A common deficiency of today's hitters

[DiMag4Life]

It's that they swing at the pitchers pitch. When you do that, you automatically widen your strike zone, even if a few inches.


Swinging at everything from the dogout usually means sustained sucess won't be a common factor for those who do so.

And the pitcher's mentaility can be "hell, I don't need to give him a pitch to hit until I'm forced to".

Too many bad ball hitters.

Agree/Disagree?

[DiMag4Life]

What other flaws do you think modern hitters have?

[PVNICK]

Agree. The sick thing is a lot of guys take their 500 foot HR swings even with a man on third and less than two outs. Though in fairness a strikeout or a groundout for an RBI are equal in the eyes all statistical formulae that measure a batter's skill but that's another topic.

[DiMag4Life]

Agree. The sick thing is a lot of guys take their 500 foot HR swings even with a man on third and less than two outs. Though in fairness a strikeout or a groundout for an RBI are equal in the eyes all statistical formulae that measure a batter's skill but that's another topic.



Well, I haven't seen too many strikeouts that went for RBI's. :confused:

[PVNICK]

Well, I haven't seen too many strikeouts that went for RBI's. :confused:

Don't most of the formulas like RC only count outs, OBP and Slugging Pct. I would say 90% of the posts will reference those but or OBS or OBS+ but close to none will mention RBI.

[DiMag4Life]

What other flaws can you name for today's hitters?

[Brian McKenna]

None - I sure couldn't stand in there against ML pitching. Considering that, how can I flippantly condemn a whole group of people?

Longing for the old days is really the national pastime among fans. They've been doing it since at least the 1860s.

[hellborn]

Well, I haven't seen too many strikeouts that went for RBI's. :confused:

He's comparing a "strikeout" to a "groundout for an RBI". Gotta read carefully.

I would argue that players today take pitches at a historically high level, waiting for something they can drive. I think that the game would be more fun if there were more guys who didn't try to drive the ball when they don't have the power and just tried to get on base...kind of like Ichiro. I like the guys who really hit the ball best, but don't like faux power hitters who swing big and hit little.

[Bill Burgess]

I believe that modern players put too little time in practicing on-field skills. They put time in the weight room, but neglect their on-field skills.

Bunting, sliding, hit & run, stealing, place hitting. I think players should arrive at the ballpark at 10:AM and practice their skills for 4 hours a day.

Players today try to cover up their flaws instead of correcting them.

[Brian McKenna]

Bunting, sliding, hit & run, stealing, place hitting. I think players should arrive at the ballpark at 10:AM and practice their skills for 4 hours a day.


It's evident just by reading BBF that fans are just drop jawed awed about home runs. Why worry about that little stuff when it's evident what is filling the seats and driving salary and arbitration negotiations?

[brett]

I believe that modern players put too little time in practicing on-field skills. They put time in the weight room, but neglect their on-field skills.

Bunting, sliding, hit & run, stealing, place hitting. I think players should arrive at the ballpark at 10:AM and practice their skills for 4 hours a day.

Players today try to cover up their flaws instead of correcting them.

I agree that skills are undertrained, but from my work with kinesiology and sports science I can tell you that overpracticing a skill is a good way to BUILD biomechanical flaws. 4 hours is ok for a day, but players should also take days off of skills work to refresh their CNS.

Players swing a bat too much too. Guys should limit themselves to minimal batting practice every other day.

I so think that players should spend more time on the field, and probably running wind sprints as well. I think that in-season weight training should take about 90 total minutes a week. 1 whole body 45 minute session and a 25 minute upper body and a 25 minute lower body workout.

And you may laugh, but I think that baseball players should do 30 minutes of Yoga stretching every day. There are guys who obviously lose their flexibility.

[Iron Jaw]

It's that they swing at the pitchers pitch. When you do that, you automatically widen your strike zone, even if a few inches.


Swinging at everything from the dogout usually means sustained sucess won't be a common factor for those who do so.

And the pitcher's mentaility can be "hell, I don't need to give him a pitch to hit until I'm forced to".

Too many bad ball hitters.

Agree/Disagree?

What did Manny Sanguillen (a guy who swang at everything) say? "You don't swing the bat - you don't get off the island.":cap:

[538280]

What's the ponit of just talking about flaws of modern hitters? The hitters of today are about as successful as the hitters of any other generation. More runs were scored in only the 20s/30s. That doesn't necessarily reflect on their hitting ability, just on the conditions of the game today, but the very presence of a thread only about modern players suggests that somehow those playing today are inferior to all those old timers.

