Reading for the day
More interesting stuff than usual in the local dailies.
Front office changes looming in the Times. Benny Looper is moving from his VP executive role into a scouting position. This will allow him to spend more time doing the things he enjoys, and less time riding a desk. The one and only Frank Mattox will inherit most of his responsibilities. At the bottom, it’s noted that the M’s have dismissed Glenn Adams, their minor league hitting coordinator. You knew someone was going to get blamed for the Matt Tuiasasopo debacle.
Also in the Times, another Chris Snelling profile, though this one written by notable scribe Larry Stone, so its better than most. If you’ve followed Snelling the past few years, it’s nothing new, but if you’re a new reader to the site, you may not be aware of his penchant for Yoda or the stuffed doll story.
Finally, the P-I has a bit on the M’s lousy approach at the plate, and has some quotes from Pentland and Hargrove. This one is my favorite:
“It’s not a philosophical thing. It’s our philosophy to get in good hitters’ counts,” manager Mike Hargrove said. “I think it’s a combination of hitters’ styles and the fact that we have younger hitters, less experienced hitters.”
Yes Mike, it’s all those darn young players. If only we had more old guys, we’d be doing great. Darn Bavasi and his roster construction.
It is a philosophical thing. You can’t say the word aggressiveness 842 times a day during spring training, reward guys who hack wildly with regular playing time, and expect them to simultaneously become walk machines. Yes, part of it is roster construction – players do walk more as they age. But it’s also a philosophy thing – the M’s overarching “put pressure on the defense” mentality does creep into the at-bats, and the organizations general lack of interest in players who draw walks reinforces the culture of free-swinging that has been fostered here.
It is a philosophical thing. You can’t say the word aggressiveness 842 times a day during spring training, reward guys who hack wildly with regular playing time, and expect them to simultaneously become walk machines. Yes, part of it is roster construction – players do walk more as they age. But it’s also a philosophy thing – the M’s overarching “put pressure on the defense†mentality does creep into the at-bats, and the organizations general lack of interest in players who draw walks reinforces the culture of free-swinging that has been fostered here.
Um, duh. Stupid not to realize it (and yes, he could be that stupid), or stupid not to admit it and say that it’s a feature of their organizational approach. Either way, not a ringing endorsement of their mental faculties.
I loved Rohn’s discussion of Doyle’s hitting in the Stone piece.
wonder what happens with the position if Bavasi stays on — he says they are leaving the actual job vacant, with Mattox & Grifol splitting the duties for now…
There’s also an interesting Doyle article in the Tacoma News Tribune (tribnet.com). I don’t have the link at the moment.
TNT and mlb.com
“At the bottom, it’s noted that the M’s have dismissed Glenn Adams, their minor league hitting coordinator. You knew someone was going to get blamed for the Matt Tuiasasopo debacle.”
Dave, do you really think that he is being made a scapegoat for Tui being shoved up through the minor league system butt first? I find it odd that they would fire him at this point in the year.
Hargrove is really curious regarding plate patience. As a player, he had more than 100 walks four times and 97 in another season. He didn’t have a lot of power, but had a career .396 OBP over 12 seasons. He wasn’t just “The Human Rain Delay” because of his constant snapping and fastening of his batting gloves and moving in and out of the box. He took a lot of pitches as well.
So I don’t get a) how he could possibly tolerate the free swinging that has gone on all year, much less encourage it even indirectly and b) how he could ever pinch-hit Bohn for Snelling, a guy with similar values as Hargrove’s at the plate.
Whats the Tuiasasopo debacle? Did I miss something or is just that he hasn’t become the amazing player he was suppose to become. If thats the case, why is it a debacle since so many others haven’t lived up to their potential (so many that its pointless to list them out)
Looking up that bit scraps was riffing on yesterday, I came across this:
“If you were to sum up Whitey Herzog as a manager and as a man in one word, the word would ahve to be ‘aggressiveness.’ . . .
“The 1982 Cardinals played their average nine-inning game in two hours, twenty-two minutes, the fastest in the majors. Whitey does not want his pitchers out there nibbling at corners; he wants them to be aggressive, go after the hitters. His base runners are noted for their aggressiveness in asking for an additional base from time to time. In his first year as a manager, in 1973, he had Jeff Burroughs on the roster, whom Ted Williams had been trying to teach to be selective at the plate. Whitey didn’t want that; he wanted Burroughs to be more aggressive at the plate. He made a wager with Burroughs, in which if Burroughs swung at a strike and missed he would pay him a dollar — but if Burroughs took a pitch in the strike zone, he owed Whitey a dollar. Burroughs had his first good year that year, hitting 30 home runs.
“I have mixed feelings about all that aggression; 1982 shows the good side of it, 1983 the bad side. Aggressiveness puts the pressure on the opposing defense — but it takes the pressure off the opposing pitching staff. The sequence begins with the ball in the pitcher’s hand, and the pressure on him to throw a strike; an aggressive hitter sometimes too willingly takes that pressure on himself in an attempt to pass it on to the defense.”
–Bill James, from the 1984 Baseball Abstract, in This Time Let’s Not Eat the Bones, New York: Villard Books, 1989, pp. 190-91. Emphasis mine.
To be fair, Bohn had a very good AB last night. I’m not condoning the substitution, just saying.
Doyle’s AB in the first inning was a thing of beauty. He saw more pitches in that AB (8 I believe) than it took Wang to get out of the 5th inning (5). That’s just silly.
Also, on a side note, I’ve gone on record on here saying I thought Rene did a better job defensively that Joh. Watching last nights game was painful. The guy didn’t even look like he could catch a ball. I was begging to have Kenji back in the game. What are the chances someone else will get a look at the backup spot when the roster expands?
What young guys is he talking about? Ichiro saw one pitch his first at bat, Beltre like 3 and Sexon about the same. The “Old Guy” Doyle saw 8!!! It’s crap, the aggressive hitting is what he wants, the Manager sets the tone. Rohn was deadly with his comments.
