27
2013
A Review Of Dave Hudgens, Mets Hitting Approach, Results
An article by 
I probably wasn’t the only person frustrated last year watching Kirk Nieuwenhuis, or Lucas Duda, or Ike Davis appearing to take fat pitches down the middle of the plate only to see them swing at a breaking pitch in the dirt or a fastball at eye level.
On several notable occasions Keith Hernandez himself went off on hitters taking 2-1 fastballs “right down the pike” as he’d say. There was a perception among many fans that the organizational philosophy emphasizing plate discipline while honing in and attacking the zone, as implemented by Dave Hudgens at the major league level, had in practice resulted in a Mets lineup that was taking too many pitches. In truth there is something to be said for going against the grain if only to keep opposing pitchers honest. Watching the games you were left with the impression that the Mets were very very predictable at times and that they lacked aggressiveness, but was that perception accurate?
Fans also lamented the fact that had the Mets put in a performance in July commensurate with what they managed in any of their earlier months they would have stayed in the race almost to the end, but they went 8 and 18, effectively ending any chance at a postseason birth.
The Mets as a team were 20th in OBP last year but in March and April they were 9th. In May they dropped to 19th, and from August through September they dropped to 25th. The team started off pretty patient from March through May, then they played the Nats and Giants a bunch of times and suddenly it seemed like the word was out, “pour in strikes early in the counts against the Mets.”
But was it the approach or the players? Maybe it wasn’t so much that the approach was bad, maybe Met hitters simply weren’t good enough to pull it off? Maybe too many of them were “faking it,” artificially implementing plate discipline by simply taking a few pitches (which is actually not Hudgens’ approach at all), and maybe that’s why the league was able to adjust effectively where a more talented (or receptive) team might have done better?
Hudgens’ hitting approach, however, is less about taking pitches and more about being selective and swinging at pitches in the zone. So, by Hudgens’ own standards, how did the Mets do? Below is a month-by-month breakdown of some key offensive stats followed by several important metrics focusing on plate discipline.
| Month | April | May | June | July | Aug | Sept/Oct |
| K% | 22.1 | 20.9 | 18.4 | 22.9 | 18.9 | 20.4 |
| BB rate | 9.6 | 9.2 | 8.5 | 6.5 | 8.9 | 6.9 |
| OBP | .341 | .327 | .321 | .312 | .303 | .294 |
| BABIP | .334 | .312 | .290 | .317 | .268 | .276 |
| SLG | .390 | .385 | .412 | .420 | .341 | .368 |
| W / L | 13 – 10 | 15 – 13 | 15 – 13 | 8 – 18 | 12 – 16 | 12 – 18 |
| Z-swing% | 61.1 | 60.5 | 64.1 | 65.2 | 63.4 | 63.9 |
| O-swing% | 25.5 | 28.1 | 29.5 | 31.0 | 28.0 | 29.7 |
| Z-Contact% | 88.1 | 89.2 | 89.0 | 84.9 | 89.1 | 88.8 |
| O-Contact% | 67.5 | 68.3 | 68.7 | 65.3 | 64.6 | 68.4 |
| Swing% | 41.2 | 42.7 | 43.9 | 45.5 | 44.1 | 45.3 |
| Line Drive% | 23.5 | 23.6 | 17.8 | 24.3 | 23.9 | 21.4 |
(Data obtained from: Fangraphs.com)
O-Swing% - Outside-the-zone swing rate
Z-Swing% - Inside-the-zone swing rate
O-Contact% - Outside-the-zone contact percentage
Z-Contact% - Inside-the-zone contact percentage
Some initial observations are that OBP declined every month. BABIP and BB% also dropped every month with the exception of August. So the Mets got on base less, walked less, and saw fewer batted balls drop for hits as the year progressed, but for the first three months of the season they also struck out less each month and, most importantly, they were winning somehow. June also brought a marked improvement in swings inside the strike-zone (that oh-so-important trait as preached by Hudgens) and a strong uptick in slugging percentage — never a bad thing.
Contact rates inside the zone stayed pretty flat through June at around 89% (68% outside the zone), but the Mets seemed to be swinging at more and more pitches overall which was perhaps a worrisome development. Another ominous sign in June was that line drive percentage dipped to 17.8%, not only was that a season low but it was odd because the Mets slugged better in June than they did both in April and May. In July their contact rates were significantly lower at 85% inside the zone (65% outside the zone) and they lost games at a staggering clip. The data smacks of running into some good pitching (which they did), but it also clearly appears to imply that contrary to Met batters slumping because of the selective approach at the plate, they slumped because they went away from it.
In the end we are left to make sense of one truly aberrant month when the Mets didn’t walk much and couldn’t get on base, July. Met hitters were swinging a lot more at pitches both in and out of the strike-zone while making a lot less contact. The fact that line-drive percentage, BABIP, and SLG% all increased from previous levels didn’t seem to matter much as they scored 36 fewer runs in July than they did in June and the losses piled up.
There is one very clear result in all of this. The disaster that was July of 2012 probably was not caused by the Mets taking too many pitches, trying to be too selective, or being too tentative at the plate. As they walked less and swung more they also stopped winning, so I think the approach as promoted by Hudgens passes muster.
If there is a flaw in this philosophy it may be that the approach is somewhat vulnerable to higher echelon pitchers who throw strikes, but the Mets in July managed to counter by hitting a lot of line drives (24.3%), slugging at a much higher clip and cracking 28 home runs … They scored enough to win. It wasn’t until August and September when the Met offense saw a real decline in production … By that time it was too late and even then we didn’t lose at nearly the same clip as we did in July. Nope, the offense, as much as it seemed to lurch and sputter in the second half, wasn’t what sunk the 2012 N.Y. Mets. It was pitching. July saw a whopping 5.25 team ERA, a .276 team BAA, and 88 walks (all season highs), much of that (though not all by any means) attributable to a putrid relief corps.
The Mets didn’t score much in 2012 to be clear. They scored less as the year progressed and seemed ill-at-ease at times with their walk-a-lot / attack the zone approach, but while the Mets won in May and June by clogging the bases and scoring in bunches, they were never a team that would win consistently with offense. The Mets hit enough in July — it was the pitching that fell through.
With this in mind you’ve got to feel a little more placated if not encouraged as a Met fan with the particular adjustments that were made this off-season. Bourne was never going to be a major difference maker in the grand scheme of a 162 game season, but if the Mets can finally put together a halfway decent bullpen and if their starting pitching is at least a semblance of what it was most of last season, you never know. If the Mets can avoid a full-scale pitching melt-down (which is really what July was) with an offense that manages to get on base and pester you with runs here and there, if they can pitch, and if they can hold a lead, then there is no telling what might happen down the stretch.
About the Author: Matthew Balasis
I’ve been a Met fan since August 1969 when a fire resulted in the Red Cross placing my family on the 6th floor of a building in Willets Point. I could see Shea from our balcony and I knew something big was going on. I followed them through the dark years and the resurgence of the 80’s only (sadly) to miss the fall of 86 because I was in Boot Camp. I've been serving penance ever since in Minnesota where I'm an SLP. I've written a lot about the Mets in an effort to share with my kids (and anyone else who might listen), a sporting tradition that made much of my childhood worthwhile. Follow me on twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewBalasis
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Bayonne,
I’m sure you won’t mind me stealing your thunder on this:
http://metsmerizedonline.com/2012/05/mmo-fan-shot-ojeda-comes-down-hard-on-mets-approach-at-plate.html
Not at all and as usual this writer over-analyzes things. Maybe bringing in some actual talented baseball players could have helped instead of another off season of filler last year.
Also earlier in the year what was the big story about the Mets? All those 2 out hits with runners in scoring position.
In the 2nd half that stopped, combined with a lack of talent brought in and that can be directly attributed to the person in charge of bringing in that talent. But then again this is the same person that may believe in the fantasy of Deliberate Practice where talent doesn’t exist and they can turn journeymen players (water into wine) with constant repetitive exercises.
So, what? He’s demonstrably wrong. The Mets were in fact getting more first pitch breaking balls and swinging through them.
I remember with all the accusations that Davis was taking too many pitches, I think it was TRS who went and found that was Ike swinging at more than league average amount of first pitches (which is what he’s always done).
What changed was the amount of breaking balls and pitches outside the zone Ike was seeing first pitch. He was seeing more than at any other point in his young career. The league had a book on him and was exploiting his free swinging tendencies.
And then in June, when he got hot and bumped up his stats, it was also notable that he had been laying off the first pitch breaking balls and attacked the fastballs. This resulted in him getting more fastballs.
About the middle of July, when he abandoned that, look what happened. Back down he went.
Yeah, I do believe I remember that. Of course I also countered the absurdity post of the select few with the fact that Davis was one of the best 1B in the majors last year at PPA. Thus any idea that Alderson and company do not love them some Davis is most likely foolish as well.
Your post reminds me of one I did last year where I looked to see if a statement made by the Mets GM where last October he said,
“For a year and a year and a half, all of 11 and 1st half of 12. We actually had a very good offense. It was a combination, it was really an on base approach but we were in the upper echelons of National League in run production. It’s not as if we had a lack of offense over the last 2 years. We had a lack of power and we need to correct that.”
I tried to confirm to see if indeed that was the case and it turns out it was an accurate statement. Of course though a large part of that included the season Reyes and Beltran had but still I was surprised to see the team in that stretch be either 2nd or 3rd in BA, OBP, Hits, and Runs especally when you consider they were 12th in HR’s.
Here is how they ranked.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0ApxE2V-jZhJHdGd6NTBxdWx4VFNESzU3YWxEaV9CTHc&single=true&gid=5&output=html
I remember that and have referred back to that. The offense even without Reyes and Beltran wasn’t the problem until they went away from the strategy.
Right, so, it was the offense that went away from the phylosophy, it wasn’t the other teams figuring out what the mets were doing, it was the players who went away from it right? Got it….
It appears that way, yes. Of course why let stats get in the way of a preconceived notion?
I don’t think Reyes and Beltran’s contributions can be underestimated but for me when i think that this coincided with a poor offensive output from our outfield and catching in 2012 no Ike Davis for most of 2011 and a struggling Ike Davis the 1st half of 2012 and to still be no worse than 3rd in said categories I found it a bit surprising.
I wanted to believe the Ojeda’s point of view, I really did, but the numbers just don’t show that. In May and June when they walked more and didn’t swing as much, they scored more runs. Their contact rates in the zone were higher too (and they were quite a bit lower outside the zone) in May and June. So the approach was working. Swing% went up more and more as the walks declined until it reached a tipping point in July when they couldn’t score as much — the trends there were definitely going away from Hudgen’s stated approach. But again, I don’t think that was the problem in and of itself, the problem was that the Pitching really went belly-up in July after Santana was ineffective and was eventually shut down. July pitching statistics stand out like a sore thumb when you look at the whole season.
Matt, thanks for this, this is the phylosophy of the FO, take strikes right down the middle, wait for your pitch, once baseball got a hold of what the mets were doing, they started throwing strikes, next thing you know, everyone started being 0-2 1-2 early on the at bat, which force a lot of them to protect the plate and by that i mean sqing at anything close to the plate which makes your at bat even more difficult and that’s why you saw everyone and their mother struggle in the second half, the only person who said fuc* it and went back to being himself was pretty much the only person who hit in the second half, IKE BENJAMIN DAVIS, which then prompted the FO to start all those rumors about him being a hard headed etc because he didn’t wanna follow that garbage ass approach the FO is trying to install in the mets system overall. that is why most of this sabergooners and sandy lovers started focusing more on OBP because that’s the phylosphy that the FO has and it should be taken into consideration when evaluating a player, perfect example, fred lewis… had a high OBP, all of the sudden people were screaming for him to be called up, Ike davis had a bad OBP, send him down he’s a bum, without realizing he’s the only power threat in the lineup. SMH
Huh?
” this is the phylosophy of the FO, take strikes right down the middle, wait for your pitch”
Ummm wouldn’t a strike right down the middle be getting your pitch?
ask the mets FO… seems to me (And fangraphs, one of your sabers site proved it) every met player was taking pitched RIGHT DOWN the middle because they didn’t wanna swing at a 2-0 3-1 pitch… the reason why the mets have gotten so many 2 strike hits is because most of the team they waited for “Their pitch”. you saw that ojeda rant i am sure, where he pointed out how pathetic the mets were when ahead on the count right? baseball caught up with what the mets were doing, next thing you know, you’d blink and the count is 0-2 1-2 on almost every hitter, now they become helpless because they have to defend the plater, strikeouts went up because of it… it wasn’t as if they went away from the stragedy, it was more because they had to go away from it. as a proffesional you are supposed to make adjustements, this FO is shoving their stupid phylosophy down their throats, and went things don’t go their way instead of helping the players out and adjust and adapt, what do they do? criticize them by saying “they went away from the phylosophy” … Yeah, ok…. think is easy to have 3 and 4 at bats a game and be down 1-2 0-2 on every one of them? ask hudgens how that work out for him….
See below.
The Mets were league average when batters were ahead in the count.
Oh and as I already showed, Ike actually became more patient in the 2nd half. His PPA and BB and obviously OBP all went up in the 2nd half.
BTW, ike didn’t get more patient. he got more selective and fear… teams rather pitch to whoever was behind him than him…. even though his IBB were not high or anything, other teams knew he was the man in the lineup…
So you are saying more selective, I am saying patient, I like your word better. As Hudgens actually calls his approach hunting pitches. So at least we agree. In the 2nd half Ike Davis was exactly what Hudgens preaches.
BIG BIG Difference dude….
Selective means your making a decision….
Patience just means your going to wait until a decision hits you.
When you select you DOING something…When your Patient your just waiting for something to happen….
Something this FO seems to love as an approach to EVERYTHING even Moves they make!
I already said he was correct and that word was a better word to describe what Hudgens wants. Hitters that hunt their pitch.
In fact the Mets term is:
““focused aggression,”
In fact, in all honesty I went into this with the intention of showing that the Mets couldn’t score in the second half because they were trying to be too selective at the plate (that was my bias). Not at all the case, they became less patient in July.
Just to point something since Dave Hudgens was brought in, the Mets have the most runs scored in the major leagues with 2 outs and runners in scoring position. They have the 2nd most hits just 7 shy of the Royals.
who cares…..we don’t have good players. you think Tiger or Nats or Giants fans waste their time on this. we won 74 games and lost 88. dickey was 20 and 6 and w/o his decisions we were 54 and 82. on days he didnt pitch we were among the worst in baseball regardless if we take too many first pitch strikes. when we get better players we will have better results.
