Walks

quote:

Any ideas?

EVERY pitcher who takes the mound is going to have a day when he gets hit hard. Just part of being a pitcher. Get over it or don’t take the mound.

For a concrete example: Say you are a pitcher and have a decent but not great day, 7 innings you give up 6-7 hits. A couple of the innings you give up 2 hits. With no walks this outing you will give up maybe 2 runs. Not a bad day and your team is in the game. Your WHIP is around 1.0+/-.

Now you take that same outing and add in 4 walks. That same outing you will give up 4 runs maybe 5, depending on where the BB’s fall. Your WHIP is 50% higher at 1.5+/-.

Another interesting statistic. In HS baseball 50% of all walks end up scoring.

BOF,
It is pretty standard for pitchers who move up a level to give up more walks. Look at the records of minor league pitchers and you'll see a pretty consistent pattern there. As I'm sure you know when we go into league play we move up a level. It is a fact and the question isn't if walks are a problem, the question is how to get the message across to the pitcher that it is worth giving up a few more hits to avoid walks. Sometimes as I've noted just giving them the facts doesn't get the job done.

I have not looked at that statistic, but I know many coaches look at WHIP.

I guess it really is up to the coach to get the message across. From what I have seen most HS coaches really pound it in to their pitchers to throw strikes. In our case if you are walking too many kids you will get pulled and moved down the rotation.

Have you spoken to him about the difference between challenging a hitter and avoiding giving up hits? Cason is throwing his curve well as I recall you stating somewhere and he's got decent pop (84 recently?). Just judging from your posts he appears to be on that sort of a bent and it folds in with the higher walks in higher level theory, it's that they don't want to fail so it's an excercise in "not grooving" the ball..ends up with bb. If I were advising his coach I'd suggest getting him fired up and going after them instead of worrying about not being the poster child for a D-1 signers dingers. Encourage him to throw his strength and let the stinkin chips fall. He's a pitcher, if some schmuck homers off him have him refocus and move on it's all a part of this level....I suspect you already know this...just in the midst it gets foggy sometimes. That kid has overcome a whole bunch...this ain't squat!

Giving up walks as you go up a level is due to the strike zone getting smaller and the competition getting better. He has to adjust. Sometimes it takes a while.

Also some pitchers will attempt to pitch backwards against better competition afraid of giving up the long ball which is a bad habit. Better to give up one run HR than runs from walks. Try to explain that to him. You need to explain how important it is to just throw strikes, and be efficient.

He won't give up much if he throws strikes and mixes up his pitches, location, etc. and I agree this is something that the coach needs to address with him. Who calls their pitches?

What he needs to do is trust his stuff, no matter who he is facing.

All the good discussion aside what is his W-L record and his era---the problem with walks at the HS level is that they get followed by fielders miscues all too often

Actually most of the time his team is top notch defensively for a HS team and he's not been hit hard, other than a 2 out 3-0 bp fastball to one of the 'ship types that went for an rbi double, but the walks have led to earned runs driven in by outs. So far he's thrown too few innings to draw any conclusions other than he's got good stuff and the walks have hurt him. At the moment they've got him listed at 0-0 with 1 save but it really wasn't a save situation.

Back in the day, my old high school coach used to say "if you walk 2 guys you're coming out" didn't matter when those walks came, consecutive, 4 inn. later. Needless for that we had 6 starters and only one guy consistently threw strikes, so I got a lot of innings because those other guys couldn't find the plate!
Walks are one of things, they come back to haunt almost every time. I could go back thru my book from last summer and I'd be willing to bet 90% of the guys we walked ended up scoring Just tell him to trust his stuff and go right at the hitters, so what if a guy or two hits him good, go right at 'em! And good luck to your son the rest of the way!

its the baseball gods getting back at you for not throwing strikes!!! go to any team at almost anytime in the season, at any level (hs, ncaa, LL) and I'll be walks and runs are close in number!!


right now we are 15 games into our season, I am the pitching coach, 4A high school (2100 kids) we have a 3.54 era (48 earned runs), we are 9-6, we've allowed 86 runs (5.73 per game) and we've walked 69 BB to 89 SO. of my pitchers

1.45 era 10 total runs 15 BB (29 IP
2.95 era 14 total runs 12 BB (19 IP
5.16 era 26 total runs 13 BB (19 IP
5.91 era 12 total runs 13 BB (10 2/3 IP
7.00 ERA 9 total runs 9 BB (7 IP
1.23 era 8 total runs 5 BB (5 2/3 IP
4.20 era 7 total runs 2 BB (5 IP
0.00 era 0 BB (1/3 IP

have only allowed 103 hits in 95 2/3 innings. look how similar those numbers are as far as BB and runs! THE BASEBALL GODS HAVE NO MERCY!