Don’t get fixated on pitches taken and pitch counts.
Focus on balls hit hard, hits, runs scored and runs allowed.
RE: Whitey, aggressiveness
Why do baseball people/fans not directly acknowledge that the pitcher is the most important member of the defense? If you want to put pressure on the defense, the logical first step would be to make the pitcher uncomfortable. Duh.
Matt Tuiasosopo stats:
What a drop off
Also, (#12) if you hit the ball hard, chances are you’re going to have more opportunities to draw a walk.
I can’t remember the source, but I read the David Eckstein is one of the most patient hitters in baseball, but does not draw many walks because opposing pitchers aren’t afraid to put one in the strike zone against him because of his lack of power. I wonder what the actual numbers are and if they support this. On the other hand, if Eddie Stanky could slug .350 and draw 100+ walks a year, it has to be do-able.
From the PI Notebook on T.J. Bohn’s first at bat:
“‘I know Hargrove uses his bench guys a lot and I knew it was a possibility,’ Bohn said Wednesday.”
Huh? Which Hargrove is he talking about?
He’s slugging .199?
Christ on a bike.
#12-The worst pitcher in baseball can get the best hitter out if he gets to dictate the at bat. The key to hitting is the same as the key to pitching, make the other guy react to you. If you hack, you get what the pitcher wants to throw. If you force him to come to you, you have the advantage. A 98 mph fastball is unhittable unless you know it’s coming.
Dave, I’m sure you’ve discussed this on a previous thread, but I had to ask anyway. How much can an organizational philosophy have an effect on a player’s patience? Can you teach Lopez, YuBet, etc. to be more like Doyle, Edgar, etc? Do you need to have the GM, major league staff, and minor league staff work to that goal starting by drafting players with that quality? Lastly, is there a pitch-per-plate-appearance level that determines whether a player is a patient or unpatient batter? Thanks,
#16 I thought that was funny too. Obviously he doesn’t know much about Hargrove. He’s already been used off the bench more than just about anyone has all year though.
I don’t have any problem with aggressive hitting. It’s the over aggressive, out of the strike zone, hacking that is bothersome. If the pitch is a strike, by all means, be aggressive. If it’s a slider in the dirt, maybe be a little more selective.
#18. The point I think you’re making is about an AB being a chess game. I agree with the advantage goes to the player with the favorable count. Well, the fact that batting average is highest when the count is 3-0, 2-0 or 2-1 proves it.
I’m suggesting that number of pitches taken is not the Holy Grail. It doesn’t matter that a batter take 1 pitch if he whacks it hard. I think all would agree to that.
I think this trend of making the pitcher get to 100 pitches as quickly as possible is a recent one – possibly popping up in the last 10 or 15 years. I don’t think a significant advantage is obtained when a team makes a pitcher throw 100 pitches by the 6th, for example. The team will still have to face fresh pitchers. Granted, the middle relievers are the worst pitchers on the team. Yet, wouldn’t it be better to try to knock the starter out by the 3rd inning.
I don’t think a significant advantage is obtained when a team makes a pitcher throw 100 pitches by the 6th, for example. The team will still have to face fresh pitchers. Granted, the middle relievers are the worst pitchers on the team.
And that’s not a significant advantage?
Hm. I think you want to rework the philosophy a bit; you may be right, but you’ve undercut the argument there.
21-We’re on the same page. It all moves with the game. Wang is no great talent, but he was made to look like one because we allowed him to use his sinker. Force him out of that and you can start going after what he has to throw later in the game. Nothing is a given except when you allow the other guy to do his thing. Wangs defense is to burn you with enough fastballs to keep you guessing. It goes both ways because it is a beautiful game, except when you just give in!!!
21 – I wouldn’t agree to that. I’d much rather see a guy strike out looking than line the first pitch to an infielder.
7 – The same thing happened to Joe Morgan. As soon as he stopped playing he forgot how.
There was a lot of debate back in ’93 when Andres Galarraga won the NL batting title in Denver. Some statheads took him to task for swinging at 50% of all first pitches. The problem with that was that he was hit .370/.403/.602 that season. Swinging at the first pitch worked for him because pitchers were giving him balls to hit.
I’m not arguing with the idea of patience. I’d rather have a lineup of guys who don’t swing at stuff that’s not in the strike zone than a team full of Herzog-type flailers. But I am saying that some players take advantage of the first pitch, and have do it well.
Anybody notice that Snelling was the Mariners’ MVP last night? I mean, in WPA terms not just to the naked eye
You would think – and statistical analyis could refute or support this idea – that increasing the number of pitches per AB increases the chance that the pitcher will make a mistake (either a ball 4 or a pitch in your sweet spot).
That is the intuitive advantage to seeing more pitches.
Why isn’t Tuiasosopo to blame for the Tuiasosopo fiasco? Hmm. I guess it’s not his fault he can’t play baseball; it’s the team’s fault for believing that he could in the first place. If his last name was “Smith”, or this was anyplace other than Seattle, he never would have gotten a look in.
The reasons for selectivity at the plate are many and manifold. I can’t believe that there are still people alive who don’t understand this. Do people really not understand that letting balls go by forces the pitcher to come into your hitting zones, and thus increases your slugging, as well as increasing your on-base by putting you on first if they fail to do so? This team’s inability to hit with authority is directly linked to its failure to take a pitch and take a walk.
25. Yeah, that may be true. Interesting comment he made about youthful hitters, but Hargrove posted OBP’s of .395, .395, .397 right at the beginning of his major league career (ages 24-25-26), and that’s where he finished. He never had to learn it at the major league level, that’s for sure.
28 – I think there’s another obvious advantage, JAS.
Baseball games happen in groups. If I’m going to play the same team 3 games in a row, I have an interest in tiring his pitchers as much as I can so I can maximise my advantages as the games progress.