Just to point something out, since dave hudgens became the mets hitting coach, the mets have had the most right down the middle strikes taken.. When the count is favorable, the mets were last to amongst the last teams in MLB at SLug %, BA, RBI, HR which is what you should thrive in the most when having a count on the hitters favor, but instead, they were “Waiting for their pitch” as if at 2-0 3-1 a fastball right down the middle isn’t….
Alex, if you’d like to reply to something I say with an actual baseball conversation as you just did – please don’t be so shy and hit the reply button.
Why would i reply to you? All you do is defend this FO to no end, hate everything we like, like everything with rightfully so criticize, so why would i engage you when all you do is be a slimery, slimey snake? Was i wrong on what i said? you got your points and you made them, good for you, i made mine, and people will tend to agree with the obvious. you came in here making a point to try and disclaim what the author have said, i would not be surprised if you counter attack this post with one of your own defending dave hudgens and pointing out how great he’s been….
Batter ahead:
2012: .303 .469 .501 .970
2011: .310 .480 .478 .958
NL Average:
2012: .300 .468 .502 .970
2011: .297 .467 .484 .950
Hold on a second… give me the mets and give me their ranking.. don’t give me average, there are at least 7 teams who were as bad or mediocre as the mets were in those situations. give me rankings and the teams they were ahead of in certain categories while ahead. don’t try to deviate from the rankings..
Well if I had the time it wouldn’t be hard. You want the rankings, go use one of those stat thingies and figure it out. I took the Mets average and compared it to NL average. Chances are that would put them around middle of the pack.
It’s in my Comment Alex….
If the Mets #s are right at the league average, then how can they be “last” as you say? He doesn’t need to provide rankings to prove your statement was wrong if his average #s are factual. You can’t be average and last at the same time
Because AVERAGE doesn’t mean middle of the league!
Just middle of the statistical graph!
Still hard to be last if you are average.
Unless you’re Rickey Bobby.
No but it’s pretty easy to be bottom of the pack and still be average isn’t it?
Being average does not mean you are as good as everyone else…
Just close to the middle of the statistical graphing…
You could be 20th in the league and still be AVERAGE all it takes is some pretty bad teams in the 21-32 slots of the metric.
I noted the ranking in my post….I notice you didn’t actually address the rankings at all!
They were dead last in BA on the first pitch….WHy is that?
BECAUSE THEY TOOK IT which is not exactly conducive to recording a stat in BA now is it?
They were top 11 in behind the count PA!
So tell me why was that? Was it because they were swinging at strikes and taking balls or because they were waiting for THIER PITCH which never came but let the PITCHER’S PITCH go buy for a strike?
All I asked was what was the Mets rank in the NL while ahead in the count. Alex wanted to know.
Ahhh I see we are going to cut out half the league to make the number of the rank seem higher than if the entire league is taken into account….
All because of a DH who really doesn’t matter here because we are talking about what happenes in the first three pitches of an AB not league scoring or combined offense….
More Manipulations required to make your point I guess…
I never include the American LEAGUE when comparing National LEAGUE teams. When you say the entire LEAGUE that’s not the entire MLB.
That being said if you want to give me the actual ranking for the Mets with Batter ahead I will take that as well.
Or you could as I said just give me the link and I can do it myself.
Well we aren’t talking about National League here we are talking the entrire league…There is NO reason to excluse the AL because we are talking about a result from a PA and a pitcher/batter matchup not comparing which league gets an extra hitter in the lineup.
PAs are the same in all leagues!
The situation for the hitter is the same in the AL as it is in the NL.
“They were dead last in BA on the first pitch….WHy is that?
BECAUSE THEY TOOK IT which is not exactly conducive to recording a stat in BA now is it?”
Did you really just say this? They Mets are dead last in BA because they TOOK the first pitch.
Let me see, if you take the first pitch, it is either strike 1 or ball 1. Know there is something interesting in that scenario…neither of them will affect the overall first pitch batting average. The only way to do that is to swing at the first pitch AND make contract resulting in either a hit or an out.
The Mets could have swung at every first pitch and ended up either first or last in 1st pitch BA depending upon what the results were. But they didnt end up last because they took pitches since a ball 1 or strike 1 count is not figured into that BA.
Yeah, I caught that as well but I guess he is still thinking about how Oakland could have won the division last year and had home field advantage.
Did they have hgoe field throughout the playoffs? NOPE!
They could have been the best team in the AL last year with Gio…A point you conveniently avoid…as usual!
Damn, even when you are wrong you don’t admit it. Nice.
“Metsie February 25, 2013 at 6:42 pm
Yet they were a Wildcard team and if they had been a Div Winner might have done better with Home Field advantage…..”
Did they or did they not win the division Metsie?
Yeah it’s either a strike or a bll…Yet most of the league got a hit on that 50/50 proposition of yours didn’t they?
What does that tell you about what the first pitch was MOST of the time?
Ball or Strike?
Are you now changing the approach to say it’s smart to NOT SWING at a strike?
Help me out. How can you be dead last in BA on the first pitch if you are taking the pitch? Unless of course you took all of them and then your BA would be 0/0 I guess. I think we would both agree that in order to make an out on the first pitch you have to swing the bat, unless I am missing something?
Because you not getting HITS that contribute to your BA….
Your letting pitches to HIT go by you because you didn’t swing at pitches others did something with!
If someone is hitting well above .300 on the first pitch what does that tell you about the first pitch?
It’s hittable if you swing at it!
We are not swinging at it as often as others and letting them go by!
Metsie, still don’t see it. How does letting a first pitch go by lower your first pitch batting average. Only swinging at a first pitch can cause an out.
Because the pitch does not get recorded as a result!
You let a STRIKE go by that many others did not and converted to a HIT!
You are presuming that by swinging at the first pitch it is resulting in a hit. That is a big presumption on your part. The fact is the BA could be lowered by swinging at the first pitch if they result in outs.
No YOU assumed that when you tried to say all strikes are hittable….
All I’m saying is there were a lot of strikes on that first pitch that we let go by!
Cause other teams got hits on those pitches that we did not and at a MUCH higher average and better result than our philosophy produced!
They were told to go for a strike they liked…Not a strike PERIOD!
And let good hittable pitches go for strikes making the rest of the bat at a disadvantage than if they hit the first strike thrown.
Well right off the bat I have to declare setting an organizational hitting approach for everyone without taking each individuals strengths and weaknesses into account is about a dumb as telling your rotation that they should throw mostly fastballs regardless of how good thier fastball is!
I actually have no problem with your research but I don’t think it is really addressing what it was Keith, and I (plus many others here) were saying in regards to the Passivity of the batters.
In order to do that properly you have to look at the months and stats on a count by count SITUATIONAL basis.
Was the passive success early because they did not throw a first pitch strike and therefore the Batter was not put at a disadvantage for the remainder of the AB, But then they started throwing them strikes early in the count and putting the batter into a defensive swing mode as opposed to the offensive position a guy who starts 1-0 is in?
O-Swing and Z-Swing is fine to judge did you swing at balls or strikes but it doesn’t tell you what the count was at the time NOR does it tell you what happened and when on those strikes that were TAKEN which is the key point in this Passivity Approach debate. Did the passivity leave them behind early in the count in July but left them ahead early in the count in April and May?
What was the O-Swing and Z-Swing on Pitches 1 through 5?
That will tell you if they actually should have taken those early pitches and even give you some sense on what was thrown (K or B) in those first two or three pitches.
And then you need to look at what the O-Swing and Z-Swing recorded on Hitter’s Counts and Pitcher’s Counts.
Did a player with a 2-0, 2-1, 3-0 and 3-1 count look to take the walk instead of that fat pitch they could crush more often or less often? What does O-Swing and Z-Swing tell you in those highly offensive plus situations?
What were the counts where results occurred more in April and July?
Were most of the conclusions of the PA in April based on being ahead while in July they were behind in the count?
You see the passivity is about the counts and lack of situational awareness to the approach.
And the research doesn’t show you if the Pitchers just happened to throw more strikes EARLY in the count, FORCING a reaction that either did not come or did and did not result in something good which left the batter in a more defensive position for the remainder of the PA.
No one questions the notion of swinging at strikes letting balls go by….That works in any situation and really doesn’t need to be taught (or shouldn’t need to be in any case)
And no one is saying Hudgens INTENT is bad just that sometimes what you mean isn’t always the LESSON taken from the words spoken. And I would say the approach is not quite what many percieve it is yes it is part of what he wants to see but then he goes onto talking about waiting for YOUR Pitch which really has nothing to do with swinging at strikes (that may not be YOUR pitch) or taking balls (if you think you can crush it!)
Saying to WAIT for your pitch puts someone in WAIT mode not ACTION mode. And Waiting for YOUR pitch means your going to TAKE the Pitcher’s pitch.
If he makes those pitches early then the rest of the PA you are on your heels swinging defensively and when you swing defensively you are not taking your BEST cut, merely trying to get bat on ball to ensure you do not Strike out.
Some stats I found interesting regarding some of what I said
Mets were 29th in BA .298 .778 OPS on the first pitch.
Leader was (shock) Rockies who had a .374BA and a .989 OPS
Second was Cards .364BA .978OPS
Mets were 15th in the league when Ahead in the count with a .303BA .970 OPS They were 8th in AB in this situation.
Leader was KC who hit .324 with a .982 OPS followed again by Rockies .323BA and 1.026 OPS 20th and 17th in AB in those situations respectively So they both did more with LESS and that says to me they were more aggressive and not defensive in those situations.
Mets were 18th when Behind in the count .197BA .489 OPS 11th in AB situationally
Leader was Giants .225 .543 OPS 22nd in AB Situationally They were behind the count less than we were.
Mets were #1 with a full count! .254BA .883OPS 8th in AB meaning they worked an awful lot of counts and saw an awful lot of pitches and strikes they did nothing with until the count was full.
Yet only 16th with 2K on them .180BA .513OPS 12th in AB in that situation
Leader Angels .201 and .566OPS 26th in that situation.
On 3-0 Count we were 18th with a .286BA 1.245 OPS
Leader was Cubs .667 2.658 OPS
On a 3-1 Count Mets hit .308 1.173OPS
Leader Twins .445 1.451 OPS
I could go on and show more count by count situational results but I don’t want to do an entire research in a comment. And even then It would not address the difference in what happened in April and July.
Some here have tried to say the difference between the two was they STOPPED being passive and taking pitches….But no one has ever produced any research to show they changed the approach or stopped using it at the plate….
All they have claimed was PPPA went down in the second half which says nothing about how they approached the PA and could merely be a manifestation of the Pitcher throwing strikes that REQUIRED action early and regardless of what their approach was , what their O-Swing and Z-Swing was the fact that strikes came earlier and more often changed the situation they were facing for the remainder of the PA and that is what led to the decline in success later in the season compared to what we saw earlier.
The ONE SIZE FITS ALL approach worked for a little while, Pitchers then adjusted and no counter adjustment was made to the approach.
Batters should be coached as individuals not as a flock of Cattle that you want to cut up into consistent bites of packaged meat!
Philosophies are good as a basis for approach but it’s not enough to teach the philosophy or the approach…
You have also teach when it is wise to ABANDON IT and take advantage of the situation you find yourself in….
Like those 3-0 and 3-1 counts everyone else is pounding the ball while we take pitches while waiting for OUR PITCH that may never come because the Pitcher is not so inclined to GIVE YOU your pitch.
Hunt not wait.
http://www.nj.com/mets/index.ssf/2012/03/mets_hitting_coach_dave_hudgen_1.html
Addressed this before.
Also, did you happen to find where the Mets ranked in the NL in batters ahead in the count?
I see no statistical analysis of Counts early and late in that article ANYWHERE!
So you addressed nothing of what I said just made assumptions without any research to back it up!
Actually the question I asked you had nothing to do with the link. Just a question as it seems as though you had found the stats and Alex had asked.
As for the link, yeah they do talk about getting ahead in the count.
Yes but nothing about how they got BEHIND in the count….
BTW did you actually read my post?
Because the question you asked WAS addressed in my original comment wasn’t it?
They appear to be AVERAGE in BA but you missed the part about where they had more opportunities ahead in the count than most and did nothing with those opportunities.
You aren’t getting what I am asking for so perhaps you can just send me a link to where you found the stats and I can find it for Alex my self.
MLB.com
What I will point out about that piece though is this…
“Hunt your pitch,” he tells his players.
What if the pitcher throws a strike that isn’t thiers?
What do they do then?
What if he throws Two of them to start the PA?
Will they be able to succeed being put behind in the count and one pitch away from a K?
None of what you claim is Hudgens approach addresses that!
Who had the best BAs on the team? Who had some of the longest PAs on the team last year?
Tejada and Murphy!
Because they were patient?
NO!
Because they PROTECTED the PLATE with 2 K on them!
Not because they WAITED for thier pitch but because they made sure the Pitcher’s pitch didn’t count as a strike and fought them off until such time as he made a mistake!
Well considering that Ike Davis had a significantly higher P/PA than either Tejada or Murphy perhaps he mastered it a little more. Especially in the 2nd half.
If i foul off 7 pitches I have a higher P/PA than someone who walks on 5 pitches…
P/PA does not = patience
nice try though
Hi Metsie,
My analysis was by no means comprehensive, it was looking at one specific aspect of Hudgen’s approach, namely Mets hitters’ ability to keep their swings in the zone. Yes ultimately you’d want to look at a variety of other situational metrics, but based on the above information which looks at multiple indicators, team offense did not do better when the hitters strayed from the doctrine of “selectivity,” they did worse, in particular the marked rise in swings outside the zone coincided with July’s slump. Did that happen because they went away from their coaching? Or did that happen because they ran into some good pitching that had a lot of scouting data on the Mets? One could argue that a more talented lineup (The Rangers and the Yankees of 2012 come to mind — two of the most “patient” squads in the game) would have stuck to their principals even in the face of ace caliber pitching … maybe, but I’m not so sure. I think the Mets’ hitters were thrown off as the result of desperation and playing catch-up because the pitching collapsed (in a big way incidentally) …
Also as good as they were getting big hits with runners in scoring position in the first half, they made just as much news as NOT being able to get the job done with runners in scoring position in the latter part of the season.
There’s not much science behind getting hits with runners in scoring position and especially with 2 outs, only talent and guts.
Is it because that’s just too traditional for you to want to accept?
So they were “clutch” in the first half and choked in the second half? The same players? I don’t know, something (or things) clearly changed in July, personally I think Wright’s slump, the no-hitter, Johan becoming ineffective, the AS break, all conspired to throw the team off kilter to some degree, but they pitching in July really really stands out as the single biggest out-of-whack variable. There were probably lots of reasons why the team as a whole declined, but their tendencies to be selective wasn’t one of them, clearly, in fact they did worse when they swung more.
