Taking pitches until a strike is called

My take away is that it is not a beneficial strategy from a BA perspective.  From an OBP perspective, I'm not sure if I can interpret the data correctly.  If the strategy of taking until you get a strike is to increase the chances of getting on base (not just get a hit), does your data support or refute the idea?

 In the stats I would suspect its the weaker hitters taking or being told to take a strike so you would expect the "take a strike" averages to lower based upon talent.

I am sure you can win more HS and below games by taking strikes, maybe some college games,  but I am not sure you can win games against a good pitching taking strikes, unless the other team can't hit either.   Regardless, it makes for a very long game and nobody is learning to hit by taking strikes. 

When I coached a Little League team I never had them take strikes because they didn't learn to hit and as a bonus I didn't have to stand there for 3 hours watching kids walk around the bases and learning nothing.

Depends on the umpire.  Saw a 14u game last weekend where the strike zone appeared to be the size of a post card, for BOTH sides.  Rather than take the OP's approach though the kids on both sides started lunging at balls to attempt to get hits.  Lots of walks and lots of fouls.  It was a really bad game to watch.

Matt Reiland posted:

My take away is that it is not a beneficial strategy from a BA perspective.  From an OBP perspective, I'm not sure if I can interpret the data correctly.  If the strategy of taking until you get a strike is to increase the chances of getting on base (not just get a hit), does your data support or refute the idea?

I figgered I’d get stabbed by not putting total OBP on the report. To tell the truth I was lazy. It only took a couple minutes to get the BA but getting the OBP took a bit more and I didn’t want to do it at the time. But, today I had the time and went ahead and stuck it on there.

I can’t say if as a strategy it’s better or worse because it wasn’t a planned team strategy for the team the data is for. What I did was only use the hitting data for PAs where there wasn’t a swing until a strike was called and compared it to all PAs. As you can see, there was a 35 point drop in BA and a 26 point drop in OBP between the two.

My guess is, it’s a pretty stupid thing to do purposely for all but the most elite hitters.

CollegeParentNoMore,

I agree. That may well have worked for Ted Williams, but I daresay there aren’t a lot of players with ability equal to his running around out there.

CaCO3Girl posted:

Depends on the umpire.  Saw a 14u game last weekend where the strike zone appeared to be the size of a post card, for BOTH sides.  Rather than take the OP's approach though the kids on both sides started lunging at balls to attempt to get hits.  Lots of walks and lots of fouls.  It was a really bad game to watch.

I have mixed feelings on that. I’d argue to have technology call pitches not swung at if we were talking about pro ball where it was monetarily possible and that would resolve it. But even if MLB went to it, there’s no way it would be something many amateurs would see.

That means when an umpire with a lousy zone showed up, what you saw would be pretty much “normal”. The only way to battle it would be to change the current trending approach to hitting which is swinging only at pitches the hitter can drive and go back to teaching kids how to hit a wider range of pitches.

I'd be interested to see what the numbers are for players on first swing that didn't take until first strike.  That is, players who swung at the first strike (at least what they interpreted as a strike).  To me that, in comparison to those who took until one strike would be a more interesting comparison.

As an example, we had a leadoff hitter who was a GREAT first pitch, fastball hitter.  The HC would ALWAYS have him take until he had a strike.  He would frequently have to watch his pitch, and often the only good, hit-able pitch he'd see in a game, sail by.  I have no doubt that his stats would have been much better had he not been forced to take.  I saw this same kid hit 100 points higher in the summer, typically murdering line drives on the first pitch he'd see in his AB's.  This tended to be against much better pitching than he was facing on the HS team.

In a nutshell, a coach employing the "take till he throws one" strategy is taking the bat out of his players hand.  I get it for a weak hitter in a situation that warrants, but outside of that, if the kid can hit, let him hit.  Too many coaches try to over manage a game.  The Cubs just about lost the world series for that very reason.

I'd be interested to see what the numbers are for players on first swing that didn't take until first strike.  That is, players who swung at the first strike (at least what they interpreted as a strike).  To me that, in comparison to those who took until one strike would be a more interesting comparison…..

I’m not sure what you’re interested in seeing. Do you mean swinging at the 1^st pitch or where the 1^st strike is a swinging strike?

I believe it is entirely possible to have a low tech technology based strike zone that would be superior to a low level umpire, probably even a MLB umpire, but honestly that is a pretty low bar for even an inexpensive vision system.

The effective of the first pitch strategy depends heavily on the performance of the pitcher. Long term average data won't allow you to parse that out.

Stats4Gnats posted:

I'd be interested to see what the numbers are for players on first swing that didn't take until first strike.  That is, players who swung at the first strike (at least what they interpreted as a strike).  To me that, in comparison to those who took until one strike would be a more interesting comparison…..

 

I’m not sure what you’re interested in seeing. Do you mean swinging at the 1^st pitch or where the 1^st strike is a swinging strike?