Those articles were an amazing collection of mis information. I have no idea where Grover or Pentland got any of that swill. They reminded me of my kids when caught red handed, make up the first thing you can think of. And most of the reporters bought it. The whole team does this stuff. I think the reason the reporters got wind of it is because of sites like this and suddenly Doyle shows up and starts….OMG walking!!!
I think it must be very hard to teach a different approach at the plate. These guys aren’t up there swining at softballs. The guys who have the patient approach at the plate developed something they had a lot of aptitude for to begin with.
You might be able to teach something to guys before they hit the majors and they might benefit from very specific instructions once they hit the majors, but I think you have to start with talented players.
Do people really not understand that letting balls go by …
How hard is this? I mean, how hard is this? What I mean is, how hard is this? How much control does a batter really have? In less than a second a decision has to be made. Even the great batting eyes of all time get fooled. It’s hard. I’m 41 and the pitches at the Funtasia Family Fun Park are not easy to hit. Wiffing on a 65 mph pitch gives me a better idea what hitting is like for major leaguers.
The debate, as I see it, is this: Taking pitches as a strategy versus See Ball, Hit Ball. Both are valid approaches to winning. I think people are fixated on pitch counts because it is trendy. For every 2004 Red Sox I can name a 1982 Cardinals. Oh, how about those patient White Sox of last year?
This team’s inability to hit with authority is directly linked to its failure to take a pitch and take a walk.
This is interesting. Is it true? What does the research say? Perhaps the M’s inability to hit will is directly linked to to its inability to hit well. I don’t think improving its ability to take a walk will improve it’s ability to hit with power. It doesn’t seem intuitive to me.
You might be able to teach something to guys before they hit the majors and they might benefit from very specific instructions once they hit the majors, but I think you have to start with talented players.
This issue of learning and teaching is very important. I’m glad mntr mentioned it. Learning is easiest when the environment holds more possibility of success. That means teaching it in the minors is the best time because players are less likely to fail. So management better know this and have a lot of patience with guys like Betancourt and Lopez. These two are trying to learn at the most difficult level.
mntr, which current Mariners have this aptitude for patience, in your opinion?
35-Have to disagree on this one. One of the things that make it hard is that many pitches are thrown to look like something else, sinker, sliders look like fast balls. So do most good change ups. Let a pitcher know that you are going after the first thing that looks good, and he’ll make that sinker look like a batting practice fastball. Example? Wang last night.
If you can’t judge major league pitching, you’re not going to be hitting in the major leagues. Suggesting that hitters only have two choices: “take” or “swing blindly” is silly. Hitters — good hitters at least — work on seeing the ball. Yes, it’s hard; that’s why you and I can’t do it.
Also, please don’t confuse “winning the World Series” with “good hitting”. Pitching counts too. The White Sox didn’t win with their .322 OBP; they won with their league-best pitching staff. And the 1982 Cardinals had the best OBP in the league (as did the 2004 Red Sox).
Being able to take a walk improves your power two extremely intuitive ways: one, by reducing the number of outs you make, you SLG goes up even if all else remains equal. And, by taking walks, you tell the pitcher that if he doesn’t want to walk you, he’s going to have to come into the strike zone. Hitters hit for more power in the strike zone.
Conversely, if you’re a Mariner, pitchers know that to avoid walking you, all they have to do is not throw the ball into the dirt — and we’ll even swing at a fair number of those. No pitcher in his right mind is going to throw a lot of strikes to us; why would he?
Swinging at quality pitches instead of just anything most certainly improves your ability to hit with power. Being patient at the plate is about getting a pitch you can hit. If you get a first pitch fastball out over the plate, hit it, that’s fine with me. If not, wait for something you can drive and hit that. We’re bailing pitchers out by not making them throw strikes.
I wouldn’t agree to that. I’d much rather see a guy strike out looking than line the first pitch to an infielder.
I don’t feel like it’s very useful to make blanket statements like that without considering what sort of pitches the hitter is seeing, and how often each type of at-bat is happening. Obviously, it’s a bad idea to have hitters just altogether stop swinging at the first pitch. Even Ted Williams would swing at the first pitch every so often (I believe his stated number was about 10%) to keep the pitcher honest. If you’re up there sitting on a first pitch fastball and only swinging if it’s meaty, I don’t see anything wrong with that approach. We’ve seen Felix get beaten a few times that way this year. And I’d certainly much rather be seeing the hitter hitting a hard line drive than strikeout looking at a hittable fastball.
Part of the point to being patient should be to get pitch counts up, sure. But the real point of being patient should be to get yourself into good counts so that you can swing at a hittable pitch. You might only get one hittable pitch per at-bat, and if you just watch it go by in hopes of tiring the pitcher, it doesn’t seem to me like you’re really helping your team out much.
By the way, Seattle sent Shawn Nottingham to Cleveland today to complete the Ben Broussard trade.
26 – Re the notion of “Herzog-type flailers”
Perhaps Herzog evolved later in his career after his financial arragement with Burroughs in ’73 (as noted by #9). His 80s Cardinals had quite a number of walkers. I seem to remember a Bill James Abstract article taking on the notion that those Cards won because of their speed, when in fact it was because they lived on base. Guys like Hernandez, Clark, Porter, Ozzie, Herr were all pretty good OBP hitters. Herzog even got 70 walks and a .360 OBP out of Terry Pendleton in ’87. They did steal a boatload of bases, and had some total free-swingers like McGee. But Herzog loved Porter, who was a total OPS guy, and it seems Burroughs also walked quite a bit in his career.
And their league-best pitching staff was at least partially a creation of their league-best defensive efficiency.
#21: I agree with the advantage goes to the player with the favorable count. Well, the fact that batting average is highest when the count is 3-0, 2-0 or 2-1 proves it.
That doesn’t follow directly, because batters counts occur most often with poor pitchers.