Yes something changd!
The question is was it the approach or the way Pitchers attacked the plate after realizing for the first half that the mets as a team were merely taking early in the count, not chasing and getting ahead so the pitcher adjusted and started throwing more strikes early to get ahead himself….
If you know someone is not likely to swing on the first pitch due to some organizational philosophy or teaching then your going to use that information against them, Throw a SURE strike (not a thin one) to try and get ahead and then once you have the batter in the hole you can play with him because you got room to work with and miss while painting.
Here’s a legitimate question. Can you prove that in the 2nd half as a team the Mets both got and took more 1st pitch strikes than they did in the 1st half?
Can you prove they didn’t?
Remember I didn’t bring this up Matt did….
And nothing about his research (as sound as it was) says anything regarding what they were dealt from 1st half to last half…..
As I suggested if you want to prove your point then show us the zSwing and oSwing of counts encompassing the first 3 pitches….
And then the stats of counts where the batter had advantage.
If they had a low ZSwing in the second half then that would tell you they took a lot of strikes early in those counts that probably were not strikes in the first half early in the count.
Probably one of the biggest reasons they declined is not enough major league talent. And you can thank your boss for that. And no they didn’t “choke” in the 2nd half as you put it. They just stopped hitting. I don’t use the word choke like that, you did and I think in obvious attempt to be sarcastic because you’re one of the guys that probably don’t believe in it.
But probably one of the biggest reasons for the 2nd half swoon was lack of talent. And who do you blame for that? Not the Wilpons.
That and getting kicked in the teeth at the throwing in of the towel and refusal to bring up Harvey and go with hefner/Batista when the season still had a chance to be saved by putting a stop to the losing streak.
The Mets scored over 100 runs in July, the offense didn’t truly tank until August. July was all about Met pitching and you could argue that constantly playing catch-up was what threw the hitters off.
Yep….Which is why I mentioned the lack of bringing up Harvey one start earlier which could have broken up the losing streak on the 21st and turned a 6 game losing streak to a 4 games. and then starting Hefner on the 25th…
If they had brought Harvey up sooner maybe they don’t lose as much ground…Maybe his energy and boost carries through to the next game..
Maybe it’s not enough to keep them in it but it sure would go a long way towards not giving up and agreeing with the towel throw in.
Who can say….
It was a multitude of issues right then…Losing Gee was just part of it, Johan was not himself and got hurt soon after that and for the rest of the month I bet most of the players were thinking more about who was going to be traded away than what they could do to get the GM to help them compete.
After all they thought they had a pretty good team in 2011 and the GM sold them out then as well….
He didn’t last year, he kept Hairston…That would have been fine if he intended to re-sign him….
He had help he refuses to use until the damage was done and refused to get any other help before the deadline that could make the rest of the season good.
So it’s no wonder a team that had a .535 WP in the first half ended with a .368 WP in the second…
Workers tend to follow the leader and when he quits and hit the showers so do they!
This is not meant to be a put down of DW but when you say “they” stop hitting it was Kirk and DW. The word “Hitting” is misleading as reflected by their BABIP which were abnormally high earlier in the year. Both players have a lot of K’s which is not reflected BABIP. For that matter walks do not factor in BABIP either. For example Kirk had a B.A. in mid May of .300 and BABIP in the .340′S where is league normal is .290. Kirk should have been hitting about .250 in mid May if his BABIP was .290.
What I forgot to say is both DW and Kirk had unsustainable BABIP.
According to the Mets, I think they said it was because they started to struggle and started trying to do too much.
Bingo TRS — I can totally see that, especially in light of how many runs were scored against us in July.
And Matt like I said the research is spot on in a discussion of SELECTIVE hitting it’s just not really telling a story of Passive/Aggressive which is something that happens in the first 3-4 pitches of a PA.
OSwing and ZSwing/Contact is valid as far as telling you if someone is being slective or just fishing.
But passive/Aggressive is about who allows who to take the initiate and dictate situations.
Being selective is all well and good on equal footing with the pitcher.
Cause the pitcher still has a choice in the matter
1 – Throw a strike?
2 – Throw it Fat or Thin? (very COUNT dependent decision)
3 – Throw a ball and hope he chases?
How many choices he has depends largely on the count…
On the first pitch many pitchers want to get ahead. They will try to throw strikes on the first pitch to get ahead…All choice above apply but rarely does a pitcher want to do #3 unless he has done 1 and 2 the previous times he faced that batter. He doesn’t want to start the PA from behind in the count.
If he misses with the first pitch you can almost guarantee he is going to try coming with a strike on the second pitch, Because he sure doesn’t want to go 2-0 and in a deep pitching hole where advantage batter…
Just as the batter are taught a philosophy of be selective, Pitcher are being taught a philosophy that says DO NOT WALK and do NOT get behind in the count.
That makes the first three pitches of any PA the most important for a batter to identify as B or K and to act accordingly. Your Pitch or not you should be swinging at strikes because telling a pticher you don’t like that pitch just shows him what to throw to get you out!
This is where the Passive/Wait vs Aggressive/React debate comes to the fore….
The Pitcher wants to throw strikes early and get ahead.
Yet the Passive batter is sitting there waiting for a “HIS PITCH” that may NEVER come!
And once the Pitcher gets ahead of you in the count even if yourt pitch DOES come you will be swinging so defensively that you wn’t do much with it because your not taking your ful swing your taking one that is only half due to the situation of the count.
Thats the key here in this debate….Not the selectivity everyone agrees you should swing at strikes and let the balls go by….
The issue here is that some say Hudgens is teaching to be selective but that selectivity is NOT confined to balls and strikes…It is something about YOUR PITCH and WAITING for it which means you are NOT swinging at all strikes just the ones you like and if the ones you do not like come early in the count the end result of the PA will be less than optimal because your defensive not offensive whenever this pitch your waiting for actually does come!
There are two philosophies in contention here…
One people think is the philosophy, Only swing at strikes and then there is the counter HUNT YOUR PITCH Philosophy thats say Wait for your pitch Strikes going by you be damned just swing at the strikes that are YOUR pitch….
And it is THAT protion of the teaching that is leading to the passive PAs and lesser results in situation where the Batter has the advantage because he is passing up good pitches to hit waiting for the one he likes BETTER….
They do not co-exist as philosophies very well.
And I say if you really want to teach better to be better and extend PPPA they should be taught what to do with Two Strikes on them, Not what to NOT do until that happens…
They should be taught how to fight off strikes they do NOT LIKE, That is not THIER PITCH in hopes of extending the PA and hoping the Pitcher either throws a ball to get them to a full count or misses badly and gives them THIER pitch.
Regardless of the count, if you see a strike you swing at it no? Reason why z-contact is so important.
Is that what HUNT FOR YOUR PITCH translates to?
Is EVERY strike “YOUR PITCH”
What if you like to extend your arms and you pitch is an OUTSIDE STRIKE….
Do you swing at the INSIDE STRIKE you don’t really like?
Or do you WAIT for “YOUR PITCH and take a strike?
This is why I say you have two philosophies in conflict here….
Some BELIEVE the teaching is Swing at strikes not at balls….
But Hudgens isn’t teaching them to swing at ALL strikes just THEIR Strikes…The ones they LIKE!
And if the Pitcher throws three strikes you do NOT like that are not YOUR PITCH your OUT!
Well if it’s a breaking ball early that isn’t hung but is a strike they aren’t going to swing at it for sure. He outlines what “your pitch is” and even says that it would change based on the hitter. You really should watch some of his hitting video’s. Pretty good stuff.
WHOA WHOA WHOA…..
You went from saying Swing at strikes and now are saying don’t swing at a strike!
That does not jive with a SINGLE thing you claim he is teaching except maybe wait for your pitch….
And what do you do when he throws two more of those breaking balls you don’t like for strikes?
Hmmm? What then?
I suggest you all have a heart to heart with yourself and come to some decision WHICH PHILOSOPHY you actually support….
either
1 – Swing at Strikes, Not at Balls
2 – Swing at Pitches you like not those you don’t (regardless of them being a strike or not)
3 – Swing only at strikes you like and just take the out if it never comes UNTIL such time as your totally defensive and then protect the plate and hope the pitcher screws up and hangs one….
Take you pick and get back to us when you decide which philosophy you guys are actually arguing is the right one….
Matt – Wow, great work! It’s a privilege to have you writing on this site. I’ve never been a big fan of Hudgens’ and I can point to a few reasons, but at the same time I look at other team’s hitting coaches and see that they all have their strengths and weaknesses. There are none who are flawless. So in that regard, I see Hudgens as a better than average hitting coach and I hope that it only gets better from there. I’m keeping close tabs on his two top projects for 2013; Duda and Nieuwenhuis.
Hudgens is another guy to keep on eye on if the Mets again have problems at the plate taking pitches, being passive, etc.
Nobody can prove that Hudgen’s wasn’t one of the reasons for the failures of Duda, Murphy, & even Ike but it seemed help Cedeno who is probably more of the style of hitter who’s game can more easily adapt to a hudgens-style philosophy.
Duda & Murphy mashed the ball in 2011 and it was really more noticeable with the naked eye with Murphy who was a MACHINE in 2011. He had balance, his swing was quick & level. He had confidence, never lost his balance with hard swings and was good in the clutch. Then in 2012 he turned into a slap hitter. Why? I think i know.
Bayonne, exactly, don’t forget how ike became his old self when he went back to being himself and stopped listening to hudgens and the stupid approach…
Can you prove that Ike stopped listening and went back to his approach? Especially considering he became more “selective” and his P/PA went up as well as his walks and OBP? Perhaps instead he started listening? One will never know. Of course for you it would be much easier to say that he bucked it and started doing exactly what Hudgens wanted him to do? Huh?
Yes!
First Pitch BA .275
2-0 Count BA .400
2-1 Count BA .261
3-0 Count BA .333
3-1 Count BA .333
Early in the count
0-1 Count BA .302
1-1 Count BA .436
Considering his season BA as an AVERAGE he did most of his damage EARLY and was AGGRESSIVE and did well late in PAs when the Pitcher did not throw early strikes!
When they did he CRUSHED them for that High BA.
Is that his 2nd half #’s?
1st half or 2nd?
Considering what his BA was before June what do you think?
That was his seasonal they don’t break counts down in first and second half…
Since his BA was so abysmal until June it’s pretty safe to say most of that goodness happened in the 2nd half!
And most of the BAD results were happening in the first….
Kind of curious about that myself. Are those for the whole season or a first or second half split?
So here’s why i believe you are a closet sandy lover, everyone was doing “Well” in the first half but ike davis, so let’s give credit to hudgens and the FO for installing this phylosophy throughout the mets systems, and in the second half, since ike davis was the only one who hit, then let’s credit hudgens too because he listen to hudgens right? Everyone else stop listening to hudgens and only ike davis took his advice right? You are something else
Aren’t you doing the same thing yet just the opposite approach?
Yet, what I am saying is that many of the players started pressing and according to the chart above became too aggressive, except for Ike.
So you can’t say Ike bucked the approach when he started doing exactly what Hudgens preaches. That makes no sense.
Why did they start pressing?
Because the taking of pitches early stopped working, Pitchers threw more strikes early that they passivly klet go by and as a result had to press because they faced more counts behind than they did previously.
Or they faced a lot of good pitchers started to lose games and then started trying to do too much. Haven’t we seen that even before Hudgens?
They faced the same pitchers in the second half as they did in the first half…
They didnt turn over their pitching staff from the first half to the second…
But you tell me and SHOW me what was different….
None of this O-Swing Z-Swiing or PPPA tells me what they saw on the first three pitches early in the count in july-sept compared to April-June….
And until you can show me some stats that say the Pitcher threw as many strikes early in the count in the first half as they threw in the second half all your really showing is that the result were worse in the second half than the first with no explanation atttached to prove WHY it happned.
You say they were not as patient based on PPPA but PPPA can be lowered merely by the Pitcher throwing more strikes in the second half.
Cause like it or not as patient as you might want to be…If the Pitcher makes you do something with the bat the only way to extend that PA is to foul off pitches.
WHich is what Hudgens should REALLY be teaching not this WAIT for something that may never come approach.
So as soon as either of us get the stats on that we can make a judgment. Otherwise talking out of our arse.
And thats pretty much all I Said in response to Matts Research which was perfectly fine in the numbers and approach just didn’t really say all that much about the Philosophy the events in the eraly parst of the counts or how Pitchers changed thier approach late in the season compared to early.
They were throwing junk at Ike and Duda early (remember Ike was having a hard time getting fastballs at all?)
And yes they were aggressive earlier…And when did they turn it around? Was it because they went passive? Not when you look at all those first pitch HRs of Ike it wasnt…
It was because the league caught up to the fact we were going up there taking and they piunced on it and starting pounding us early….
It gave Ike pitches to crush while everyone else stayed passive and took the strikes.
Do I have the data to show that? NO I can’t find a source that breaks it down properly but I did watch EVERY game and I saw them taking a ton of first and second pitch strikes PLUS a lot of strikes on 2-0, 2-1, 3-0 and 3-1 that should have left the damn building!
But they took them too!
Hey Metsie,
Don’t know if i’m hitting the correct reply button but another couple of factors as far as Ike goes is that it’s very plausible to think that it also took him awhile to get going after missing almost a whole year and then to compound it he gets Valley Fever.
God, I HATE these new analysis’s/philosophies that paint everything with a one-size-fits-all-regardless-of-talent broad brush without any human element, any human intangibles considered.
Yep which is pretty much what I said in the piece I wrote about sending him down….
Ike was not about not following hudgens it was about not being in a state that could apply what he was being told even if he wanted to because his timing was all off….
His successs however did start right around the time the Pitchers started getting more aggressive early in the count.
Late June and Early July.
Ike hit 12 First Pitch HRs last year….
He hit 20 Hrs in the first three pitches…
9 on 1-0 count
11 on 0-1
10 on 1-1
You know how many he hit 3-0 and 2-0?
2 and 5 respectively!
Seems he did what Hudgens said when the count was in a hitters count and took the walk…If not he might have hit 40 HRs last year.
Nooooo … they were pressing because the pitching staff couldn’t hold a lead to save their own lives. Look at the pitching statistics for July … pretty gruesome.
Can I tell you what I don’t understand with regards to your point on Hudgens?
You say its possible he’s responsible for Duda and Murphy failing to mash the ball in 2012 as they did in 2011. Wasn’t Hudgens the hitting coach in 2011 also?
