Taking the first pitch

[podsox]

I know teams want to work counts, see pitches, and get the starter out of the game asap. It is just hard to watch player after player passing up the best pitch they will likely see in an at bat.

 

[calsnowskier]

I made a post on this on the Giants board a couple weeks back. The numbers are Giants-centric, but the idea, I think, is more universal...

http://www.sportshoopla.com/forums/san-francisco-giants/162766-hack-not-hack.html

 

[HammerDown]

Every batter should have a strategy to not be scoutable and predictable. I love batters who are patient and work counts. Doing so well gives that batter the advantage of getting pitches on a tee to square up when they feel like it. Other than GIDP, not else sucks more than a routine fly ball on the first pitch.

 

[podsox]

Every batter should have a strategy to not be scoutable and predictable. I love batters who are patient and work counts. Doing so well gives that batter the advantage of getting pitches on a tee to square up when they feel like it. Other than GIDP, not else sucks more than a routine fly ball on the first pitch.

nothing annoys me more than watching a guy look at a fastball catching most of the plate on the first pitch and then chasing a ball in the dirt the following pitch.

 

[HammerDown]

nothing annoys me more than watching a guy look at a fastball catching most of the plate on the first pitch and then chasing a ball in the dirt the following pitch.

Battery mates aren't dumb. A slugger ain't gettin' shit on the first pitch if he's known for swinging.

 

[calsnowskier]

nothing annoys me more than watching a guy look at a fastball catching most of the plate on the first pitch and then chasing a ball in the dirt the following pitch.

LOL

As a Giants fan, I am not familiar with this concept of being annoyed with a hitter for looking at the first pitch. What a bunch of hackers!!

 

[Darkstone42]

If you go to Fangraphs at look at the lowest swing% in baseball over the past few years, you'll see a lot of really good hitters. Many of them also boast very high contact rates, many of them hit for power, be it gap or home run. Obviously, a lot of them draw a lot of walks.

Werth, Votto, Trout, Mauer, Bautista, Carpenter, Rendon, Zobrist, Santana, and many other very productive hitters appear in this group. There are some not-so-good hitters in there, too, of course, because no one approach is universally effective, but clearly many hitters can reap benefits from a patient, swing seldom, take a lot of pitches approach.

Why? Well, it's multifaceted. It allows hitters to see more of the pitcher's stuff, which can improve their timing, calibrate them to the pitch they're seeing, etc. It also allows the hitter to select the pitch he thinks he can best handle. These guys don't avoid swinging at the first pitch always, they avoid swinging at the first pitch in a spot they don't like, or of a type they don't expect. Votto has talked about it extensively. He only wants to swing in a sub-2-strike count if he thinks the pitch is one he can drive to account for what he considers a pretty average contact skill. It puts the at-bat and the swing on his own terms.

Having an entire lineup of guys committed to this approach also improves lineup synergy, makes pitchers throw more pitchers, and, if guys are getting on base, more higher leverage pitches, wearing him down. The lineup as a whole gets more familiar with the guy's stuff, and they can hit him better. The Pirates in particular have benefited enormously from this approach.

Obviously, you can also have success as a hitter being aggressive, like Carlos Gomez does, for example. But most of the guys who do that have either enormous power or a freakish contact skill (like Pablo Sandoval does, for example). For marginal talents, it's often better to use a patient, wait-for-your-pitch approach.

 

[Fountain City Blues]

I know teams want to work counts, see pitches, and get the starter out of the game asap. It is just hard to watch player after player passing up the best pitch they will likely see in an at bat.

To me, taking the first pitch for the sake of it is forced patience- it's not really a patient approach, imo. Look at what McCutchen has done when he has swung on the first pitch for example. Taking the first pitch for the sake of it is just asking for 0-1 every AB which never helps you as a hitter. Taking on a 3-0 count just because it is 3-0? That's a little different though.