Consider an extreme case, because it magnifies what I’m saying. Let’s say there are four pitchers in baseball, each of whom has 25% of the ABs. Two of the pitchers are so good they never have any 3-0, 2-0, 3-1, or 2-1 couts. The BAA for those two pitchers is .200. The other two pitchers have a BAA of .300, and that BAA is the same regardless of the count.
Under this scenario, there is no batting advantage for any of those counts. Yet the BA on those hitters counts would be .300, whereas the BA for all ABs for all pitchers would be .250. Obviously it would be incorrect to conclude that getting to a hitters count increases the chances of a batter getting a hit.
My point is that you have to consider those hitters counts occur more often with bad pitchers than with good pitchers, and that fact alone skews the result.
The situation is similar to the apparent higher BA when there are runners on base. Bad pitchers pitchers put more men on base, so selecting BAs with men on base also tends to select for lower quality pitchers.
42. Even in a down year with Seattle, Burroughs had a .339 OBP in the short 1981 year. However, he was never as good at walking as Hargrove, his former Texas teammate. Hargrove had nearly double the number of walks as he did strikeouts in his career. This is obviously a skill he is not able to teach effectively. But can anyone at the major league level?
Each at bat should be managed in relation to who is throwing, what they do and what they did to you last time. The pitcher is doing that. Do you first pitcher swing? Absolutely, when it makes sense. Just sit there to tire the other guy out, not happening. Guys like Manny and Edgar will use at bats to set up one later on. They will do things like not swinging at first pitch fast balls until they think the other side sees a pattern. Miss a fat curve when it doesn’t matter and hope they get one when it does.
44. It gets really subjective. A “lower quality pitcher” may in fact be a very good pitcher who is tired and one so-called “clutch” hit from being removed from the game. But yes, over time, the good pitchers will have the count in their favor more often.
Good discussion.
Which of these players can improve their pitch selection?
Snelling 4.59 P/PA
Ibanez 3.94
Sexson 3.92
Beltre 3.80
Ichiro 3.78
Perez 3.66
WFB 3.65
Lopez 3.58
Broussard 3.47
Rivera 3.45
Johjima 3.36
Yuniesky 3.35
Can Lopez become as good as Tommy Herr simply by seeing one more pitch per at bat?
If Betancourt can become as good as Ozzie Smith, can he do it before age 30? (Ozzie didn’t have an OBP above .347 until Age 30.)
Mike Epstein is the heir-apparent to the Ted William’s school of hitting, and sells an instructional system directly based on William’s methods.
If you read through Epstein’s material, you learn that Williams was all about getting good pitches to hit. In particular, Williams coined the phrase: “history is made from the middle third in”. Meaning, hitters should luck for a pitch in the middle or inside part of the plate so they could turn on it and power it. Once he got two strikes, however, Williams would hit “inside out”, deliberately stroking any pitch up the middle or the other way. Once he got two strikes, he was no longer looking to hit homeruns, but rather was looking to put the ball in play with the best chance of getting any hit.
Beyond taking pitches, Williams preached hitting according to count: in hitter’s counts, he looked middle third in, in pitcher’s counts, he looked away.
The other thing that Williams recognized was that outside pitches had to be hit deep in the strikezone (over the back part of the plate). Timing was everything. Inside pitches get hit about 6″ to a foot in front of the plate, middle pitches right on the front lip of the plate.
How often do you see the M’s hitters understanding this? Good Beltre inately hits the outside pitch hard, but he can only do it if he waits on that pitch and swings late. When he gets out in front (fooled), he is BAD Beltre, and rolls the bat over and hits weak ground balls to the left side of the infield.
So, hitting with patience is actually a misnomer. The KING of hitting hit his pitch. He looked for it, recognized it, and put a well-timed, well-stroked swing on it. If they didn’t give him his pitch, he waited for a walk or hit what they gave him where it was pitched.
The M’s attack pitches with a first come, first serve attitude. See the ball, hit the ball. It is the oldest mantra in baseball, and quite possibly the worst. This approach relinqueshes control over the AB to the pitcher.
Like the A’s, the M’s decided to adopt a “philosophy” this year. No, not one that is ingrained throughout the organization. Instead, the M’s opted, despite its contrary roster construction, to be “aggressive on the basepaths” this year at the major league level. That has gone so well, and the team is flourishing so much, the M’s are now planning on expanding it next year thusly: “Aggressive at the concession stands”. In five years, who knows? Emulating the A’s is so much fun, and it’s rewarding, too!
Tui wasn’t hitting THAT well in the Cal Lague (home of WFB’s big year). The dropoff to AA doesn’t strike me as much of a surprise.
“and the organizations [sic] general lack of interest in players who draw walks reinforces the culture of free-swinging that has been fostered here.”
How quickly the front office can forget…
2001 Stats from Retrosheet
Team OBP – .360
Boone – .372
Buhner – .340
Cameron – .352
Guillen – .333
Javier – .375
Martin – .330
Martinez – .423
McLemore – .384
Olerud – .401
Ichiro – .381
Five years ago I remember reading article after article lauding the Mariners for their plate discipline. How short can corporate memory be?
Here is Oakland. Oakland has a higher OBP but their SLG% is lower. OPS are the same. This doesn’t prove anything. It’s just fun.
Thomas 4.35 Hall of Famer. Sexson can’t imitate him.
Ellis 4.10 Good example that taking pitches helps?
Swisher 4.07
Johnson 4.04
Kendall 4.02 Can’t get the ball out of the infield.
Chavez 3.96 Is Beltre having a better season?
Crosby 3.94 Betancourt is having a better season.
Bradley 3.68 I like him. I thought he was more patient than this.
Kotsay 3.55
Payton 3.10
#21: I think this trend of making the pitcher get to 100 pitches as quickly as possible is a recent one – possibly popping up in the last 10 or 15 years.