So how can he be at fault for 2012 but then not given the credit for 2011? It doesn’t add up. Maybe you’re right, we’ll never really know maybe Hudgens had them do something in 2012 that didn’t work – but maybe he also had them do something in 2011 that worked?
“So how can he be at fault for 2012 but then not given the credit for 2011″
Thats an EASY answer….
For the first couple of Months Hudgens said he was still learning the batters and had not gotten into a lot of heavy tweaking of each until he had learned thier swings…
You don’t start coaching and see immediate results from that teaching from the beginning…
It takes time for lessons to sink in and for the player to grasp the concepts being taught…
So his influence on the hitting in 2011 was much less than the influence on the hitting in 2012
Bingo,
That’s what i was thinking. In the first year it takes time and now that they had a 2nd year ready to go and the 1st under their belt it’s reasonable to think that they didn’t actually start implementing this as a philosophy in 2012. We didn’t hear about it being implemented in 2011, at least I didn’t read anything on this site about it.
That is an interesting outlook but most likely incorrect. Unless they approach hitting different than pitching because everyone knows that Warthen started tinkering with Harvey and his approach immediately after his first successful outing. Do you recall the “he needs to throw more changeups” line that Collins stated repeatedly?
So your view if null and void unless you assert that the hitting coach operates differently than the pitching coach.
Yeah he told him to thorw more Cahngeups because Philisophically they feel it is what he needs to do….They pretty much say the same things about Wheeler and Mejia and anyone else…They LOVE pitchers to throw more chageups and THEY DON’T SEEM TO CARE if the players is capable of being thier philisophical darling or that his stuff and style is conducive to that philosophy they just looked at a bunch of statisitics and decided the math says throw Changeups….
Did it work?
NOPE!
So much for imposing a Philiosophy on a player without any thought to if it fits the specific individual you are trying to coach.
So here is where I continue to be confused. How come you’re telling me Hudgens basically sat and watched for a year and the players had their success on their own – but the players don’t say that?
“It really doesn’t take too long to get to know a swing,” Hudgens said. “But you have to get to know the person, too and that can take longer.”
Josh Thole, who played for Hudgens in Venezuela in winter ball in 2009, said he thinks not micromanaging the hitters is one of Hudgens’ strengths.
“At this level, it’s good if someone knows your swing, but doesn’t try to get too involved,” the catcher said. “Sometimes less is better. I don’t want someone in my ear all the time and he understands that.”
“He gives you recommendations, but he never leaves a definite with you, like ‘You have to do this,’ ” Thole said. “With guys like David Wright and Jason Bay, he knows they’ve worked with a lot of hitting coaches and that they know what they want to do, so he treats them differently.”
http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/mets/hudgens_hits_the_right_notes_FYh8YqbRdDsjNrPVe1E7uO
So why should I believe that somehow Hudgens is in these players’ ear changing things that made them successful when players who are coached by him say that isn’t what he does, at all?
I’m also having a tough time with this idea that a major league hitting coach voluntarily CHANGES things about a hitters swing unless there is a problem. That is not often the case is it?
I think people put way, way too much emphasis on a major league hitting coach. When the team is hitting you never ever hear the majority public say “man the hitting coach is awesome.” but when things go south, all fingers point toward the hitting coach
Did I say he did nothing for a year?
Did he focus on taking pitches in 2011 or was that the philosophy they came up with after reviewing what happened during the 2011 season?
Can you say for sure? Do you have transcripts of what he was teaching in 2011 compared to the NEW APPROACH of 2012?
Here is the issue I am trying to get accross to all of you that you seem to ignore….
Two ways to get a point accross….
I tell you to WAIT here for a cab….That cab may NEVER come and you might even miss it when it does because you lost your focus for a second and didn’t see it coming….
You get NO CAB….
But if I tell you to LOOK for a cab…thats not a PASSIVE command it is an AGGRESSIVE one. I’m telling you to DO SOMETHING not WAIT for something to happen.
It’s the difference of
On your mark, get set, go compared to On your mark, wait for the gun, go!
Verbs are very important in teaching….And to tell someone to WAIT instead of to ACT leads to much less action than if you are on your toes and LOOKING for…
Add to it the fact that to wait for YOUR PITCH is not saying the same thing as SWING AT STRIKES (just becauseyour pitch is a strike doesn’t make all strikes YOUR PITCH)
They are two different lessons and when you try and teach two lessons that are not totally in line with each other all you do is cause confusion and you can hardly expect a player to be successful and forfill the teaching when he is confused to what it is you REALLY want him to do!
And I see you seem to think that Hudgens only ever says whathe does to each player and never talks to the entire team at once….
Sure he treats Wright differently becauase Wright hits…
And you don’t fix what isn’t broken….
Yet they did try to fix what wasn’t broken with Harvey didn’t they?
How did that PHILISOPHICAL blanket work when tried on him?
So his influence on the hitting in 2011 was much less than the influence on the hitting in 2012
Wrong!
2010 they were a dreadful offense, 14th in OB% 13th in runs 13th in OPS and 12th in BB’s
2011 he immediately impacted their offense with his patiently aggressive approach that saw Reyes become a competely different hitter, having the best year of his career.
2011 they were 6th in the NL in runs scored, 2nd in OB% 6th in OPS and 1st in BB’s.
Matt was 100% correct when he said the Mets offense struggled the last 2 months of the season when they went away from their approach. The costant incorrect nonsense about the Mets being caught off guard by pitchers throwing more strikes is nothing but bullshit. Early in April they were looking at too many hittable pitches and that changed after Collins addressed it. At the Allstar break they were 4th in runs in the NL just a few runs short of 3rd place in runs scored so the approach was not the problem.
The problem was lack of talented hitters in the lineup that were succeeding in the first half because of that approach that they went away from in the 2nd half and ex Met GM said on Mad Dog Russo’s show that the reason why the Mets offense struggled in the first half was because they went away from the approach that made them one of the better offenses on the NL for the last year and a half.
The Redsox and Yankees made a mockery of AL pitching staffs using this same exact philosophy. MLB Umpire Joe West said he haited umpiring Yankee-Redsox games because their games last 4 hours long because every hitter in their lineups work pitchers to death. And Steve Phillips also said in that same interview with Mad Dog that the Redsox struggled offensively in 2012 because they too went away from their approach and PPPA.
The approach is fine it’s the hitters that need to change.
so Jose reyes success in 2011 was due t dave Hudgens? Are you really saying that? do you really believe? hmmmm. so now Jose is patient? how about he is a very good hitter who had a great year doing things he usually does
“so Jose reyes success in 2011 was due to dave Hudgens? Are you really saying that?”
No, Reyes’s success in 2011 was due to Reyes buying into and successfully practicing Hudgens’s teachings.
“how about he is a very good hitter who had a great year doing things he usually does”
If it was due to things he usually does, why was 2011 a career year?
http://www.nj.com/mets/index.ssf/2011/03/mets_shortstop_jose_reyes_aimi.html
““He’s an aggressive hitter,” hitting coach Dave Hudgens said. “He’s got an aggressive style in everything that he does.”
Then Hudgens provided an addendum to his assessment. The art of hitting relies on harnessed aggression, the ability to sift between balls and strikes, punishing mistakes and accepting walks when available. Discretion is necessary.”
“Hudgens preaches the value of a discerning eye. Avoid the “marginal” pitches, he explained, even if you can put them in play. Unload on the hittable ones. Accept the 90-foot jog to first base otherwise.
Reyes hears a similar message from his clubhouse neighbor, Luis Castillo, a player able to cull a .368 OBP in his career despite miniscule power.
“He tries to be aggressive all the time,” Castillo said. “I tell him, ‘Sometimes you have to be patient. Hit the pitches you want to hit.’”
“Beneath the shade of a batting cage, Mets coaches run drills designed to test Reyes’ eye. Hudgens tosses pitches outside the zone, hoping Reyes will pass. More than once, Hudgens remarked, Reyes has taken difficult pitches during spring games because he knew he could not drive them.
That is progress. Reyes believes in the process. Healthy and happy, he intends to produce.
Patiently.
“This is a new year,” Reyes said. “I’m 100 percent now. I believe my on-base percentage is going to be better. I truly believe that.”
And that’s how you win a batting title.
Xtreem I am not big on how much impact a hitting coach has. I lean toward the results be it good or bad going mostly to the hitter but that doesn’t mean that sometimes a hitting coach can’t play a small part in proving to be helpful or even detrimental at times. I can imagine sometimes helping a hitter is that of a trial and error at times with suggestions. Tinkering if you will trying to find what works best for that specific hitter.
In Reyes case here are some of what he said about his 2011 season.
“Before, I used to pull the ball a lot,” Reyes said. “But now, I hit more to left field and to the middle of the diamond. I think that’s helped me a lot. And to cut out my strikeouts too, that was huge.
“Now, I wait for my pitch. You’re going to swing at bad pitches because that’s the way it is, but I feel like I cut that out quite a bit.”
newyork.mets.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20110922&content_id=25078098&c_id=nym
Now here is something Hudgens said.
“We just go out there every day and do our routine, stay in the moment of what we’re doing,” Hudgens said. “We’ll talk about getting good balls to hit, staying with what their strength is. I just talk more about what they’re capable of doing instead of an overall philosophy. We established that and everybody bought into it in spring training.
“It boils down to getting a good pitch to hit. Why anybody would not want to get a good pitch to hit is beyond me. I’ve tried to poke holes in it, in my philosophy. I’m always trying to figure out, how can I do it a little bit better, how can I teach this a little bit better. But when you come down to it I don’t understand why anybody would disagree with getting a good ball to hit.”
northjersey.com/sports/125328813_Hudgens_key_to_Met-amorphosis.html?page=all
Reyes in my opinion should get the bulk of the credit for what he did in 2011 but by Reyes own words it appears that Hudgens may have helped in a small way as well.
I always gave Hudgens his credit for 2011…everyone but Wright and Bay seemed to be locked in at some point…
I still think that if Reyes was at SS and Tejada at 2B, Tejada would be even better defensively and offensively than he is now. the 2 had crazy chemistry up the middle and Tejada seemed to play little brother to Reyes. 2011 it seemed that Reyes and Beltran were the elder statesmen/leaders we always wanted them to be in 2006-2008…bittersweet
I agree. That why I said Reyes’s success is due to his acceptance and practice of what Hudgens was trying to teach him. Hudgens certainly wasn’t swinging the bat up there for Reyes.
I also find it interesting that Hudgens admits that there’s no one overall philosophy. Now I don’t know who to believe. The major league hitting coach, or the keyboard tough guys who think they know everything.
Hi Xtreem,
But please remember two things –
1) It wasn’t us keyboard guys who appeared in the broadcast booth and spoke about a correlation between a drop in hitting with a drop in PPPA and
2) it wasn’t us keyboard guys posing as a former major league pitcher who on a post-game show in May said the Mets were telegraphing the message to opposing teams that they weren’t going to be aggressive on the first pitch.
You’re giving us too much credit!
1) It was the general manager who A) forgot more baseball than the tough guys will ever know and B) still never mentioned anything about one overall philosophy
2) I’ll still take the opinions of a major league hitting coach over a one-time pitcher when it comes to hitting. If the two of them have opinions on why Santana fell off the earth when he did, I’ll gladly take Ojeda’s explanation. And what does telegraphing anything have to do with an overall philosophy?
And since you freely admit you think you know everything, tell us, did you glean all that info from one general answer to one general question during a five minute Q&A in which there were also other questions to be asked?
You know more than the team’s hitting coach based on that?
Hi Xtreem,
It was still the GM who was talking about TEAM pitches per plate appearance and TEAM hitting going down and that the TEAM needed to revert back to the way they were the first half when the TEAM had a higher PPPA (which was only one more pitch every 20 at bats which says something about how much the GM knows what he’s talking about).
But I really do not understand there being any conflict between Ojeda and Hudgins on their specific roles and knowledge. Ojeda is not a hitting coach – but he is a PITCHER who won 115 games in 15 seasons with a career 3.65 ERA so he does know something about PITCHING and what pitchers OBSERVE AND LOOK FOR in hitters. They know a batter’s weak points to exploit and his strong points to stay away from. Hitting is a battle between the pitcher and the batter – so the pitcher better be able to read the batter otherwise it’s a quick ticket out of the majors. And this is why they were able to read the “telegraph” that the Met batters were sending them.
Hi Xtreem,
Sorry but forgot to ask what your thoughts were regarding what Tony LaRussa said about the front office obsession with OBP and his overall thoughts about not taking pitches. It does appear that sounds different from what the Mets GM and batting coach are stressing.
Could you expand on what LaRussa said and where he might be wrong as opposed to Sandy and Dave?
Thanx
Look, I thank Ojeda for his huge 1986 season and the ring he helped win, but he averaged 10 wins a year and had a mediocre ERA in one of the worst offensive eras in baseball since the live ball. There’s a lot of other people I’d rather listen to talk about pitching, let alone listen to him talk about hitting.
You continually ignore the fact that the numbers that represent what actually happened instead of what he guessed happened completely fly in the face of what he “saw.”
As far as LaRussa goes, he’s 100% right, and he and Hudgens are saying the same thing. It’s a terrible idea to approach hitting expecting to take pitches and walk all the time, but astute fans know how absurd that is so I find it impossible to think any execs or coaches think that way.
“And the fact is that the guys that have the best on-base percentage are really dangerous hitters whenever they get a pitch in the strike zone.”
That’s exactly what Hudgen’s message is.
Really…How many Rings and Wins did you have when YOU played baseball and pray tell what was yourt ERA mr I’m an EXPERT but Mr Ring Wearing Ojeda is not?
I’m not an expert. And I didn’t pitch when I played.
Hi Xtreem,
I don’t think the attached shows the same approach is taken by the two, which many of us have noted and also the chances of one getting a pitch to hit as opposed to a pitch in the strike zone and how it affects the batter later in the count.
Dave: “Hunt your pitch…. “We want to do damage in the middle of the plate. If he doesn’t give you that pitch? We’re walking to first base.”
Tony: “You watch your productive hitters in the big leagues, and they get a chance to drive in a run, they look for the first good strike, and the better the pitching, especially this time of the year, you get that first strike, that may be the last one that you get to see. So you’d better be ready to swing early. It’s not sitting up there and taking strike one, strike two so that you can work the count.’’
There is a difference between “your pitch” and “first good strike”.
http://www.nj.com/mets/index.ssf/2012/03/mets_hitting_coach_dave_hudgen_1.html
Stats are fine for reference but one has to be very, very careful when using them to make changes in how the game is played and in-game strategy above what is already observed. Stats do not take in the physical and mental aspects of the people and the game itself.