Current players do train on-field skills before every game, Bill, all you have to do is go to a game early to see that. Most games that I have gone to, we go at least two-three hours early to see them take BP and field groudballs and flyballs. Of those you mentoned the only ones that I don't see them practicing is hit and runs and steals. The best things to practice in baseball, IMO, and all the teams do this, are the big skills, the repetition. Baseball is a game of repetition practice. How you become good is by practicing skills and getting, for example if you are a SS, tons of groundballs every single day. Baseball is a game of repetition practice. Teams today practice lots of repetition before every game. Not to say smaller skills shouldn't be trained-but definitely what comes first is the repetition of the big skills.

This thread should be in Current Events, also.

[Bill Burgess]

Other things which would help players would be to put in 30 minutes road work every morning, only 2-3 days a week in the weight room. I also think wind sprints are great. All players need to improve their sprint skills, in going after balls.

Infielders need endless practice in the DP. SS/2B need to practice their DP pivot, where they need to leap to avoid incoming sliders, while simultaneously throwing to 1B. I agree that yoga positions would help muscle bound players to avoid pulled muscles, sprains, strains, etc. Stretched, supple muscles will handle stress better.

Drugs, steroids, alcohol, tobacco, caffeine products, top the list of things no athlete needs. Refined sugar, salt, black pepper are also counter-productive.

[iPod]

What did Manny Sanguillen (a guy who swang at everything) say? "You don't swing the bat - you don't get off the island.":cap:

I don't know who said it, but I thought the quote was "You don't walk off the island."

[CubNZ]

Given that more players from more countries are competing for major league roster spots and those who get those spots are attracting more people to the games than ever before the modern player must be doing something right...

[DiMag4Life]

Given that more players from more countries are competing for major league roster spots and those who get those spots are attracting more people to the games than ever before the modern player must be doing something right...


Do you realize it's called population increase? You wonder why the difference between attendences in the 50's and this era.


Naturally there will be more butts in seats now then back then, there are way more people in the nation.

Nothing truly complicated or a descriptive theory, just a natural consensus.

In the 50's, Baseball was far more popular than now, so you can't go by pure cold fact on a subject like that.

[Steffo]

Drugs, steroids, alcohol, tobacco, caffeine products, top the list of things no athlete needs. Refined sugar, salt, black pepper are also counter-productive.

Unfortunately, we live in the land of the fat and home of the lazy, so finding food product without salts or sugars is not gonna happen. :silent:

[538280]

Do you realize it's called population increase? You wonder why the difference between attendences in the 50's and this era.


Naturally there will be more butts in seats now then back then, there are way more people in the nation.

Nothing truly complicated or a descriptive theory, just a natural consensus.

In the 50's, Baseball was far more popular than now, so you can't go by pure cold fact on a subject like that.

Games today have about three times as many people attend them as games from the 50s. Population has not increased three times.

[digglahhh]

Walk rates have trended upwards, but of course the Luddite romantics can just blame that one modern day pitching being inferior too...

[bluezebra]

He's comparing a "strikeout" to a "groundout for an RBI". Gotta read carefully.

I would argue that players today take pitches at a historically high level, waiting for something they can drive. I think that the game would be more fun if there were more guys who didn't try to drive the ball when they don't have the power and just tried to get on base...kind of like Ichiro. I like the guys who really hit the ball best, but don't like faux power hitters who swing big and hit little.

Read it MORE carefully yourself. The way it was written, "Though in fairness a strikeout or a groundout for an RBI are equal in the eyes all statistical formulae that measure a batter's skill but that's another topic.", it implies that BOTH ARE RBIs. That's the importance of the little comma. It changes the meaning of the sentence. Look at it THIS way, "Though in fairness, a strikeout, or a groundout for an RBI, are equal in the eyes all statistical formulae that measure a batter's skill, but that's another topic." Notice the difference?

Bob

[PVNICK]

That's a first, serious and informed grammatical critique on the internet. Thank you and apologies to all for what in retrospect was a sloppy sentence.

[bluezebra]

Too much 'guess hitting'. Pitches down the middle are 'taken'. Pitches a foot out of the strike zone, or bounce in front of the plate, are swung at. Very few become 'defensive' batters with two strikes. Ted Williams was most dangerous with two strikes; he'd just go to make contact, and was usually successful.

Bob

[538280]

Don't most of the formulas like RC only count outs, OBP and Slugging Pct. I would say 90% of the posts will reference those but or OBS or OBS+ but close to none will mention RBI.

I'm not sure you are properly understanding the point of run modelers such as RC. Run modelers try to look a player's offensive line (what he has done himself only, with no input from his teammates) and try to determine how many runs will result from that. Encorporating something like RBI into that wouldn't make any sense as RBI is dependant on what situation you come up to, you need to have runners on base to drive them in to get an RBI. The point of run estimators is to determine the contribution of a hitter stripping out those things out of his control, which is the situation he comes up to.