CADad,
Walks are bad, really bad. But notice that a walk is almost always preferable to a hit. Walks, after all, seldom drive in runs, only advance runners if forced, and rarely precipitate errors.

A less skilled pitcher gives up too many walks, and it is tempting to suggest that the pitcher set his target closer to the middle of the plate. However, because a hit is worse than a walk, the target should be set such that over time, the pitcher gives up somewhat more walks than hits. The walks to hits ratio is much more telling than walks to runs in trying to determine if a pitcher is being "too fine" in his pitch placement.

As a pitcher gains control, stuff, and velocity, the number of walks issued should go down. So should the number of hits. Really, the number of walks issued is (or should be) primarily dependent on the skill level of the pitcher in comparison to that of the batters.

So, how's your son's walks to hits ratio? In my opinion, if that ratio is somewhere around 1.2, he probably is taking the correct target strategy.

His goal should be 3 BB's or less per 7 innings pitched, or 4 BB or less per 9 innings pitched. I agree with TPM that too many pitchers "pitch backwards" to players they perceive to be superior hitters. IMHO superior pitching always trumps superior hitting--so why dink around? Go after the guy.

quote:

As a pitcher gains control, stuff, and velocity, the number of walks issued should go down. So should the number of hits. Really, the number of walks issued is (or should be) primarily dependent on the skill level of the pitcher in comparison to that of the batters.

I believe the "just throw strikes" philosophy isn't appropriate for where Cason is. He's throwing to guys that will just hit guys who "just throw strikes". When at this level, he has to understand that the quality of his pitches and the sequence that he chooses are his only defense. Throwing to avoid these guys bats is picked up easily and a great hitter (And I'd say at a high school level a D-1 signer is likely a great HS hitter) will wait until he's ahead in the count and spank your tookas, when you are forced to "just throw a strike".
No Cason has quality pitches, he needs to use those to get advantage in the count and then wipe them out with HIS strength. Right now he's pitching defensively...CaDad get him to be the aggressor..attack early in spots where he is at the advantage.
My son and I used to have (Still do) theorhetical discussions as to how he would get out certain guys...one of them was this lead off hitter (Great baseball name...Baker Knox) that was a signee with a good university, we argued and argued over the best way to get this guy...Well we finally went to a former major league catcher and asked him to get into it....We were surprised at the response..but it made so much sense, he said to go straight at him, the tendancy of good lead off hitters is to look at a few pitches..for him and the rest of the team, if you come at him quick and get the advantage in the count then your best out pitch becomes many times more effective. And remember first pitch strike is the opportunity to throw your pitch to his weakness..i.e. not grooved but to your spot...any late movement is a bonus...if he's 1st pitch swinging likely with late movement you get a nice grounder.

And another thing about just throwing strikes...A large amount of strike outs happen on pitches that aren't strikes, it comes from setting up a batter with quality pitches, using location and changing speeds..nope just throwing strikes works in LL but not varsity HS baseball.
Focusing on not walking people is also a bad business...attack, throw your game and if a guy gets walked..what-ever...it's because you didn't give in. I wouldn't put it in his mind to "Walk less than X or Y" to heck with that...Have him thinking positives like, pitch economy, 3 pitch innings..stuff like that, not "oh I hope I don't walk someone", or "Well I walked one guy I only have 2 more to walk or I'm over my GOAL???" stats will always take care of themselves when you are in control of your plan of attack.
Cadad feed him gunpowder...show him the red flag...No quarter.

Ok, help me on this one, not understanding about "not throwing strikes". What are you supposed to throw?

Seems to me he's thinking about it too much and of course he has to get in there and go after the hitter, not throw, but pitch.

quote:

Ok, help me on this one, not understanding about "not throwing strikes". What are you supposed to throw?

Glad to help,
Tom Glavine.......................................
Close to 300 wins and hardly ever is "in" the classic strike zone. He establishes how far outside the ump will call a strike and lives there. If you took an overhead shot and a side shot...aw heck you don't even need to do that..just watch him pitch.