Now you’re just trying to use backwards semantics. “First good strike” and “your pitch” to major league hitters are the same thing. If it’s not, then they’re not major league hitters to begin with. The point both men are making is that you swing at strikes and don’t swing at balls. There are always certain exceptions, but that’s the approach you should have with a bat in your hands.
Hi Xtreem,
A batter defines what his pitch is. And there is the conflict. By insisting one looks for a pitch in the middle of the plate, Hutchens is defining for them what their pitch is instead.
As I mentioned further down, it’s not so much being told not to swing on the first pitch as it is being told what type of pitch that has to be – one in the middle of the plate. The Mets should take each batter individually, determine where his hot and cold zones are along with the type of break and velocity he has trouble or can pounce on, etc. along with how he bats against the individual pitcher he is facing and then discuss how to work the pitch count from there.
“First good strike” and “your pitch” to major league hitters are the same thing.”
Thats a pile of crap and you know it!
Some guys like it on the outer half as THIER PITCH other like the inside half….
and a GOOD STRIKE isnt always something you like or CAN hit!
Inside Strikes on the black are almost impossible to drive and if the pitcher keeps throwing it there and you WAIT for whatever it is you think a GOOD STRIKE or YOUR PITCH is the only walking you will be doing is back to the dugout where eventually you’ll be wearing a golden sombrero because you showed the pitcher where your hole and weakness was!
Stop with the double talk. You know what I said, you just refuse to ackowledge it because it cuts your legs out.
“Inside Strikes on the black are almost impossible to drive and if the pitcher keeps throwing it there and you WAIT for whatever it is…”
No need to go further. That’s just blatant disregard what I said because you like to hear yourself yell. You swing at strikes. You watch the balls go by. That’s the principle. No one is watching strikes go by. You want to assume they are so your arguement holds water, but they don’t and it doesn’t.
Oh please you said GOOD STRIE which suggest there is a BAD STRIKE!
What does your wishy washy change a strike to mean anything depending on which way you got caught last say he should do on BAD strikes?
The ones that most players Can’t Hit and are being told to IGNORE in favor of one he DOES like to hit?
You are the side that is taking one thing said giving it three definitions in meaning and playing the old shell game whenever a point regarding ONE definition is exposed as having a flaw so you change to the next!
So if you want the DOUBLE speak to stop then stop moving the poles and the definition of what HUNT YOUR PITCH actually means….
So far we have at least THREE definitions of “YOUR PITCH”….
ANY STRIKE (Including Pitchers Pitches that are hard to drive aka Low Inside Or like that curveball Beltran missed in the playoffs)
Middle Strikes (Mistakes)
HIS PITCH which VARIES depending on the batter in question and his swing mechanics….
SO pick one and STICK to it and you will have accomplished your goal of stopping the double speak!
Wrong again. I said nothing about a “good strike.” That was your guy LaRussa, so I’ll guess you’ll start more double talk, since you just criticized the idea of a good strike forgetting that you were trying to defend the guy who said it. You’re the onw moving the goalposts everywhere. How far will you take this?
Oh, and can you remind me where I gave three different definitions of “your pitch?” Or is that more lies?
Yeah you never said it….
XtreemIcon February 27, 2013 at 9:10 pm .
Now you’re just trying to use backwards semantics. “First good strike” and “your pitch” to major league hitters are the same thing.
So sick of your antics really it’s boring and predictable….If you can’t debate without lying and contradicting without getting caught just stop trying and let the rest of us who don’t need to lie get one in peace!
So pick which of the three definitions of YOUR PITCH you believe in….
Go on and CLARIFY what it is you think Hudgens is telling them to look for….
Then show a quote from Hudgens that proves his meaning is the SAME as YOUR meaning….
Cause if he really meant ANY STRIKE he would say HUNT FOR STRIKES!
why would he change it to PERSONALIZED PITCH?
Because what HE MEANS isn’t really what YOU THINK!
And I bet a LOT of players are struggling over that command as much as we are here in defining exactly what they are supposed to do!
You’re a huge mess. Notice I put them in quotes? That’s because Joey D. asked me to weigh in on what LaRussa and Hudgens each said. So I QUOTED THEM. You need to stop chasing your tail. When I’m around to see it, you’ll never, ever catch it.
Yes everyone is a mess but the guy who can’t answer a simple question…
DEFINE YOUR PITCH as Hudgens does….
You THINK you know….You think it is EVERY STRIKE!
Hence your reply to Joey….
Is EVERY STRIKE YOUR PITCH?
And if so why doesn’t Hudgens just say Swing at Strikes instead of YOUR PITCH?
Isn’t that a clearer lesson if what you think is true?
LaRussa has it dead right! Hudgens is the one who people have questions abut because none of you can seem to explain his choice of words,,,,
And play the old shell game with the meaning to fit your embarassment at the moment.
“It boils down to getting a good pitch to hit. Why anybody would not want to get a good pitch to hit is beyond me. I’ve tried to poke holes in it, in my philosophy. I’m always trying to figure out, how can I do it a little bit better, how can I teach this a little bit better. But when you come down to it I don’t understand why anybody would disagree with getting a good ball to hit.”
Well, sure you want a good ball to hit, but one potentially problematic issue with the selective “attack the zone” approach, is that with a player who thrives off of being aggressive and hacking away it could compromise his development if you ask him to consciously veer away from his strength. Kirk is one such player. Yes, ideally you’d want to limit the number of players like this on your roster, but every good lineup has one or two hackers thrown in the mix — and you need that, again if only to keep opposing pitchers honest. You wouldn’t want to impose your patience principles on these players with too much veracity because it could throw them off their game. I think that’s what happened with Kirk last year. Also, you wouldn’t want to keep players like this off your team on principle alone, if a young Vladimir Guerrero comes around i would hope the Mets have the sense to snatch him up.
And I believe they do, in comments made a couple of days ago DePo as much as said that not everyone is tailor made for the approach as instituted organizationally:
“We espouse patience, but I’m not sure how naturally patient all of us are. When I talk — me and JP and John and Sandy — we’re sort of accustomed to high expectations, and I think that’s still the case now. So, yeah, it can be — weighing the short term and the long term is always difficult.” Paul DePotesta.
http://www.amazinavenue.com/2013/2/25/4026790/new-york-mets-paul-depodesta-spring-training-interview
If they’re going to do that than just drop the organizational philosophy aspect of it altogether. You don’t know if that pushes players away from wanting to come here too. If you were a successful major leaguer would YOU want to come to a team that preaches a one-size fits all philosophy? – but with exceptions now? Just drop the philosophy angle and work with players on case by case basis like it’s always been done and as it should be done.
What if a player doesn’t want to play here because of it, unless of course they throw millions of dollars at him
Matt I do not believe he is telling his guys to not be aggressive rather he is telling them to be aggressive in the strike zone instead. I have yet to read or see anywhere that he is telling his guys to not be aggressive. Just to add to all the articles already added here are 2 videos where Hudgens again says he is not telling his guys to take a pitch and he states he would hope his guys would not be passive. He also talks about how he has worked with Thole in him needing to understand where he hits the ball the best and understanding his strike zone and attacking those pitches.
http://web.sny.tv/media/video.jsp?content_id=24089525&topic_id=&tcid=vpp_copy_24089525&v=3
Michael Young is another one who rarely walks.
I would go it a step further and say there’s nothing wrong with having an organizational philosophy as long as there’s ROOM for players who aren’t perfect fits … especially when you consider that these free swingers can sometimes really strike fear into opposing pitchers because they are so unpredictable and hard to pitch to.
“is that with a player who thrives off of being aggressive and hacking away it could compromise his development”
Your talking about an extreme going the other way of Passive….
When the problem is ANY EXTREME Passive/Aggressive is exploitable by the Pitcher!
This is the problem we are talking about!
Being Aggressive doesn’t mean go up there HACKING any more than Passive means keeping your bat on your shoulder and taking every pitch!
What we are talking about is there are MANY counts/Situations where you pretty much know before the ball even leaves the Pitchers hand what his intention is on throwing a ball and a strike.
On a 3-0 count he is going to throw a strike and a pretty damn good one in most cases because he doesn’t want to walk you. If he does he throws it the same as an intentional where you couldn’t possibly swing at it.
You also have a higher than 50% chance at seeing a strike in the first two pitches because a Pitcher does not want to start a PA behind and put into that situation where you KNOW the next pitch is going to be a strike! They will try to sneak a fat pitch by you on the first pitch of the PA. To hit it means do NOT be patient but POUNCE (Aggressive).
If the pitcher misses on the first pitch (1-0 Count) you can damn well be sure he is going to try and throw a Strike the next pitch because he sure doesn’t want to go 2-0 on a batter and set up a potential 3-0. (Again AGGRESSIVE instead of Passive is the best approach in that count)
What many of us are trying to say here is SITUATIONAL HITTING is better than PHILISOPHICAL APPROACH!
Aggressive Counts
0-0 (this depends on scouting of Pitcher and can also be a Passive Count if he does not like to throw FPK)
1-0
2-0
2-1
3-0
3-1
Passive Counts
0-0 (see above)
0-1
1-1
Defensive Counts
0-2
1-2
2-2
3-2
As you can see the PASSIVE “WAIT” command is only valid in two or three Count situations.
All the other counts are aggressive meaning your looking to take a swing not just for some type of pitch because a Strike is a the most likely thing coming.
And the remainder are all DEFENSIVE in that you have two strikes and can’t wait for YOUR PITCH or a MISS. It is IMPERATIVE in those situations to PROTECT the plate not just from a pitcher who nails the corner but from the Umpire who will call a strike on a pitch that missed but called because it was close enough to call!
If some consistent INFALLIBLE COMPUTER was calling balls and strikes and NEVER called a pitch Just off the black a strike then this APPROACH of waiting might actually work…
Then you could only swing at strikes because they ARE strikes and not swing at Balls because some guy is not going to call a ball a strike and this storybook PHILOSOPHY might work….
No more mind you than the situational hitting I mentioned above though…
No matter what the philosophy is it really doesn’t matter….What is happening DOES.
And preaching PASSIVE APPROACH is killing them in situations where AGGRESSIVE is called for!
Just like ANY extreme in one way or the other it is WRONG!
As for PPPA (which is just bunk as far as what the approach actually used is) you can extend a PA much longer by protecting the plate than you EVER will by waiting for the Pitcher to fail!
You don’t wait for your car to start you turn the key!
You want to get a result in a PA you should do something to make it happen not WAIT for something to happen!
By telling them to be aggressive only in the strikezone, Hudgens is, by definition, asking them NOT to be aggressive outside the strikezone, and for some players that’s tough. It may seem silly to allow for a player to be aggressive on bad pitches, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen Guerrero golf a ball off his shoestrings into the stands. Reyes for that matter had a knack for golfing breaking pitches outside the strike zone. Again, for the vast majority of players (Reyes is a case-in-point) the approach helps, but for others, asking them to ignore pitches out of the strikezone may compromise their natural inclination to hack at everything thereby curtailing their aggressiveness. When that aggressiveness is at the core of their success, you run a big risk. Fortunately I don’t think there are a lot of hitters that fall into this category (Cameron, Edmunds, Cruz, Guerrero), but there are some fearsome hitters out there who rattle pitchers precisely because it almost doesn’t matter where they throw the ball, they can reach out and club it, and I think Kirk may be (or used to be) one of them.
Not much more I can add to this discussion. We will have to agree to disagree. I believe the approach based on everything I have seen up to now is to be aggressive in the strike zone as much as possible by hunting for your pitch and not the pitchers pitch and learning to minimize being aggressive outside the strike zone. Reyes was the best example of a player that benefited from this. I respect you feel differently and therefore I’ll just leave it at that.
Then just drop the concept of the organizational philosophy altogether and work on players on a case by case basis.
There are a lot of hitting coaches that subscribe to the notion that being more selective is the thing that separates major league hitters from minor league “mistakes” hitters, not just Hudgens. I couldn’t agree more, however, about some players not fitting with organizational expectations, for those players you simply have to let them be more aggressive. The “party line” argument might be something along the lines of the vast majority of hitters improving (overall) as a result of becoming more selective — it should be obvious by now that this administration deals in the aggregate almost exclusively — but there are always outliers and you have to individualize for those special cases. Nevertheless, pitch recognition is everything, if a major leaguer can guess fastball and it’s in the zone, he’ll crush it 7 out of 10 times.
Hudgens wants hitters to be aggressvie Matt he just wants them to be aggressive with pitches in the K-Zone. He doesn’t want hitters getting themselves out ala Jeff Francouer who swings at pitches 3 feet outside. He doesn’t want hitters taking meatballs down the middle as some here seem to think his philosphy is. He want his hitters to attack, not be passive. Teir are some passive hitters but that’s not Hudgens fault. Duda was a passive hitter all through the minors. It’s up to the hittter to be aggressive. Hudgens can’t swing the bat for them.
From Tony LaRussa:
“On-base percentage is one of the most dangerous concepts of the last seven, eight years because it forces some executives and coaches and players to think that it’s all about getting on base by drawing walks. And the fact is that the guys that have the best on-base percentage are really dangerous hitters whenever they get a pitch in the strike zone.
“So if the pitcher knows that and the catcher knows that, they work the edges, and pretty soon it’s 2-and-1, 2-and-1 rather than 0-and-1 all the time.
“You watch your productive hitters in the big leagues, and they get a chance to drive in a run, they look for the first good strike, and the better the pitching, especially this time of the year, you get that first strike, that may be the last one that you get to see. So you’d better be ready to swing early. It’s not sitting up there and taking strike one, strike two so that you can work the count.’’
I said before that one of the problems with Ike Davis was that he was laying off the first pitch.
Ike Davis lead the league in first pitch home runs, with 12 which shows that there cannot be a team approach to hitting enforced for all to follow. Ike was forcedto take pitches that he would normally hack at, and along with that valley fever it completely messed him up in the first half.
Also, he was not bad as a first pitch swinger hitting .275:
You do realize that stats do not backup your premise correct? Never mind. Who needs those thingies?
Also, the approach isn’t to take pitches to start with. It’s to hunt your pitch. If that’s on the first pitch? Swing away. Most likely, it won’t be.
Hi TR,
Not my premise – LaRussa’s.
Also, he was talking about hitting approach and how to get that pitch and the game of cat and mouse that goes on between the pitcher and batter. The fact that the better hitters are going to be aggressive if the first pitch is hitable puts a pitcher on-guard.