From Ted Williams’ The Science of Hitting, published in 1970:
“If you’ve made that pitcher pitch, if you’ve made him throw four or five or maybe six or seven times, right away, and if the batter behind you did the same thing, and all nine guys in the lineup do it, the pitcher will have pitched the equivalent of half a game in three or four innings. The effect should be telling: he will probably be out of there, worn out, by the sixth or seventh inning.â€
Then he goes on to describe the 2006 Mariners, a section I won’t quote, just the conclusion: “A pitcher is lucky to face such dumb hitters. Too many hitters boot the ball in just this manner: They don’t make the pitcher pitch.
The M’s attack pitches with a first come, first serve attitude. See the ball, hit the ball. It is the oldest mantra in baseball, and quite possibly the worst. This approach relinqueshes control over the AB to the pitcher.
This seems like a big oversimplification to me. The best approach for a hitter often depends on that player’s skillset. Some guys really do have the ability to be very good hitters and not be very selective. Take Vladimir Guerrero, for instance. He likes to hit pitches thrown anywhere from his ankles to his shoulders. His P/PA of 3.24 is 4th lowest amongst qualifying hitters this year. Yet he hasn’t posted an EQA of lower than .300 since 1997, his age 21 season, when he only played about half the season in the bigs. Clearly, Vlad’s approach works very well for him, and if you tried to make him into Ted Williams, you stand a very good chance of making him into a worse hitter.
There’s no one best way for all hitters to hit. Certainly, I think there are guys on the Mariners who could stand to improve their approach at the plate and not swing at so many poor pitches, but trying to make everyone into Ted Williams, or even trying to make everyone into Doyle, isn’t going to solve the problem any more than telling everyone to be really aggressive at the plate.
#49 Good stuff. I don’t know anyone in their right mind that would argue with William’s hitting philosophy.
#56: I don’t know anyone in their right mind that would argue with William’s hitting philosophy.
Meet Mike Scioscia, Mickey Hatcher and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim!
-56
Well yeah, except maybe Charlie Lau. Then you get into the whole Williams “It’s about hip rotation” and Lau’s “It’s about weight shift.”
George Brett and Wade Boggs, to name two, were huge Lau disciples. They posted some pretty fair OBPs too.
Or for that matter:
Williams: “The top hand stays on the bat.”
Lau: “The top hand leaves the bat.”
Anyone else remember that SI article from maybe 20 years ago where Williams debated Boggs and another player on the mechanics of hitting?
The “other player” was either Mattingly or Brett, I can’t remember.
55 – The day we have a line-up of 9 Vlads, or even 5 Vlads and 4 Ichiros is the day that plate discipline won’t be important for the Mariners.
I mean, Vlad is an extreme exception to the rule.
Found the debate. It’s Mattingly, Boggs, Williams, and Peter Gammons. Fascinating stuff.
SI Debate
You have to remember that when Williams was playing, and even in 1970, most people’s understanding of hitting didn’t really qualify as a “philosophy”; it was more of a primitive collection of reasonable-sounding anecdotal niblets. Ted Williams was considered to be a bit of a kook about hitting, at best an unearthly freakshow whose amazing ability had no lessons for mere mortals.
Charlie Lau was kind of the same way at first, but when he started to get results, particularly with George Brett, people started to pay attention and stop dismissing it or lumping it in with all the other Dave Hendu-style “when I was playing, you had to really want it” pointlessness.
How people forget. Even ten years ago just talking about OBP with most fans was considered evidence of faggotry.
and then there’s this:
Even though Rene Rivera has started the last three games, manager Mike Hargrove still says Kenji Johjima is the No. 1 catcher, according to the Mariners website. “I want to give Rene a little more playing time,” said Hargrove.
So Doyle’s plate discipline is rewarded by moving him down to the 9th spot in the order….?
All very true. It’s probably more me not being able to comprehend the other styles.
I read a book on hitting that I think was by George Brett, or at least it had him on the cover, several years ago. I can’t seem to find it online right now, so I can’t say it was by him for certain, but I could swear it preached hip rotation…quick when the ball is on the inner half, slower as the ball is farther away. I’ve read lots of books on it though so I could be confused. Either way I think the debate is still that we should be swinging at strikes and not pitches out of the zone. I don’t think we want to get into swing mechanics because who here wants to try to break down Ichiro’s swing?
Vlad can flat out hit the ball. I really don’t understand how he does it, some of the pitches he hits are just ridiculous. I would consider him the extreme exception as well.
As I recall, there were folks who thought that Charlie Lau’s approach robbed Brett of power, and that Brett would’ve been greater without his influence.
55-
Right, but please look at the Mariners’ ranking in BB among MLB teams.
You’d find them 29th in MLB (with Chicago, an NL team with pitchers hitting) 2 BB behind them.
If you subtract INTENTIONAL bases on balls, we are dead last at 270, with Chicago (and their pitchers) at 290, nobody else under 300, and league-average at 400 or so.
I think it’s safe to say we’ve done a lousy job of putting guys with patience in the lineup. Yes, changing approaches at the MLB level doesn’t work. But that’s not an excuse to have a lineup filled with guys who swing at anything, either. I figured this was going to be a problem back in March and April- this lineup is totally hacktastic, and Bavasi’s not really doing anything about it, because he thinks, since “there’s no one best way for all hitters to hit”, a lineup filled with guys who swing away is just peachy. That is, until you notice how this team is going to lead some pretty awful M’s team offenses in being shut out, and how dependent on singles the team is…
I mean, Vlad is an extreme exception to the rule.
Vlad’s just the most extreme exception to the rule. Nomar sees fewer pitches per plate appearance than Vlad, and Nomar’s hitting .325/.397/.524. A.J. Pierzynski has always been a guy who doesn’t see many pitches, is only at 3.25 P/PA this year, and is hitting a completely acceptable .300/.339/.419 this year. Johjima also isn’t seeing that many pitches this year, but he’s a league average hitter this year. How much do you really want to mess with his approach when he’s already pretty successful?