I mean stats for swinging at first pitch, or swinging on 1-0, 2-0 or 3-0 count, where it's obvious that the player didn't take until he had a strike.  Kids that had a green light and swung at the first strike they saw.

That seems to be a more valid comparison of whether hitters are more successful by taking until they have a strike or if they are free to swing at the first strike they see (whether they CHOOSE to swing or not then becomes their decision).  

That becomes a better comparison of success whether they have a green light to swing at first strike, or if that option is taken away from a player to do same.  For me, this becomes more telling than comparing the subset to the total population.

Ted22 posted:

…The effective of the first pitch strategy depends heavily on the performance of the pitcher. Long term average data won't allow you to parse that out.

Why? As long as “effective” is defined and exactly what the 1^st pitch strategy is used to analyze the data there’s no reason to believe conclusions would be worthless.

Ted22 posted:

I believe it is entirely possible to have a low tech technology based strike zone that would be superior to a low level umpire, probably even a MLB umpire, but honestly that is a pretty low bar for even an inexpensive vision system.

LOL...seriously. LOL.

Stats4Gnats posted:

CollegeParentNoMore,

 

I agree. That may well have worked for Ted Williams, but I daresay there aren’t a lot of players with ability equal to his running around out there.

Didn't Ted Williams write something in his hitting book about the incredibly low statistics that accompanied swinging at the first pitch?  Seems he noted that hitters had a very high likelihood of not reaching safely.    Has something changed?  Was it just a difference in competition level, i.e. at the MLB level it's a bad idea, but not at lower levels?

I think it is somewhat worth noting that often at PG events guys are playing to showcase, as opposed so much to winning.  What I mean is that when a high school team plays there is a commanding coach telling everyone what they are to do to help the team win. In showcase ball, guys are often playing, to a degree, for themselves.    

There has been a bit of a change at even the little league level in coaches telling 10 y/os to look "Dead red" on the first pitch.  

Kid's learn a lot more strategy than I ever got from the old cigarette smoking, salty talking, slightly better than Buttermaker, auto mechanic who told me to keep my back elbow up and swing level.  The game keeps getting better in many ways.

Matt13 posted:

Ted22 posted:

I believe it is entirely possible to have a low tech technology based strike zone that would be superior to a low level umpire, probably even a MLB umpire, but honestly that is a pretty low bar for even an inexpensive vision system.

LOL...seriously. LOL.

I am glad you got a good laugh. Do you have vision system experience? If so, what are the technical issues that you see as difficult to overcome?

Ted22 posted:

Matt13 posted:

Ted22 posted:

I believe it is entirely possible to have a low tech technology based strike zone that would be superior to a low level umpire, probably even a MLB umpire, but honestly that is a pretty low bar for even an inexpensive vision system.

LOL...seriously. LOL.

I am glad you got a good laugh. Do you have vision system experience? If so, what are the technical issues that you see as difficult to overcome?

A. Real-time analysis of pitch location.

B. Margin of error.

C. Delineation of the zone.

We just had a pretty good discussion on this. 

It is a low Level strategy that works well at low Levels because the pitchers are wild.

you definitely shouldn't swing at a borderline pitch "on the black" without a strike and be selective looking for a pitch that is well over the plate and maybe even in a certain area if you are the type of hitter that sits on certain pitches (not everyone is that type of hitter even in mlb) but at higher Levels if you get a "Cookie" better punish it even if there is no strike because you usually only get one mistake pitch per PA against a good pitcher.

if you don't swing or foul that pitch off consistently you are not going to make it at higher Levels.

What your stats don't show is game situations.  Again we found success having batters take a strike against what we considered well below average speed pitchers and only during their first AB against said pitcher.  We were very specific that it was the batters job to get their timing down and basically having them check swing to get the timing down.

Based on my prospective it seemed to be a very effective strategy.  We never ran numbers to verify the strategy but it eliminated the quick 123 innings on 5 pitches against pitchers we thought were very "hitable."  From observation, what we found was the slower pitchers were just as likely to struggle with the strike zone as the faster pitchers.  Once the batters stopped jumping out of their shoes on the first or second pitch, because the ball looks HUGE when slowed down, it would turn into BP and big innings.  

I am sure most of us have come away from games scratching our heads wondering how a slower pitcher kept hitters off the bases.  A pitcher that seemed very "hittable."  Maybe it took the hitters three or four innings to figure it out but it was too late or bridged the gap to a better pitcher.  Once we started to have hitters take the 1st strike against these slower than average pitchers, those head scratching games went away.  

It is too simplified a proposal to say if such an approach is the right way to go.

It depends on the opponent, their pitching style & the offensive team

Do they usually pitch backwards?   Then yes, take till strike one sometimes but not always.   If they are constantly dealing with get ahead 1st pitch fastballs I want to hammer that pitch.    If a pitcher has great movement to their pitches I want our hitters to take the 1st pitch quite often but not always, it depends on the individual hitter, how well they are seeing the ball lately, what type of pitches they hit best etc etc, there are so many scenarios at play in any given at-bat.   If a pitcher is a great fastball pitcher and is starting to tire you want to jump all over that 1st fastball you see.