Are there any stats anywhere that can show how a hitter got himself set up for a good second or third pitch just by the pitcher not taking for granted that he was going to lay off the first one because he was nibbling the corners?
That’s the point that LaRussa made.
No I am talking about your premise on Ike.
HI Tr,
I’ll try finding the articles which quoted TC saying he gave Ike permission to go ahead and swing on the first pitch if he felt he could hit it, instead of laying off pitches he thought were hittable in which he wasn’t doing the first two months of the year. TC noted that Ike had been an aggressive first pitch swinger since high school and trying to change his approach was trying to make him a different-type hitter. I’ll look for it though I know it was posted last summer by me. Will be tough to find but will try.
Oh I remember the article. That has nothing to do with him saying screw the approach though.
Try this one though:
http://realdirtymets.com/2012/05/27/can-ike-davis-success-of-late-simply-be-due-to-swinging-early-i-wouldnt-go-that-far/
Great now show the chart for June and show us it was his taking of the first pitch (noted mostly fastballs) that made his success?
Man, I remember all the time it took to pull all that info for that post. But it was worth it cause it showed this misconceived notion that somehow Ike was not swinging at the 1st pitch.
Ike was not forced to take pitches he would normally hack at. I already disproved this the last time you tried this nonsense with stats that show he swung at more first pitches and more strikes than he did in 2011 and 2010. I don’t care what TC says. Numbers don’t lie.
And every time you try to disprove my “nonsense” you get caught in only picking out certain aspects you want to point out, avoiding important facets that prove you are simply have a personal vendetta or ax to grind and nothing more.
I still remember you insisted Branch Rickey used his own form of advanced statistical analysis most all his career as Dodger GM, even attaching an article which he had written himself to prove it. Well, it appeared as if you didn’t even read the article. Rickey himself opened up writing that he had been approached by the magazine a short time back to see if certain beliefs taken as truths could be proved through mathematical calculation. That was his first dabble – and it came at the tail end of his final season with Brooklyn – not most of his entire career – so much for your claim about my “nonsense” on that one.
And specifically with Ike Davis and Sandy Alderson, I pointed out that an example of Sandy not being a professional baseball person was when asked what he saw wrong with Ike he said he couldn’t offer an opinion for he was only an observer – unlike players who were giving their insights as to what Ike was doing wrong. So what did you do to disprove my “nonsense”? You quote Rusty Staub as saying he did not know what was wrong with Ike and could not offer an opinion, either. Well, I found that article you referred to and pointed out that Rusty was giving a lot of detail as to what he was seeing wrong with Ike at the plate -and that he specifically said he could not give an opinion as to what the METS SAW WHAT WAS WRONG WITH IKE BECAUSE HE DID NOT KNOW WHAT THEY WERE DOING TO HELP STRAIGHTEN HIM OUT. You then called yourself a “man” by admitting you made a mistake which was impossible – what Rusty said could not have been misunderstood and you indeed twisted his own words about being unable to offer an opinion and not knowing what was wrong with Ike to make it appear he was no different than Sandy.
And when I said TC told Ike he could go back to being more aggressive on the first pitch, I referred to it in terms of allowing Ike to feel more comfortable at the plate because that had been his approach since high school –
“TC noted that Ike had been an aggressive first pitch swinger since high school and trying to change his approach was trying to make him a different-type hitter.”
That means by allowing it to be his own decision on what to do on the first pitch instead of having to abide by certain rules set forth by the organization, Ike was allowed to be himself.
It has nothing to do with stats – it had everything to do with just being allowed to be himself without having to worry about going against the manager and his coach.
And the fact that he had 12 first pitch homers and hit .275 on the first pitch in 2012.
Oh, and one other thing you left out was that he only played in 36 games in 2011 so to compare such a small portion of stats against a full season is again leaving out important pieces of information that distorts the truth.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?id=davisik02&year=&t=b
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=8433&position=1B#pfxplatediscipline
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=8433&position=1B#platediscipline
“And every time you try to disprove my “nonsense” you get caught in only picking out certain aspects you want to point out, avoiding important facets that prove you are simply have a personal vendetta or ax to grind and nothing more.”
No I have no personal vendetta at all. I have no ax to grind at all. I just don’t like when people try to pass off their opinions as cold hard facts. There are so many examples of this and we’ve been over it numerous times. You are wrong so often it’s too difficult to not call you out on.
I showed you the statistics that prove you were wrong about Ike Davis being forced to take first pitch strikes. No hitter is forced to take hittable pitches. Whether he played 36 games in 2011 or 136 games is irrelevent. His swing percentages are what’s relevent and his swing percentages at both pitches in and out of the strikezone were higher in 2012 than both 2010 and 2011. He SWUNG at more pitches. He also took less 1st pitch strikes, swung at more 1st pitch strikes What was lower was his contact percentages with pitches both in and out of the strikezone so that proves you are wrong about Ike being forced to take pitches he would normally hack at. I guess the reason why you’re so anti statistics is because of all the times it proves how wrong you are. And BTW he played in 147 games in 2010 and he took ore strikes and overall pitches so the fact he played in only 36 games in 2011 means nothing. he was on pace percentage wise to have lower swing percentages regardless.
What I said was that Branch was the first executive to rely on statistics going back to his years with St Louis. He was the one who said OB% and Slug% were way more important than batting avg. Those statistical formulas which were created with Brooklyn later on don’t change the fact and it is a fact that Rickey relied on statistical data many years before any other baseball executive.
http://books.google.com/books?id=9FMEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PA78#v=onepage&q&f=false
“As the man who led the St Louis Cardinals to 6 NL Pennants and the Brooklyn Dodgers 2, Branch Rickey currently General Manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates is one of the brainiest and most successful executive. He was among the first to use such revolutionary practices such as the farm sytem and mass tryout camp, the first executive to see thevalue of using baseball statistics in putting together and running his teams. NOW HE DEVELOPED another approach which LIFE represents here.”
You fail to see as usual what the original point was which was that Branch Rickey was an avid user of statistical analysis by dancing around the subject with your semantics because you can’t admit you don’t have the slightest idea as to what you’re talking about when it comes to statistics.
And again with your stupid point about Sandy not being a baseball person pecause he didn’t know what was wrong with Ike. That proves he’s not qualified to be a hitting coach, it does not mean he’s not a baseball person. If you had any sort of baseball knowledge yourself you’d see that. It’s amazing that Connor who’s in high schools runs circles around you who’s been a fan since 62.
Forgot to thank you for another irrelevent link. Thanks for Ikes 2012 splits. Don’t know why you would show me his splits which have nothing to do with taking pitches.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/davisik02-bat.shtml#batting_pitches::none
You should be looking at this one.
Fonzie:” No hitter is forced to take hittable pitches.”
Dave: “Hunt your pitch…. “We want to do damage in the middle of the plate. If he doesn’t give you that pitch? We’re walking to first base”
There is more to the strike zone than the MIDDLE of the plate. A good hitter has to be able to go with pitches that are on the corners. But Dave says “If he doesn’t give you that pitch? We’re walking to first base”. As LaRussa said:
“look for the first good strike, and the better the pitching, especially this time of the year, you get that first strike, that may be the last one that you get to see.”
——
“He was among the first to use such revolutionary practices such as the farm sytem and mass tryout camp, the first executive to see thevalue of using baseball statistics in putting together and running his teams. NOW HE DEVELOPED another approach which LIFE represents here.”
Yes, Rickey is in the hall of fame for his innovations – but even though the magazine said he was the first who found value in stats, I have mentioned to you before about understanding exaggeration when it comes to writing as the third person for often authors overstate or stretch the truth to emphasize a point to paint a clearer picture. That is why I prefer using quotes from the first person, so there is no game of broken telephone.
Yes, Rickey and Allen Roth developed the OBP. However, as I have pointed out in the past, it did not CHANGE anything as far as how the team then approached getting on base more than getting on with a hit. Roth came on board in 1947, but if you want to go by STATS this chart will show you, the Dodger OBP range in 1947 – the year that Roth came on board, the range was already 92 points. The year before Roth was hired, that range was 88 ponts. The year before that the range was 78 points. The difference is only 14 more times getting to first base in 1,000 plate appearances, or 1.4 ever 100 plate appearances, or once approximately every two games. There was no change in the way the Dodgers were run because of it, only the perception of the importance of one stat over the other. It did not change the Dodger approach.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/LAD/batteam.shtml
Now, Wikipedia says this about Roth:
Allan Roth was the first full-time statistician in baseball history. He was hired by Branch Rickey in 1947 after he kept statistics for the minor league Montreal Royals.
With Rickey, Roth promoted the idea that on-base percentage was more important than batting average. He also was the first to give statistical evidence that right handed batters hit better against left handed pitchers than righthanders.
So what if Roth gave statistical evidence about this? He made no discovery. He only proved what many managers already knew. Read the attached:
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/152445-platooning-and-left-handed-hitters
And finally:
“You fail to see as usual what the original point was which was that Branch Rickey was an avid user of statistical analysis by dancing around the subject with your semantics because you can’t admit you don’t have the slightest idea as to what you’re talking about when it comes to statistics.”
What you do not see is my contention that what is seen in statistics had already been appreciated by those who were in the game and did not need them.
So, it seems you should do some investigation and understand that the things you claim came about through the study of statistics was well known and appreciated by many long before that time. That is the point – that has always been my point.
Also, LaRussa himself who pointed out the dangers of using stastical analysis when it came to OBP.
Yes, I don’t have the slightest idea of what I’m talking about.
I will focus on the top because who wants to read the rest?
“There is more to the strike zone than the MIDDLE of the plate. A good hitter has to be able to go with pitches that are on the corners. But Dave says “If he doesn’t give you that pitch? We’re walking to first base”. As LaRussa said:
“look for the first good strike, and the better the pitching, especially this time of the year, you get that first strike, that may be the last one that you get to see.””
That is actually saying about the same thing. What do you think a good strike is?
Are you saying that early in the count a hitter should swing at any strike even if it’s a pitch that he can only foul off or produce a grounder to 2B? Early in the count you can be more selective, as the AB changes you may have to adjust.
HI Trs,
There are balls that are obviously hittable that do not have to be over the plate. Hitters have to be able to pull the inside pitch or slice the outside one away from them to the opposite field. Frenchy was a wild swinger and needed to be taught how to lay off bad pitches which is different from the point we are talking about. No batter should try to swing at a pitcher’s pitch if it’s going to be a strike but awfully hard to hit (unless protecting himself with two strikes) but if he gets one he thinks he has a shot of driving, that was the point LaRussa was making. Not a pitcher’s strike, but a batter’s strike.
That is not the point made by Dave. Hudgens specified “middle” of the plate, not for a batter to be alert for the pitch comes into his specific hot zone. And we also know the one thing pitchers want to avoid at all costs is throwing something down the middle of the plate for those are pitches that batters can pounce on – although as we saw with Beltran, a ball can start high up and break right over the middle at the last minute and freeze a batter too.
Again, pitchers are going to avoid that at all cost.
Misinformed. You need to do a little more reading on what Hudgens is actually teaching. He has a lot of videos out there.
HI TRS,
How can one be misinformed when he is quoting in full what people said and attaches the complete articles so not to appear anything was taken out of context?
Dave said: “Hunt your pitch…. “We want to do damage in the middle of the plate. If he doesn’t give you that pitch? We’re walking to first base.”
LaRussa countered with: “look for the first good strike, and the better the pitching, especially this time of the year, you get that first strike, that may be the last one that you get to see.””
zone.”
Now, these two quotes have nothing to do with helping an individual player with his swing, stance, timing. positioning himself in the batters box, etc. They instead deal with philosophy on what type of pitches to “hunt” for. LaRussa talks about the pitch the batter thinks he can hit while Dave talks about looking for a pitch in the middle.
Again, we are on the subject of a taught philosophy, not taught mechanics.
Q “What do you think a good strike is?”
A Any pitch the Umpire will call a strike on!
Kudos Joey for pointing out that not EVERY strike is a fat pitch to hit. It should also be noted that not every strike is HIS PITCH where the batter is concerned….
The problem with this entire argument here is there are a few “DEFENDERS” who are not discussing what happened just what they THINK the Approach is…They don’t REALLY know and the quotes they pull from Hudgens doesn’t seem jive with what they think the Approach is…..
And they keep talking about the Alleged approach to get away from talking about what is ACTUALLY HAPPENING on the field!
The issues here is not what you think Hudgens believes or is trying to teach… it is about if the lessons being taught are being conveyed properly, followed and showing up in the PAs of the team.
“If words of command are not clear and distinct, if orders are not thoroughly understood, the general is to blame. But if his orders are clear, and the soldiers nevertheless disobey, then it is the fault of their officers.” Sun Tzu
No matter what you think Hudgens intent is it really doesn’t matter! What does it what the PLAYERS think his intent is! How they translate the orders and implement them!
And if the lesson is Swing at fat strikes/Your Pitch (I wish you guys would pick one) and if it doesn’t come take the walk (to first base or the dugout take your pick again) can very easily be misinterpreted and guys will take strikes WAITING for that FAT/YOUR Pitch that may never come!
And as Joey so correctly pointed out if they nibble the corners on you or throw strikes in locations you do not like to hit you will only be walking to that dugout and eventually to the Minor League shuttle bus!
Now can we stop with the subterfuge of what the Approach is supposed to be and get back on the topic MattB TRIED to address…ARE THE PLAYERS FOLLOWING IT? Are they Swinging at strikes and taking balls? Are they PASSIVE or AGGRESSIVE at the plate?
And do it by looking at the stats of the EARLY COUNTS of an AB not the stats of the entire PA which really tells you nothing about WHEN they decided to swing at pitches…
Just that at some point they did!
Hi Metsie,
Hey, thanks so much for the kind words.
To be honest, I don’t see how there can be any discrepancy on this subject. Hudgens specifically talks about hunting for a pitch in the middle while LaRussa says hunt for the pitch one thinks he can hit – especially with no guarantee that one will ever get another pitch that could be hit well.
Thus, it’s not a matter of the Mets being told not to swing at the first pitch – it’s a matter of being told to hunt for the pitch that is more toward the middle of the plate. By doing so, the pitchers either picked up on this or heard it blurted out by Bob Ojeda (who was thus then revealing state secrets LOL) and knew that instead of nibbling with a deceptive pitch that might break outside the strike zone, they could come in with a corner pitch in or away for a quick first strike knowing the hitters were not going to nible at it.
It should always be a matter of taking the pitch if the batter believes he needs to lay off of it.
