

1. reach base (not fielders choice)
2. sac
3. move runner to 3b
4. 7 pitch ab
5. hard hit ball
6. execute situation
7. rbi

the 4 looks a pitcher gets:
1. opposing pitcher in bullpen
2. watch the game
3. on deck
4. take 1st pitch

they are just ideas i got from matt bragga at ttu
ive not heard it but tn tech coach said at tbca clinic that qab cd by steve springer is really good

You can get as elaborate as you want. Son's H.S. Coach keeps & publishes his Quality-at-bat-chart;
Ex: of Positive at-bats;
BB or HBP = 1pt.
ROE = 1PT.
1b,2b,3b,Hr = 1-4pts respectively.
7-pitch ab = .5
hard struck out = .5
2-strike; ball in play =.5
2-strike ROE = 1.5
2-strike hit 2 .... etc.
Negative at-bats;
Strikeout = -2, SO-looking = -3 double play -3

There are also +/- Execution points (bunts, hit & run, squeeze, lead-off on base .... etc.

If you want the entire thing; PM me.

quote:

Originally posted by raiderbb:
that qab cd by steve springer is really good

I was really disappointed by the Springer CD although he makes some valid points about having quality at bats versus focusing on avg.

Some these ideas are really good, you would think there would be a Sabermetric stat or some other widely used metric for measuring the quality of an at bat.

I have a quality at bat chart that I made up based off what Rod Delmanico did when he was at Tenn. and when he was coaching Netherlands. If anyone is interested in it send me a PM and I will send it out to you tomorrow. Last year was the first year we used it and we did not even talk about BA and we had a great year. Every at bat you heard players say, "Hey have a quality AB right now."

Prime im not liking the whole -3 thing for negative at bats...

That is something that you have to put behind you.

When you shake off your cleats, you have to shake off your K's and ground outs too.

Also, Hard hit ball and base hit should be the same...

quote:

Originally posted by PlankSpanker:

quote:

Originally posted by raiderbb:
that qab cd by steve springer is really good

I was really disappointed by the Springer CD although he makes some valid points about having quality at bats versus focusing on avg.

Some these ideas are really good, you would think there would be a Sabermetric stat or some other widely used metric for measuring the quality of an at bat.

Springer has some great things in that CD. It's not supposed to be a school book. It gives numerous ideas that are important about having a plan, being a great teammate, and playing for the right reasons. My guys have been listening to his CD for years before games and it absolutely gets them in the right frame of mind.

If you have a charting system that awards points based on a "quality" at bat then you also need the system to tell you if the at bat was sub-par. Can't just always give positive, feel good numbers out to hitters and no negatives when they fail to move runners, get down bunts, put the ball into play,etc.

Once you get to HS, either you get the job done or you don't. Period. You better know the difference as a hitter..then get over it, make your adjustments and move on. If a hitter only wants good news, he is going a tough time handling failure as he moves up the ladder.

The quicker a hitter learns that each pitch and each at bat is independent of the prior and succeeding pitch/at bat in terms of his hitting success, the better off they will be. 0-2 day can quickly become a 2-4 day if a hitter doesn't dwell on past failure or assume future success, but rather lives in the here and now...this pitch, this at bat being his only focus.

Hitter is given the bunt sign to advance a runner; fouls off two fastballs. He then gets a line drive single to LF advancing the runner. Quality at bat? Yes if the hitter only wants to look at what went good for him; no when he considers not getting the bunt down. Same scenario but now instead of a single to LF the hitter absolutely smokes a line drive right at the 1B for an easy DP. Quality at bat? Absolutely not... but not because of the DP but for not advancing the runner because he couldn't get a bunt down.

What did the hitter do right in both scenarios? He put the failure of getting the bunts down behind him and stayed focused on getting a good ball to hit which resulted in line drives, even though with totally different end results.

JMHO

Here is a solution that might allow you guys to meet in the middle in regards to negative and positive. In developing this chart Delmanico asks his hitters to hit .500 in regards to Quality AB's. I think this would settle the debate of negative's and positives.

Great post Abrams , outstanding stuff imo. Charting quality ab's is very helpfull in HS baseball because the season is so short. And the level of competition you face varies so greatly from team to team. Of course we keep basic stats which include batting averages but we also break down the batting averages and QAB's against the better competition vs the weaker opponents. If you dont do this you can really get fooled in some instances. Some kids go 8-12 in their ab's against three very weak teams and then go 0-12 with numerous non QAB's against the top competition. If you only looked at the BA you would see a solid BA. Another kid could go 3-12 against those weaker teams but be 4-12 against the quality opponents and have a lower BA. So its important to look a little deeper into all of this.