Coaches & players constantly adjust.   If I hit a double off of your 1st pitch fastball in Inning 3, I'm betting I'm going to get pitched backwards in my next at-bat etc etc

Nuke83 posted:

I mean stats for swinging at first pitch, or swinging on 1-0, 2-0 or 3-0 count, where it's obvious that the player didn't take until he had a strike.  Kids that had a green light and swung at the first strike they saw.

That seems to be a more valid comparison of whether hitters are more successful by taking until they have a strike or if they are free to swing at the first strike they see (whether they CHOOSE to swing or not then becomes their decision).  

That becomes a better comparison of success whether they have a green light to swing at first strike, or if that option is taken away from a player to do same.  For me, this becomes more telling than comparing the subset to the total population.

Ok Nuke, been bizzy but finally got a chance to take a look.

PAs = 2,863

ABs = 668 – Only PAs that were terminated on the 1^st pitch or where the count was 1-0, 2-0, 3-0, or 4-0.

Hits = 222

Walks = 51

HBPs = 40

Sacs = 39

BA = .332

OBP = .392

My approach to this has alwasy been situational....Against a horse in the ealry innings we always took as many pitches as possible to drag the pitcher out into the deep end later in the game....But there are times when this strategy goes against you also...interesting numbers STATS4GNATS

situations matter, the hitter matters, how he is currently hitting matters, the pitcher matters, who they left to pitch matters...there is no right or wrong. I am not a big take pitch guy.

1,2,7,8,9 batters I am pretty good with taking a strike as a rule, however it isn't the standard. 

3,4,5 and sometimes 6 depending on the lineup are there to swing the bat...not that they wouldn't ever get a take but it would be fairly rare if they are legitimate hitters swinging a solid bat.

in todays game of dead bats and pitchers pounding the zone taking lots of pitches is not a winning solution day in and day out IMO.

I watched a very successful HS coach who lived and died with the hit the "First Fastball Strike" philosophy. 

It worked for most HS hitters since most couldn't consistently hit a good fastball - much less a mediocre to average breaking ball.  This was true of his team and it had 10 kids play DI baseball, won a state championship and finished in the top 30 in several national polls.

The problem was when he had players that had been taught to hit correctly and could hit breaking balls with two strikes and take the outside pitch the other way.  He turned a couple of kids I knew very well that did a nice job of being selective line drive hitters into ground ball machines afraid to take pitches out of fear of being taken out of the lineup.  A fastball "Strike 1" was cause for a huffing, puffing stomp around the coaches box at 3rd base.  God forbid there were runners.

So like anything else - need to be able to assess your players and the pitching they are facing and get a balanced philosophy.  Also it doesn't hurt to have some flexibility and not be dogmatic across the board with any particular approach in this regard.

The discussion prompted me to add something to an existing report. I added “1^st Pitch BA” out of curiosity. I counted it as an AB if the PA ended on the 1^st pitch and the result was a hit, an out, or an ROE. The 1^st page is from 2012 to 2014 for 1 team. Page 2 is for the team I scored for in 2016 and 2016. Page 3 is for summer and fall ball for the team I current score for.  See attachment.

Yes, BA is a lousy metric, but using it sure makes it seem like being aggressive on the 1^st pitch is a pretty good approach for most players.

luv baseball posted:

...So like anything else - need to be able to assess your players and the pitching they are facing and get a balanced philosophy.  Also it doesn't hurt to have some flexibility and not be dogmatic across the board with any particular approach in this regard.

Sadly though, that’s not true of the vast majority of coaches. Once they find something that works well for one player, they make it a panacea for all players from then on.

Because of the minimal time they have with players, the dearth of knowledgeable staff they have access to, and the minimum $$$$ they have to work with, I don’t hold it against them until they’re given proof of something “better” but they refuse to change.

old_school posted:

situations matter, the hitter matters, how he is currently hitting matters, the pitcher matters, who they left to pitch matters...there is no right or wrong. I am not a big take pitch guy.

Very true. Unfortunately not many coaches teach that as a philosophy or approach to hitting.

1,2,7,8,9 batters I am pretty good with taking a strike as a rule, however it isn't the standard. 

3,4,5 and sometimes 6 depending on the lineup are there to swing the bat...not that they wouldn't ever get a take but it would be fairly rare if they are legitimate hitters swinging a solid bat.

Do you ever look at any numbers where the data is arranged by batting position such as the attached? The 3 pages each represent a different team.

in todays game of dead bats and pitchers pounding the zone taking lots of pitches is not a winning solution day in and day out IMO.

When you say “dead bats” are you comparing the BBCOR bats with the BESR bats?