Now, the attached from early 2011 is a great example of how advanced statistical analysis can be used – but it must be noted that even in this case, it is not providing information that could not be ascertained by players and coaches as it is compiling that information in a more efficient and precise manner. That includes BABIP which is simply providing more precision information on how well he hits the ball in relation to the pitches he swings at thus not replacing the traditional way of studying a batter as it is using the advantage of automation (like the advantage players in the sixites had with lots of video tape as opposed to players from decades before who had a limited amount of film stock to refer to).
http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2011/5/3/2148121/an-early-look-at-ike-davis-2011-plate-approach
We see how Ike loves pitches in the middle of the plate and that is where he really can cream a pitch. And thus the author then raises the valid point: “the true test for him will be how pitchers adjust going forward. He can count on pitchers to keep pounding him low and away. The key question is will Ike lay off or at least do more with those pitches than he’s down so far?”
So it does make sense that Ike can’t just hunt for the middle of the plate pitch that Hudgens would want him to because he’s not going to see it all that often and that to continue to grow as a hitter he is going to have to learn how to better hit other types of pitches and expand his hot zone.
So that is why I don’t understand the whole concept of hunting for a certain type of pitch regardless of who you are or who is pitching. That was part of the message Ojeda said the Mets were telegraphing to opposing teams.
Sandy Alderson has to take his share of the responsibility for this with his emphasis on OBP, as explained by LaRussa and the other pieces of information we have come across.
Well Joey the real issue is there are MANY MORE types of pitches than those being discussed….
Sure there is the Pitch you LIKE to hit, what that is varies from batter to batter…
Then there is the Pitch you CAN hit (Mostly strikes but not ALL Strikes)
Then there are the Pitches you CAN’T HIT yet are still Strikes! Just about anything high or inside black of the zone….
And by telling someone to wait for a GOOD pitch they are going to give the Pitcher that Inside zone which requires you to be AGGRESSIVE to protect that inside part of the plate!
You have to be ready to turn on it if they bust you inside with a fastball on the black, if not you foul it down the opposite field baseline….
There is NO ONE SIZE FITS ALL approach that works for every pitcher, every countm every situation or even every Batter!
What they should be coached to do is individually be told what pitch and location is the best to hit FOR their swing and mechanics. If they know what it is they might at least know what to look for, what to pounce on.
Or coached to tell them what to do with the inside pitch, where to go with the outside pitch (going with the pitch), How to anticipate what pitch might be coming so you can identify where it is likely to wind up in relation to the Strike zone so you can act accordingly.
Not this just ASSUME a fat pitch is coming so wait for it!
And Like I said if they put more focus on PROTECTING the plate with 2Ks on them the way Tejada and Murphy do so well then it really wouldn’t matter so much what they do on the first three pitches because they can stop the pitcher from punching them out until such tme as that fat pitch or mistake gets sent to them!
HI Metsie,
Would you say my comments aren’t so bad for one who has been told that he has such little knowledge of baseball that high schoolers can run circles around me even though I’ve been a fan since 62 ?
The only mistake you may have made that I can see is entering into conversations with those High School kids who always thing they know more than more experienced adults until Life comes and slaps them in the face and teaches them a BIG Lesson!
Anyone who thinks a SYSTEM or PHILOSOPHY works obviously doesn’t know what the hell they are talking about….
Ask any General and he will say the plan is valid right up until the first shot is fired and then the situation changes and your plan must follow! If not you will be defeated!
Las Vegas makes BILLIONS of dollars a year on people who go there and think a SYSTEM/PHILOSOPHY is logical and cant lose!
To Succeed you have to know that each second is it’s own situation, Past events may give hints to future occurrances but they are HINTS not facts!
A Problem many here on this site simply do NOT get!
Also the key reason why Statistical analysis doesn’t work for prediction just Historical perspective!
Hi Metsie,
I think the problem might also be going through a stage we all go through at one time or another is thinking we suddenly discovered something that those before us didn’t know.
I’m not so much against advanced statistical analysis as it their mis-use. As you were able to tell, I got a lot more insight about Ike Davis and his hitting strengths through such advanced methods, however, two things 1) I needed that information more than the professionals who could see this just be watching Ike hit on a regular basis, and 2) the information was not new as it was compiled.
It’s when I see the attempt to re-invent the game and rewrite history based on perceptions gained by stats is where I draw the line. The appreciation of OBP, for example, is for fans. Getting on base other than a hit was never under-emphasized – the additional percentage of getting on base has in no way been higher the past few decades than most other times the past eighty years or so (dead ball era was an entirely different set of circumstances). And, as LaRussa pointed out, the better hitters are going to be pitched around more.
In relation to that, I know this is repeating myself but this is so typical: Brian Kenny insisting that a player with a low BA but high OBP should be moved from 8th lead off and then being told by Larry Bowa and Mitch Williams that the hitter in question would never see the same pitches batting on top than he is on the bottom.
Another example of re-writing history is when Yogi Berra was deemed as having a very good 1957 – by using saber stats comparing him to the rest of the league’s backstops that year. All that meant was that Berra had a very good year compared to others – but not that Yogi had a very good year compared to his own self.
First step on the path to ignorance is thinking you know it all and have nothing to learn!
A Genius learns something new everyday!
And he sure doesn’t belittle someone who is trying to make him think about alternatives….
Because thinking is FREE it costs nothing!
You wouldn’t turn down free money why turn down the opportunity for free ideas?
Joey D. February 27, 2013 at 10:31 am .
Fonzie:” No hitter is forced to take hittable pitches.”
Dave: “Hunt your pitch…. “We want to do damage in the middle of the plate. If he doesn’t give you that pitch? We’re walking to first base”
There is more to the strike zone than the MIDDLE of the plate. A good hitter has to be able to go with pitches that are on the corners. But Dave says “If he doesn’t give you that pitch? We’re walking to first base”. As LaRussa said:
“look for the first good strike, and the better the pitching, especially this time of the year, you get that first strike, that may be the last one that you get to see.”
Nothing here states that hitters are being forced to take hittable pitches. You simply have no understanding of what is being said and what Hudgens is trying to get across to the hitters. Not surprised at all though.
“He was among the first to use such revolutionary practices such as the farm sytem and mass tryout camp, the first executive to see thevalue of using baseball statistics in putting together and running his teams. NOW HE DEVELOPED another approach which LIFE represents here.”
“Yes, Rickey and Allen Roth developed the OBP. However, as I have pointed out in the past, it did not CHANGE anything as far as how the team then approached getting on base more than getting on with a hit. Roth came on board in 1947, but if you want to go by STATS this chart will show you, the Dodger OBP range in 1947 – the year that Roth came on board, the range was already 92 points. The year before Roth was hired, that range was 88 ponts. The year before that the range was 78 points. The difference is only 14 more times getting to first base in 1,000 plate appearances, or 1.4 ever 100 plate appearances, or once approximately every two games. There was no change in the way the Dodgers were run because of it, only the perception of the importance of one stat over the other. It did not change the Dodger approach”
Again more examples of you proving you have no simple understanding of what Rickey was preaching. None of those numbers you just wasted your time posting has any relevance whatsover. Going back to the original point from when I first tried to explain to you that baseball people do indeed rely on stats which you try and refute because of your Sandy Alderson hard on. Branch Rickey was one of the first and he was a baseball person. It did not change their approach to getting on base more? Are you serious with this ridiculous comment. How about they led the league in walks almost every year if not 1st in the top 3. Why don’t you look up Brooklyns offensive statistics for the years Rickey was their GM from 43-50. Every year except 2 they were 1st in OB% 1st in runs, 1st in OPS. The only 2 years they didn’t come in 1st they were 3rd. You once again have proven you not only lack baseball knowledge you bring up points that have zero relevance to the discussion.
I won’t even get into the Allan Roth point because it has no relevance. He was hired by Rickey not the other way around. He was hired as a statistician. Makes no difference what year he was hired it doesn’t tell you that Rickey wasn’t already using atatistics to mold his teams.
“You fail to see as usual what the original point was which was that Branch Rickey was an avid user of statistical analysis by dancing around the subject with your semantics because you can’t admit you don’t have the slightest idea as to what you’re talking about when it comes to statistics.”
What you do not see is my contention that what is seen in statistics had already been appreciated by those who were in the game and did not need them. Any a fool would believe that statistics were not needed. Maybe that’s why Rickey’s teams were ahead of his peers. Duh!
And you’re using bleacher report as some sort of evidence now. LMAO.. Platoons that began with John McGraw had nothing to do with Branch Rickey’s innocations regarding statistical data IE OB%, Slug% which is what Rickey was doing long before anyone else. More irrelevant nonsense.
Also, LaRussa himself who pointed out the dangers of using stastical analysis when it came to OBP.
What LaRussa was pointing out was saying that there’s a misconception about OB%. People think it’s about drawing walks but it’s about being a dangerous hitter. He’s exactly right and that’s what advocates of OB%% have been trying to get across the fools who disregard OB% as an important stat. That’s what he meant about the dangers of the moneyball philosphy not the use of statistical analysis. You should reread things an extra 15-20 times so it’s possible you can one day understand what the heck you’re talking about. Or maybe you should just fail to mention statistics at all and save yourself the embarassment.
Yes, I don’t have the slightest idea of what I’m talking about! I’m glad you have finally come to grips with this.
“Nothing here states that hitters are being forced to take hittable pitches. You simply have no understanding of what is being said and what Hudgens is trying to get across to the hitters. Not surprised at all though.”
- From Dave Hutchins: We want to hit these 13 inches in the middle”.
Going back to the original point from when I first tried to explain to you that baseball people do indeed rely on stats which you try and refute because of your Sandy Alderson hard on. Branch Rickey was one of the first and he was a baseball person. It did not change their approach to getting on base more?
- No. Providing statistical evidence to prove something that is already known by those inside the game does not change any approach. It changes the understanding of the fan as explained below – once again.
“And you’re using bleacher report as some sort of evidence now. LMAO.. Platoons that began with John McGraw had nothing to do with Branch Rickey’s innocations regarding statistical data IE OB%, Slug% which is what Rickey was doing long before anyone else. More irrelevant nonsense.”
- The average batter has had an OBP range above batting average between 65 and 75 points most every year. Even in 1930, the year of the “lively ball” when the average batter hit .296 – the highest single season average ever and thus hitters were swinging more than ever, that OBP range was still 60 points. In 1949, the range was the highest at 81. That amounts to two more reaching first other than a hit every 100 plate appearances. It didn’t change the way the game was played or understood by those on the field.
- Rickey and Roth are credited as being the first to give statistical evidence that right handed batters hit better against left handed pitchers than righthanders. That McGraw and others already knew this and incorporated it into their managing is irrelevant – It is more important to recognize the “statistical evidence” was later discovered Rickey and Roth.
“Again more examples of you proving you have no simple understanding of what Rickey was preaching. None of those numbers you just wasted your time posting has any relevance whatsover.”
Your take is that the use of advanced statistical analysis had changed the approach and the way the game had been played and understood is wrong. Those irrelevant numbers and the historical information appearing in “bleacher report” shows that what Rickey was preaching was not a new discovery or not appreciated by those in the game in prior decades.
I’ll repeat what I said before. You should do some investigation and understand that the things you claim came about through the study of statistics were well known and appreciated by many long before that time. That is the point – that has always been my point.
Statistical study proved what had been practiced beforehand was correct. If that is what you are trying to point out, then with that you are correct. However, in trying to say it changed the manner in which the game was approached, history proves that wrong – as shown with OBP figures and how platooning developed in the 20s becauseit was already observed that right handed batters hit better against left handed pitchers than righthanders.
Oh, you also wondered why I posted Ike Davis’ splits? Well, because within that lengthy spreadsheet it shows how he hit first pitch swinging – did not want you again making the false claim that I make up things based on imaginary links that don’t exist.
And if I am wrong, show me something that is relevant – not trite – that was discovered through advanced statistical analysis that changed the game not in the way FANS understood it but in the way PROFESSIONALS did. And by that, I do not mean the larger storage of information that players always knew they had to rely on – but innovations.
Statistical anlysis by Rickey or anybody else did not result in players getting on base more or batters learning they needed to be more disciplined at the plate (guess Ty Cobb, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Tris Speaker, Rodgers Hornsby, etc. weren’t disciplined hitters), platooning based on righty/lefty matchups, positioning fielders based on the individual batter’s habits (with the occassional extreme shift for those like Williams), with having one’s better hitters lead off games like Casey did with the Yankee teams in the fifities (mentioned earlier and alluded to by Bill James) or with what Gil did with Tommy Agee (the Mets home run and RBI leader in 1969), with advancing runners (contradicting Sandy’s own stance that one should never give up an out by sacrificing), etc.
“Nothing here states that hitters are being forced to take hittable pitches”
Yet thats exactly what happened early in the count and in many Hitters count situations…..
Voluntarily, Forced, Taught or BAD CHOICE OF WORDS used in the coaching (Wait instead of Swing at) leading to misunderstanding….
That is what happened!
Matt’s research was on the right track but he didnt (or couldn’t) show the O/Z Swing/Contact numbers of the different counts both Early in the PA (First 3 Pitches) and in Hitters Counts (2-0, 2-1, 3-0, and 3-1)
If he had we might have seen what you think Hudgens is teaching isn’t happening! at ANY TIME not just the second half of last year….
Hi Metsie,
Of course. When a batting coach points out that as a team the Mets hit about .200 on pitches two inches inside of either side of the plate and follows with “We want to hit these 13 inches in the middle” I think that is defining what is a hittable pitch.
But it’s not that simple. How the batter positions himself in the box has a lot to do with the type of pitches he is going to get – and the location of those pitches as well – and thus, compensating for one weakness then subjects the batter to a different disadvantage instead. It also has to do with his hands, wrist speed and his batting stance.
http://www.yougoprobaseball.com/what-pitches-to-throw-a-hitter-reading-his-hands-and-stance.html
.
In the attached, the author shows how different types of stances create problems with pitches on the corners.
a) An open stance usually means that a hitter has trouble seeing pitches. He may open his stance for comfort or to see the baseball better. Whatever the reason he is leaving his hips open. As a pitcher when you see this you should throw inside fastballs. The hitter is already sacraficing some power by opening his stance. By going inside we are forcing him to stay open and take that loss of power. These guys are easy to jam up and get a lot of pop outs on.
b) A closed stance usually means that this batter has a problem stepping in the bucket. He closes his stance to correct this. These guys usually have trouble hitting the outside pitch. Even though their stance gives them the best opportunity to hit the outside pitch I think a low and away fastball would work on this guys. They are standing that way for a reason. Let’s see if they can hit it and then try a different approach.