Lets just say this, my son is a varsity pitcher here in Florida, he is at better than 1.5 k per inning, one of his weapons is a change-up, he will load you up with say, a sequence in which he'll start with an 89 mph fastball belt high, inner portion for usually a foul or swinging strike, he may return to the same spot 0-2, now I don't know how you feel about 0-2 but many coaches want a waste pitch for a ball here...my preference is to see if you can define the upper portion of the strike zone or get them fishing on a quality breaking pitch, lets just say they don't fish, it's 1-2, you have a choice here, but usually 2nd time through the order you are going to see a change here (From my kid anyway)...and that change is going to be 8-9 mph slower and it's going to look like that 89 mph fastball...it's also going to drop off the table, right in front of the plate...the majority of HS batters just don't have the bat discipline to hold back on this because they are so jinked up for the fastball. So you strike a guy out on a ball that bounces in the dirt. Another example is using a slider that starts over the middle of the plate and breaks way outside, or a curve that breaks down below the knees. I couldn't quote you specific numbers, but I would say the majority of strike outs are out of the zone.
More to the point after all those examples is that pitching is a thinking manspersons art. If it was so simple as just putting the ball into the strike zone, you wouldn't have major leaguers watching video of their last at bat in the dugout. It's why Cason won't be successful against the crew he's up against (His district is one of the strongest in the nation) unless he attacks them at their weakness and with his strength. That means changing speeds and location, it means, using quality pitches to set up other pitches, it means he can't be predictable, he has to push that ump to give him every single pitch he can get...(speaking as an ump I can say a kid that knows what he's doing gets calls). It means working with his catcher to fool both the batter and ump sometimes (Setting up outside the zone just a little but throwing it right to the glove so it doesn't move the glove..shoot I've seen em set up in the oppo batters box and still get the call).
You throw strikes sure, but in there is a very healthy dose of balls that are planned and as they should be.

Thank you for the pitching tips.

I would assume that above scenerio would be a given to be successful.

If you go back to the original post, the pitcher is trying to throw too good of pitches, in other words he's not pitching, he's throwing? Also don't know what his pitches include. It's all in the setup and using what he has to set up the batter in his sequence of pitches. I agree, it is living on the edge of the zone and seeing just how far you can get the batter to take, and if he misses, it's a strike. That's whats meant by my interpretation of just throw strikes. If you start thinking about where you are going to place a pitch instead of which pitch you are going use soon you are in trouble. Before you know it you now are 3-2 in the count and very tired by your 2,3rd inning. And the mentality that you have to strike out every pitcher is not going to work.
I particulary don't like the waste pitch on an 0-2, mine always had to waste one that count.

IMO, every pitch you pitch should be with intent to make the batter swing and if they make contact, you have 7 others behind you to do their job. If they don't that's on them, not you, however the walk becomes soley your reponsibility.

3 pitch innings are golden
It's what I mean...anyway I'm aware of Casons arsenal, it's just to me a confidence thing..."too fine" is another phrase...it just means as I said in my first post, hes attempting to (Would seem by CaDads op) avoid hits. I'm privey to his (CaDads) log on another site and the kid is incrementally improving and as a sophmore seems to be working it out nicely. Him being a confident, "In command" pitcher bodes ominous for the rest of his district.

Ok then we have narrowed it down, the pitcher cannot approach the game with the mind set to avoid hits.

Been there, seen it, you got to get over that to be successful.

quote:

And another thing about just throwing strikes...A large amount of strike outs happen on pitches that aren't strikes, it comes from setting up a batter with quality pitches, using location and changing speeds..nope just throwing strikes works in LL but not varsity HS baseball.
Focusing on not walking people is also a bad business...attack, throw your game and if a guy gets walked..what-ever...it's because you didn't give in. I wouldn't put it in his mind to "Walk less than X or Y" to heck with that...Have him thinking positives like, pitch economy, 3 pitch innings..stuff like that, not "oh I hope I don't walk someone", or "Well I walked one guy I only have 2 more to walk or I'm over my GOAL???" stats will always take care of themselves when you are in control of your plan of attack

Agree with this view.

There are quite a diffence between one HS and another. If you are groslly over matched with the batter and have decent velo you can throw right down the middle and survive quite well.