Though in fairness a strikeout or a groundout for an RBI are equal in the eyes all statistical formulae that measure a batter's skill but that's another topic.

#1 every full attempt at determining a hitter's value has some strikeout penalty. The ones that don't are the basic shorthand formulas that are meant to be quick calcuations. #2 the difference between a strikeout and groundout no matter how bad Ks may look is hardly significant anyway in terms of helping a runs score. Look at the plate appearances of all time K leader Reggie Jackson:

Reggie had 5941 PA with the bases empty. That's 52% of his PA right there where this is absolutely no potential for a K to be worse than an out. He also had 3974 PA with two outs. Those two together are 87% of his PA. How many PA did he have with two outs and no one on, I don't know, but we're probably at about 75% of his PA where there is no potential for a K to be worse than another type of out. Now Reggie also has 2291 PA with a runner on first. When there's a runner on first and less than two outs a K in the long run is actually slightly more valuable than another out because a good amount of groundouts in that position are double plays. We're now at about 85-90% of his PA where a K is absolutley not worse than another out. So we have 10-15% of his PA where there's a possibility for a K to be worse than an out. And even in those situations most of the time it isn't, because outs don't advance runners all that often and even when they do they almost always decrease a team's chances of scoring in the long run anyway. I'm going with what every statistical study has indicated-the cost of Reggie's Ks (or any player's Ks) to his teams is very, very marginal and shouldn't play much of a role in his evaluation.

Another thing to remember about that is that Reggie was a middle of the order hitter who played for very good teams over his career-he had more opportunities than the average player for a K to be worse than a regular out (yet it still is such a small percentage of even his PA). The accuracy of those measures isn't going to be hurt much at all by having a penalty for Ks. There should be a very, very small one, and that's it.

That doesn't mean that hitters shouldn't try to cut down on their strikeouts and try to make contact. Making contact with the ball is how players get hits. There are always a number of bloop hits that just result from batters often making contact. Simply making contact is a skill and it will appear in a player's batting average. Cutting down on strikeouts will improve that aspect of a player's game. Players who strike out often will very rarely sustain a high BA. However, this doesn't mean that looking back you should penalize a player's Ks as opposed to other outs. There is no chance for a hit when you K as opposed to putting the ball in play but once the out is recorded (as it already has when you look back) they are of nearly the same value.

[The Splendid Splinter]

Games today have about three times as many people attend them as games from the 50s. Population has not increased three times.

It's somewhat close... in 1950, the world's population was 2.5 billion. Now it's 6+ billion (somewhere 6.5 I believe now). United State's population, I believe, have doubled since 1950. 150 million in 1950s to 300+ now.

[Stumanji]

The sick thing is a lot of guys take their 500 foot HR swings even with a man on third and less than two outs.

I once heard a hitting coach say that the WORST thing a player can do is TRY for a sacrifice fly, or TRY to hit a grounder to the opposite side to get the run in.

He said a good hitter will adjust to the pitch and just hit it hard - if you slightly miss up, you got a sac fly. If you slightly miss down, you got a groundball. If you didn't miss - boom... 500 ft. homerun.

[hiddengem]

None - I sure couldn't stand in there against ML pitching. Considering that, how can I flippantly condemn a whole group of people?


Probably the most intelligent post on this entire thread.

[dl4060]

He's comparing a "strikeout" to a "groundout for an RBI". Gotta read carefully.

I would argue that players today take pitches at a historically high level, waiting for something they can drive.


I agree. There is more of an understanding today of drawing walks and wearing down pitchers than ever before. Ted Williams was the first(to my knowledge) to really figure out this part of the game. In the science of hitting he talks endlessly about getting a good pitch to hit.

[dl4060]

I agree that skills are undertrained, but from my work with kinesiology and sports science I can tell you that overpracticing a skill is a good way to BUILD biomechanical flaws. 4 hours is ok for a day, but players should also take days off of skills work to refresh their CNS.

Players swing a bat too much too. Guys should limit themselves to minimal batting practice every other day.

I so think that players should spend more time on the field, and probably running wind sprints as well. I think that in-season weight training should take about 90 total minutes a week. 1 whole body 45 minute session and a 25 minute upper body and a 25 minute lower body workout.

And you may laugh, but I think that baseball players should do 30 minutes of Yoga stretching every day. There are guys who obviously lose their flexibility.

Everything here is well said. The in-season weight training should be to maintain what muscle is already there, which should have been built in the off-season. I also agree about sprinting and running is very important. I've always felt that there really is not an excuse to be an overweight pro athlete. I am a huge David Ortiz fan, but it probably would help his longevity to lose some weight. You are the first person I have seen mention Yoga, but that is a fantastic idea too.