I guess I just don’t see the point in having an organizational hitting philosophy. The organizational hitting philosophy ought to be to get the most out of every hitter they have. Some guys are best suited to be contact hitters who won’t ever hit for much power, like Betancourt, and that can require a different approach than someone who doesn’t make contact a lot but can hit the snot out of the ball, like Richie Sexson.
My point wasn’t so much that Vlad proves the Mariners are right, it’s that if we look around we can see successful hitters with different sorts of approaches. There’s no one answer, and I don’t see why we should pretend like there is.
It takes more talent, IMO, to be an effective hitter without showing patience and judgment at the plate. So yeah, I think it makes sense to have an organizational philosophy that says unless you demonstrate that you are Ichiro or Vlad, you should learn to work the damned count.
#67: Yes, changing approaches at the MLB level doesn’t work.
I guess that’s why the Red Sox now issue Ted Williams’ book to every hitter in their minor league systems. (I wonder if it’s available in Spanish, Japanese and Korean.)
#59: I can’t find the cite (probably in the Leigh Montville biography), but I’m sure I read that just before he died, Ted decided that it was okay to let the top hand come off the bat. By the time the hand came off, the damage was done (and really, practically all the hitters in baseball were doing it).
68 – But that’s the point.
There IS one best approach, with exceptions. Not multiple equally valid approaches.
A team is far, far better off starting from a place of encouraging discipline at the plate than it is just letting everyone hack away.
Because MOST hitters will be better with discipline.
Vlad can flat out hit the ball. I really don’t understand how he does it, some of the pitches he hits are just ridiculous. I would consider him the extreme exception as well.
Hitters like Vlad are rare birds — the guy who can and will hit the ball if he feels like he can hit it, damn balls and strikes.
As I recall, there were folks who thought that Charlie Lau’s approach robbed Brett of power, and that Brett would’ve been greater without his influence.
I remember that too, and the question with that is whether Brett hitting .300/.370/.490 is inferior to Brett hitting .250/.320/.540. Much of Brett’s mystique was his ability to not strike out and his ability to consistently hit 30+ doubles a year. OPS being equal, would Brett have had more value as a 40 HR guy that hits .250 with 100 K’s a year?
I think #71 is correct. I like to think of it as this:
If I were to tell kids in little league to watch an MLB player to learn how to be a hitter, do I want them watching Ichiro or Vlad? Or would I want them to watch someone like Doyle or Edgar?
I would choose Doyle/Edgar, because 99% of kids aren’t going to be succesful trying to emulate the other two.
I would think this would be true for a large pool of minor league hitters as well.
I think it’s safe to say we’ve done a lousy job of putting guys with patience in the lineup. Yes, changing approaches at the MLB level doesn’t work. But that’s not an excuse to have a lineup filled with guys who swing at anything, either.
Sure, but tI put that more on Bavasi than on the hitters. The team ought to be acquiring (whether through draft, trade, or free agent signing) the most productive hitters they can have. More often than not, sure, those productive hitters have a patient approach. But you can’t just assemble any random group of hitters, tell them to pretend they’re Ted Williams, and expect them to be successful. My comments have been more directed just towards the point that there’s no one approach and it’s silly to try to force everyone into a mold.
I can get behind acquiring more patient hitters, but I still don’t see the point in having an organizational hitting philosophy.
The debate between Lau/Williams has been resolved scientifically. Lau was wrong. Lau was wrong. Lau was wrong. (but only cuz you have to rotate to get bat speed). The top hand vs. bott hand debate isn’t tied to weight shift.
However, a lot of really good hitters start with weight shift and finish with the Williams-style rotation. Check out http://www.peavynet.com/ if you want a modern theory that incorporates both ideas (and it isn’t the Schmidt hybrid, either).
Although Guerrero is a notorious “bad ball” hitter, he can only do so because he hits pitches where they are pitched. You watch him the other day, when he doubled late in the game to drive in a couple against the M’s. He took strike one breaking ball from Woods for a strike. The next pitch was virtually identical, and he waited on it and drove it to right field for 2-rbi double. Guerrero knows how to hit.
There IS one best approach, with exceptions. Not multiple equally valid approaches.
That’s just not true. If you spend even a little time looking around, you can see guys succeeding with different approaches.
Speaking of Ted Williams, is he still frozen? I don’t remember hearing the final verdict on that whole deal…
A team is far, far better off starting from a place of encouraging discipline at the plate than it is just letting everyone hack away.
But this isn’t an either/or question. They can look at each hitter individually, determine his strengths and weaknesses, and figure out what sort of changes that hitter needs to make to his approach. No cookie cutters required.
I think Mat misses the point. Being a patient hitter isn’t necessarily about making the pitcher throw more strikes. Not everything Williams preached was exactly as he said. Hardly. The point to making a pitcher work is about being able to hit “your” pitch.
If he gives you “your” pitch, you swing – no matter the count – to a point. You can only get away with this approach if you have the pitcher timed.
That seems to be the major flaw with M’s hitters – bad timing. If you can time pitch one, hit pitch one. No question. Beyond the idea of waiting for “your” pitch, seeing pitches also helps timing. Recent research has shown that the timing mechanisms in the brain are context-dependent. You tend to match your timing to your most recent experience. That is why off-speed pitches are critical, and that is why 14 straight fastballs by Hernandez was ludicrous.
Same reason I always take the first pitch of the game, even in rec league softball. Just to see one and get my timing down.
Keep in mind, though, that for as much as the mechanics of the swing are fundamental to a great hitter, a great hitter has a great set of eyes and the ability to identify, in 2/10ths of a second, whether to swing at or take a pitch.
There are a bevy of Lau and Williams disciples would couldn’t hit worth jack in the bigs because they couldn’t identify a good pitch. Think of how many “pretty swing” guys we’ve seen that barely smack .240.