In a short season sometimes the season doesnt have time to sort itself out. In a 24 game season a kid could smoke several right at people and his average would reflect something very different. While another kid could K alot but also dink a few in and have a higher average. So I think at the HS level charting QAB's is very important.

A walk could be a QAB or it could be a non QAB. If a hitter fouls off several pitches he should smoke because he is pulling off the ball and eventually walks that is not a QAB in my book. A K could end up being a QAB though. A hitter gets a couple of tough calls early in the count battles back and works it full. He then fouls off a couple of tough pitches and eventually after several pitches K's. Now I would chart that as a QAB. So to say a walk is this many points and a QAB and a K is a non QAB and is equal to negative points is misleading in my opinion.

I think just like batting averages charting QAB's and the information gleaned is only as good as the person keeping the stats. And it is only helpfull and only educational to the players and team if presented in the proper manner. JMO

Interesting thread.

To me, perhaps the rating system ought to be personal to a particular coach's style. For example, a coach who likes to see deep counts, moving runners, and more of a small-ball approach, that coach may reward higher quality-at-bat points to those hitting attributes so-produced from his players. For a coach who likes more of the power game, he might reward a kid more points if he hits the ball hard regardless of whether he worked the pitcher deep in the count, for example. In other words, that particular coach is coaching for power rather than finess and he rewards his players accordingly (e.g., his quality-at-bat ratings rewards hard hit balls higher than moving runners or working deep counts). I don't know if that makes any sense, but I don't see any reason why there would necessarily be a universal quality-at-bat scoring system out there. I could also see a coach having multiple scoring systems. He might have one system for a power hitting first basebaseman and a different scoring system for a line-drive hitting second baseman whose primary job was to score runs or set-up run scoring opportunities rather than driving them in.

Does anyone have a copy of Delmanico's chart?

CD I would think what you posted would far and away be the best approach when charting QAB's.

I think the list that coachjo put up is a great example of what determines a quality at bat.

Various statistics suggest a time-averaged performance. For example, if my Slugging percentage is 700 for the past six weeks, it doesn’t necessarily say anything about the quality of my second at-bat on April 4th.

I’m not saying that various stats are not important however; they are very after-the-fact. They do not involve the participant in actively making adjustments during the event itself (the at-bat). It’s like running a business. If you discover that after six months the profits are tanking, nothing about the measure of profit itself is going to save you – you’re not going to measure yourself to better health. You’ve got to take timely actions that will make yourself better.

coachjo’s “These are all things your player can control and is focussed on the process and not the results.”

By actively involving and focussing your players on their process during each event, you have a continous improvement model. This implies work though. Your players have to understand their process and be able to retell it afterwards. Your hitters have to understand their at-bats and themselves on many levels:

The pitches they got (outside their control)
Did they give in to personal emotions (controllable)
Did they give in to the pressure of the situation (controllable)
What were their visual mechanics telling them (not sure)
Did they feel any flaws in their swing mechanics (controllable)
Did they adjust between pitches (controllable)

NB: After the hit is not controllable…

My son is in the process of developing a new swing from the ground up. His instructor says that it takes 8000 to 10000 repetitions to develop muscle memory. It is done at the guy’s basement. Visual mechanics and psychology issues are discussed hand-in-hand with swing mechanics. We watch videos, make videos, etc. For years my son was the tall heavy set kid. Up until this year, his swing was all upper body. His body changed dramatically this year (much leaner). He spent a couple of months working on lower body mechanics. Whereas, he had none before, he has great separation now. Up until last weekend, he was still working on drills with his lead hand only. On each swing, he can relate how various aspects of his body mechanics performed. It’s not my experience that young hitters can articulate their swing mechanics through different stages. They need to be able to do this to actively make adjustments during an at-bat.

With the greater separation, and the beginnings of a whip sound (he is learning to listen to this) to his swing, he will now have to adjust his visual mechanics for the increased bat speed.
I think, depending upon ages, and competitive levels, it might be hard to be able to get your kids to complete these questions on an at-bat basis. The gain though is six weeks of an entire team working on improvement every at bat, rather than six weeks and let’s see what we got.

socalhscoach-

You have a PM (or 2)