But Williams had vision. Bonds has eyesight better than 20/10. Edgar has vision problems that apparently have made him a better hitter. I would guess that Vlad has better than 20/20 vision, too. Galarraga’s .370 season was partially because he took on that open stance — he complained that he couldn’t pitch up the pitch.
Great hitters can see a pitch, rapidly determine whether they can do anything with that pitch, and then have the ability to capitalize on that pitch they’re looking for. Great hitting coaches can make great hitters through technique and stance/rotation adjustments, but if you can’t read a pitch, you’re either a guess hitter or a real estate agent.
-65
Yeah, the book with Brett on the cover was:
The Art of Hitting .300
There IS one best approach, with exceptions. Not multiple equally valid approaches.
If you have a guy consistently hitting .300/.400/.500 while running at a 3.0 P/PA clip and hitting the first pitch >40% of the time, would you try and make him change his entire approach? Honestly?
“That’s just not true. If you spend even a little time looking around, you can see guys succeeding with different approaches.”
No one is denying that. But MOST hitters are better with discipline.
Again, there are exceptions to the rule, but that does not mean there are many equally valid approaches.
You CAN say that plate discipline is good. Because it is true as a generalization.
You CAN’T say that swinging at pitches outside the strike is good. Because it is untrue as a generalization.
Epstein says it this way: there is no such thing as a single perfect swing. A perfect swing is different for every pitch speed and every pitch location. That is why Guerrero can hit “bad balls”. He has the instinct to adjust his swing for whatever is pitched. It is a rare, very rare, talent.
“If you have a guy consistently hitting .300/.400/.500 while running at a 3.0 P/PA clip and hitting the first pitch >40% of the time, would you try and make him change his entire approach? Honestly? ”
Where did I say that? Or even come close to saying that?
Somebody ask Eddie Yost (born in 1926 but no death date at Baseball Reference so I presume he still exists) whether he picked up the skill, developed it, or developed a talent he already had.
He led the league in walks six times, in OBP twice. Here’s his slugging percentage/OBP breakdowns from 1947-1960, the years he played more than a hundred games:
292/314
357/349
391/383
405/440
424/423
359/378
395/403
380/405
371/407
336/412
372/370
323/361
436/435
398/414
My favorite year was his 1956 .231/.336/.412 line. Lifetime batting average .254, OBP .394, Slugging .371. Remember that the 1950s & early 60s were decent for hitters.
That is, nobody wanted to walk this guy but he walked anyway. Seems to me as though, if he’s still compos mentos, that he could have some interesting answers to some of these questions.
Did anyone notice the game last night or watch the Yankee/Boston series over the weekend? The Yankees are famous for wearing pitchers down by going deep in the count like Edgar then fouling off marginal strikes. Call it plate discipline or whatever, a lot has to do with simply knowing the strike zone. There is a lack of attention to detail, a sloppy, selfish no strategy Mariner approach to the game which is not new. I’ll never forget a game in Texas years ago where Griffey came up in early innings with the bases loaded against a wild Ranger pitcher. He basically refused to take a walk and force in a run, and instead, grounded into a double play swinging for the fences, killing a potential big inning in a game we ultimately lost. I realize that the Yankees pencil in Robbie Cano instead of WFB but there’s also an element of individual versus team effort, as trite as it sounds, which keeps the Mariners from reaching the next level.
#36. I couldn’t tell you. I don’t know much about what types of players learn to take pitches, but I’d guess its guys who see alot of balls because they have power.
#61. That article was really fun to read. Thanks for posting the link.
I think many of the comments in this tread exaggerate the correlation between seeing pitches and a hitter’s success. So I went to ESPN and got the P/PA and OPS numbers for all hitters this year with 400 or more plate appearances and ran a linear regression. The plot is really scattered and only has an R^2 = 0.16. The point being that seeing pitches isn’t the key to success. For every Manny Ramirez you have a Scott Podsednik. For every Angel Berroa a Vladimir Guerrero.
The problem isn’t swinging at the first pitch, its swinging at a first pitch slider low and away or persistently swinging at ball 4.
I decided to see the correlation between walk percentage and P/PA, as well. While strongly correlated at R^2 = 0.59, the correlation isn’t perfect because VGuerrero and Nomar walk despite seeing few pitches o average.
That SI article is pretty good. I like how even they can’t see the ball come into the zone. Freakin’ human eyes…
Lopez is hitting third, Scrappy-Doo is playing 3rd, and Doyle! is batting 9th…
…Further evidence that America is losing the war on drugs.
FWIW, the Detroit Tigers are currently ranked 13 out of 14 teams in the A.L. in team walks, and 12th in team O.B.P., and 9th in number of pitches taken.
Yet the the Tigers have the best record in the American League and are headed to the post season.
I would argue that the roster contruction of predominant free swingers isn’t the problem with the Mariners. Historically teams have won World Series titles with different offensive philosophies.
Great though that SI article may be, I’m afraid it’s gonna end up deleted. It misspelled “Piniella.”
Okay, first off, I have to say the threads the last few days have been terrific. These are exactly the kinds of discussions we hope that the threads generate, and my enjoyment of this thread is exponentially higher than a roster consturction speculation.
Now, to the point – I think both “sides” have valid points. There is a best approach for every skillset that maximizes that players particular abilities. As has been mentioned, Vlad, Pudge, and Nomar are three examples of guys with superior physical ability. They have an innate skill of driving pitches that more normal human beings cannot. They can take that slider in the dirt and line it in the alley for a double. This shows up stastically in their extremely low K rates and high XBH/H rates. They’re driving pitches no matter where the location, and that gives them a significant advantage. For their skillset, taking those marginal pitches is a bad idea, because they have the ability to whack that baseball in the gap.
However, not everyone has that innate ability. Someone like Yuniesky Betancourt has well above average hand-eye coordination and has the ability to get the bat on the ball even in off locations, but he does not have strength to drive that ball. Thus, those pitches that Vlad, Nomr, and Pudge are driving for doubles, Betancourt is grounding out to short or flying out to the right fielder. For him, a change in approach would be a significant aid – he’s better off not swinging at the marginal pitches.
Ichiro is a whole other ball of wax – he doesn’t drive those pitches, but is so good at fouling them off like Pentland advocates, he works the pitchers without drawing walks. His aggressiveness is part and parcel to who he is as a hitter, and trying to change him is just not a good idea. But he’s one of the most unique players of our time.
The problem is that the Mariners are clearly trying to develop more Ichiros with the philosophies they are preaching to guys like Betancourt, Lopez, and Jones. How many times have you heard them talk about the importance of going the other way? Jose Lopez was consistently told the approach that brought him so much success in the minors wasn’t going to work in the majors, and that if he wanted to be a major league hitter, he needed to learn to hit singles to right field. Adam Jones comes up and, after pulling the ball (47% of balls in play to left field in Tacoma) all through the minors, he becomes an inside-out swinger desperately focused on making contact and sacrificing power to do so.
The M’s major league coaching staff loves hitting the other way, even if it encourages hitters to chase pitches that they can’t drive. That’s a poor hitting philosophy, and one we’ve seen displayed over and over this year. Rather than laying off the marginal pitch and waiting for a better one to whack, the team has been trained to go with the pitch, which necessitates swinging at that pitch on the outside corner.
It’s a bad philosophy for most hitters, and it’s one the M’s need to rid themselves of. Fouling off pitches and hitting singles to right field aren’t the hallmarks of good hitters, despite what Mike Hargrove and Jeff Pentland will tell you.
#95: It’s may be a bit interesting given their record, but when you’re talking about offense, it’s much better to use some offensive measures, like say… runs. The Tiger rank 7th in the AL in runs, ableit in Comerica. They’ve been able to hit a lot of triples and homers, despite the lack of walks.
Ok, I can’t talk anymore. Steve Phillips just started off the 7th inning with the comment “Shawn Green, of Jewish heritage.” Nice, Steve. Not gauche at all. Us jews like being announced like that.
I think Dave’s absolutely right about opposite field hitting. Telling guys to change a good approach to accomidate that is insane. Encouraging it in guys with other skills is pretty inane, too. Look at Mark Teahen. He used to try to hit singles to left field. Someone finally got his swing fixed and now he’s driving it into the right field bullpen.
*Dodges lightining bolt*
accommodate
The M’s major league coaching staff loves hitting the other way, even if it encourages hitters to chase pitches that they can’t drive. That’s a poor hitting philosophy, and one we’ve seen displayed over and over this year. Rather than laying off the marginal pitch and waiting for a better one to whack, the team has been trained to go with the pitch, which necessitates swinging at that pitch on the outside corner.
Swinging for hits, I take it, not fouling it off (because if you foul it off, it’s just another way of waiting for a better pitch).
Oh, c’mon — that fits right into the discussion! Who better to be choosy about pitches to hit than one of the Chosen People? (And, btw, was Choo choosy?) Sorry, I realize I just lowered the tenor of the conversation that so pleased Dave.
I wonder if it would help Yuni to work on strength training? If he’s going to swing at those pitches, perhaps having a little more power behind them would help? I’m not talking about any kind of juicing here, of course, but judging from the “pro” baseball stadiums I saw in Havana I don’t think there was much in the way of strength training equipment there. And he’s a young kid who’s probably still growing a bit, too, so he’s likely to gain a little bulk anyway.
Re: #41, JT, thanks fot the note on the PTBN; I’d been wondering. Nottingham isn’t a bad price. He’s well behind Feierabend, and even Justin Thomas at this point, so the Ms kept the better guys. About right.
Can I mention that “free-swinging” Vlad Guerrero has more walks this year than anyone on the Mariners except Ibanez and Sexson?
I think Mat misses the point. Being a patient hitter isn’t necessarily about making the pitcher throw more strikes. Not everything Williams preached was exactly as he said. Hardly. The point to making a pitcher work is about being able to hit “your†pitch.
I think you’re not paying very close attention to what I’ve been saying throughout the thread. Check out, for instance, part of my comment #40 here:
Part of the point to being patient should be to get pitch counts up, sure. But the real point of being patient should be to get yourself into good counts so that you can swing at a hittable pitch.
No one is denying that. But MOST hitters are better with discipline.
Sure, and it should be fairly evident to an experienced observer (like, say, a minor league hitting instructor) which hitters will be better with discipline and which won’t. The only thing I’m objecting to here is that there ought to be one set “organizational philosophy.” I just don’t see any point in taking an inflexible position on what the “right” way is when no one is forcing you to make one choice for every hitter in the organization.
Maybe it hasn’t been perfectly clear, but if one had to pick “patient” vs. “aggressive” I think that “patient” would be the better option. I just don’t see the point in making yourself choose. I’m definitely against the M’s being so gung-ho about instilling an aggressive approach and I’m also against their fetish with going the other way.
Ted Williams didn’t preach taking fastballs down the middle to build up a pitch count. Rule #1 in his book (literally) was: Get a good pitch to hit.
Francona said when he came to Boston that the A’s often took pitches for the sake of taking pitches when he coached in Oakland. If a Red Sox hitter sees a fat pitch early in the count, they want him to take a healthy swing.
It’s reaching base (instead of making outs) that builds up the pitch count, not a high P/PA ratio as Kelly in Paly pointed out in #91. And that brings us back to OBP as the key to offensive success.
#97: The problem is that the Mariners are clearly trying to develop more Ichiros with the philosophies they are preaching to guys like Betancourt, Lopez, and Jones.
So, are they planning to screw up Doyle, or do they see the value of having another LH pull hitter in the lineup in Safeco?
Actually, Pentland did say one thing in the article that gave me some hope. I’ve always thought that fouling off pitches that were too good to hit well was a skill that could be learned.