Pitchers are therefore going to try and hit those other four inches more than throwing pitches down the middle of the plate. By focusing on those 13 inches, this will allow opposing pitchers to start off with pitches on the corners for a quick first strike.
So, if the Mets only hit .200 on pitches on the edges, is it because they can’t or that they are not being instructed on how to do so?
The attached not only explains how a hitter could approach the outside pitch but also the importance of getting accustomed to looking for it. I’m sure that you, Bayonne and others could do the same explanation for the inside pitch as well.
– Hitting%20the%20Outside%20Pitch.pdf
http://www.yougoprobaseball.com/what-pitches-to-throw-a-hitter-reading-his-hands-and-stance.html
Joey what I have been trying to get accross to everyone here is that it doesn’t matter what Hudgens means…..
The only thing that matters is if the HITTERS KNOW what he means, if he is explaining it PROPERLY!
“If words of command are not clear and distinct, if orders are not thoroughly understood, the general is to blame. But if his orders are clear, and the soldiers nevertheless disobey, then it is the fault of their officers.” Sun Tzu
If the intention is as some state here “Swing At Strikes and ALL strikes are Hittable”
Then the Phrase or teaching of “Your (personalized) Pitch” is Confusing, Wrong, UNCLEAR and NOT DISTINCT! The General is at fault for any percieved LACK of execution by the Soldiers! He’s not teaching them to swing at Strikes he is teaching them to swing only at pitches they like!
He was not CLEAR about what he wanted them to do and so they did not do what he wanted!
The FAULT OF THE TEACHER not the PLAYERS!
If he truly meant Swing at all strikes he would have instead said HUNT FOR STRIKES not some personalized version of what the player thinks is a good pitch to swing at.
If the intention is to swing at MIDDLE Strikes then that leaves a LOT of strikes they are being told to NOT swing at! And if they don’t Swing at those Strikes those Strikes are what the Pitcher will give them in spades. Again the blame goes to the TEACHER because he isn’t teaching them the lesson people think he SHOULD be teaching and the Player may very well be doing PRECISELY what he says, the problem being is he is telling them to do the WRONG thing….Again the TEACHER is the issue in that scenario!
It all comes down to the use of “YOUR PITCH” Well what is YOUR PITCH? That varies from Batter to Batter….
It’s about as good advice as saying go up there and get a hit! Easy to say but your not exactly Teaching him anything worthwhile because Players ALREADY SWING at pitches they like…Thats not thier problem it is swinging at pitches they may NOT like because they either get fooled or because those pitches they don’t like are not as hittable as the ones they DO like but are going to be called strikes anyway.
If all he is going to tell them is to wait for THIER PITCH he would be much better off telling them and helping them IDENTIFY what the hell THEIR PITCH really is or giving him instruction on what to do with Pitches that are NOT HIS but destined to be strikes so he can extend his PA in hopes of GETTING HIS PITCH…..
But that requires INDIVIDUAL COACHING, it can not be a one size fits all Organizational PHILISOPHICAL approach.
Hi Metsie,
“If the intention is to swing at MIDDLE Strikes then that leaves a LOT of strikes they are being told to NOT swing at! And if they don’t Swing at those Strikes those Strikes are what the Pitcher will give them in spades.
That’s the whole point I’ve been making, as you know. But as you also know, I have very little knowledge of the game and don’t know what I’m talking about.
Actually, wouldn’t Hutchens pointing out that the team as a whole hit just .200 with pitches on the sides be another mis-use of stats? Remember Sandy Alderson the problem was not with Citi Field’s dimensions but the problem was that the Met hitters hadn’t learned how to hit home runs there. Shouldn’t the same philsophy apply -the problem is not those four inches on the sides of the plate, the problem is that Met hitters hadn’t learned how to hit pitches thrown there.
That’s why I attached that PDF about hitting the outside pitch – obviously, it can be done. Know when it couldn’t be done? Back in the sixities when the pitch was high or low because the strike zone was bigger and that type of pitch if placed well was very difficult to hit. That is why batting averages dropped each year to the point that if Carl Yaztremski had one less hit or went one more at-bat without getting one, there would have been no .300 hitters in the AL back in 1968. As we know, he was the only one hitting at .301
“wouldn’t Hutchens pointing out that the team as a whole hit just .200 with pitches on the sides be another mis-use of stats?”
Using stats to explain something is not misuse unless they are the wrong conclusion to take on the situation….
Does hitting .200 show they should not swing at strikes on the inside outside part of the plate?
Or does it show they need to work on hitting the ball in those areas?
If he is using that stat to say don’t swing at those pitches that are strikes then he is using it in a bad way!
Because he is using the stat to draw the wrong conclusion!
But showing them that they hit only .200 on Edge strikes is not wrong provided your working to increase the BA on those types of Pitches!
You certainly can’t say don’t swing at them will help the BA because the result will be LESS BA not more, They will only increase the K rates by not swinging at giving up strike locations to the Pitcher!
And I wish you would stop with the notion that you don’t know baseball and therefore don’t know what your talking about….
You don’t need to be a baseball player to know that if you give a Pitcher a location to throw strikes that you will NOT swing at that the Pitcher will do whatever he can to throw strikes there and get you out!
You will NOT walk to 1st base you will walk to the showers instead!
The only way (definition) of what Hudgens means that actually works is the notion that ALL STRIKES are YOUR PITCH and you should swing at ALL STRIKES!
And if thats what he means then he should say THAT and not YOUR PITCH!
HUNT FOR STRIKES, Not YOUR PITCH!
Just as I woould tell you to Pick Apples if thats what I wanted instead of telling you to PICK FRUIT and hope you know Appleas are the Fruit I’m talking about but leaving it up to you to decide what I mean!
Hi Metsie,
In the manner in which Hutchens has been emphasizing going for the middle of the plate, I think we can safely say it’s a misuse of stats. After all, he wasn’t talking in terms of trying to improve that batting average, he was talking in terms of avoiding those type pitches.
My hunch is that this is an approach handed down in discussion with Sandy. It seems to fit right in with Sandy’s thought process when it comes to data. Data shows the Mets hit better with pitches thrown in the middle but that is misleading because the batters are getting away from the hitting techniques outlined by professionals. Instead of being prepared for more pitches in or away, they are being told to “hunt” for that pitch in the middle instead.
Data in the first half of the season showed that the Mets were scoring runs by taking more pitches but Bobby O. brought out in May how misleading this early success was as well – the data that Sandy referred to in September was compiled when (as brought out by Ojeda) pitchers had yet to recognize they could be more aggressive. They later understood the Mets were “hunting” for certain pitches and thus the first pitch could cut the corners for a strike rather than coming in with a pitch that eventually falls outside the strike zone.
And LaRussa noted how “front office executives” obsessed with OBP hinders hitters because of the reasons stated above – along with the fact that a batter may never get pitch better than the first one to hit. It depends upon how the pitcher is throwing. It’s been pointed out to us by Gary, Keith and Ralph that batters know when a pitcher is just missing the plate and thats when they become more selective, because just like a pitcher can nibble at the corners when ahead in the count, he has to come in toward the middle of the plate when behind – a big advantage for the hitter IF he can be patient enough and not be over-anxious.
So again, my own hunch is this is data related – and, if my theory is right (not swearing by it) – then this is another example of stats showing percentages but not reasons why and thus how one should not depend upon such information to formulate ideas.
Sorry about pointing out how little I know about the game but it’s because I don’t appreciate how much more statistical analysts understand baseball as compared to those like John McGraw, Casey Stengel and Tony LaRussa – you know, the idiots who wasted decades focusing on what they could only see on the field.
Ok so tell us what do you do if your pitch doesn’t come?
Swing or NOT swing?
And what should you do if it’s NOT your pitch but a strike?
Take it?
How does that jive with what you say about swinging at strikes and noit at balls?
Not sure this went here but part of Hudgens philosophy was reported to also be very good 2 strike hitters. So if you don’t get your pitch, one you can drive, and it gets 2 strikes then you battle. Are you suggesting they should swing at every pitch they can hit, regardless of the count and regardless of how much force they can hit that pitch with? What Hudgens is preaching isn’t anything new, it’s common sense. Lay off the pitches out of the zone and breaking pitches that you can’t drive early in the count, hunt a fastball and then if you get 2 strikes defend the plate like hell.
Yeah I know it seems every philosophy in the world is being taught by hudgens doesn’t it?
I guess you guys just can’t make up your mind on what it is he is REALLY teaching….
Does WAITING for your pitch mean fouling off close pitches with two strikes in the count?
Does waiting for your Pitch jive with the swing at strikes and not at balls?
I noticed you avoided the questions I asked….
I wonder why?
You seem to think the philosophies are all in alignmet….
So tell us what you take from those lessons and what you would do in the situations I proposed above?
Can’t wait to hear it!
Those quotes by LaRussa are from Hitting 101 – he’s absolutely right. The worst advice you can ever give a hitter is to automatically take a pitch – not unless you are a leadoff man or trying to work a pitcher, or trying to give your pitcher time to warm up in the bullpen. In other words, patience does not mean taking the first pitch – if it’s coming down broadway you hammer that crap. Patience is laying off the pitch early in the count when the pitcher is nibbling at the corner, trying to get ahead in the count…that’s a pitcher’s pitch, not a hitter’s pitch.
“patience does not mean taking the first pitch – if it’s coming down broadway you hammer that crap”
This has always been my understanding as well. I’ve stated in the past that say what you will about Hudgens I do not at any moment believe he is telling his guys that if they see a 1st pitch fastball down the middle of the plate to take it.
I think the problem is being told to “hunt” for a pitch in the middle of the plate for it means laying off the first pitch if it is not in that area instead of being told to “hunt” for a pitch that one thinks is hittable. It’s placing more emphasis on the strike zone than the hitting zone of the player.
Hi Mitch,
And what about LaRussa mentioning about a batter not knowing when he might get a pitch he can drive at?
“You watch your productive hitters in the big leagues, and they get a chance to drive in a run, they look for the first good strike, and the better the pitching, especially this time of the year, you get that first strike, that may be the last one that you get to see. So you’d better be ready to swing early. It’s not sitting up there and taking strike one, strike two so that you can work the count.’’
I’m glad I found Bayonne’s fan rant – which also showed that what Bobby OJeda predicted in May would happen and indeed did occur – along with LaRussa’s remarks to show how dangerous it is when non-baseball people like Sandy Alderson have the authority and do indeed decide to set a tone which is followed by those selected by him to work under and spread throughout the organization. DePodesta has often said everyone knows that it is is Sandy in charge. As mentioned before, like all of us, Sandy too would be much better being aware of his own shortcomings. That is the qualification of good leadership too.
The problem is they work almost exclusively off of aggregate conclusions — they take a cumulative approach figuring if enough hitters in a given lineup employ their methods it should produce the desired result. I’m not sure whether that’s good or bad. I think it probably is true that most hitters would benefit from refining their ability to be selective and to recognize pitches, but there are also an exceptional few who are more instinctual and aggressive hitters (Vladdy comes to mind), players who go up there and hack … is there room for that sort of hitter in “the program” ??? I sure hope so, because there have been some pretty darned good hitters who were free swingers.
Well Mitch I agree…But that is an awful lot of words a player must extrapolate out of the phrase Hunt you Pitch! isn’t it?
I agree the paragraph you said was absoloutly correct,,,,
Is that what the players are being told? Or is it to WAIT for something, HUNT for your pitch which may not come till two PA later….
Thats why I say the philosophy no matter how sound you think it is what is key is the taching and it gets translated inside thier head…
You tell a guy to be patient and wait he may not get all that Crush a fat first pitch, Swing at pitches in the zone he does PRECISELY what you told him to do which was WIAT for something you think you can hit…
I dont have the stats but I do know one statistic that the Mets were awful in: driving in a runner from third with less than two outs. This is something that they failed to do in April and carried throughout the season. I didnt look up any numbers but I recall the only one who was above the major league average was Wright. The rest were below with a guy like Thole (and maybe even Bay) being 0 for in those situations. Those are free runs and the team repeatedly missed them.
Who’s fault it is? I cant answer. But I think it does allude to the fact that the Met hitters, as an entity, did not practice situational hitting. Too many were trying to hitting a 6 run HR when a ground ball would suffice. There were far too many defensive swings early in the count and overly aggressive swings with two strikes. Do you blame the hitting coach for that and the philosophy or the players themselves? We most likely will never know the answer.
Hi Task,
I know, with just one out Daniel Murphy was justa .266 hitter. Which is really something considering how effective he was in pressure situations last year: a .296 hitter with two outs, a 308 hitter with runners in scoring position and .315 hitter with runners on base.
That’s why I think Murph is so underappreciated.
Guys,
I think the problem with all this for some is the meaning in language
It is not that the Met organization tells it’s hitters not to swing at the first pitch (though Sandy Alderson raised the issue of PPPA) as it is telling the hitters not to swing at a pitch outside a certain area.
But by abiding by that, it has resulted in pitchers taking advantage of those instructions on the first pitch thus putting many a hitter behind in the count early.
That is what Ojeda meant by telegraphing to the opposing teams that they were not going to be aggressive hitters that on the first pitch.
PPA is misunderstood. You do know who lead the Mets in PPA? right? Ike Davis. And yes that stat went up for Ike in the 2nd half.
Yes it is misunderstood….Mostly by people who think it is some sort of Indicator to how patient at the plate you are being…Cough Cough Sandy Alderson, Cough Cough Sneeze!
Sure says very little to anyone who believes you swing at the HITTABLE pitch because that means your shortening the PA via ACTION!
You swing at those hittable pitches early then your putting the ball in play and therefore going to have a lower PPPA than someone who takes as many pitches waiting for his ONE PITCH!
I think it would be more useful for the FAN to get an idea of how a hitter might perform under various counts (does he tend to swing more with a 2-1 count, does he take a pitch on a 2-0 count, etc). but those on the field already have a good understanding of his habits i.e., how he tends to swing, what he looks for or lays off of on certain pitch counts by deciphering his personal idiosyncrasies. But a 2-1 count in PPPA is no different than a 1-2 count and quite useless as an indicator of anything of a team – as Sandy DID speak about – and as far as the player, those on the field and in the dugout by their own experience, observation and recollection know if he is a free swinger, takes more pitches, can be fooled with less pitches thrown, is a dangerous two-strike hitter, etc. What they can’t recollect they do exactly what Tony LaRussa said about stats – use them in pre-game preparation.
Again, it’s a storage of information, not something like Seaver and Grote did not go over in their pre-game meetings.
Joey you may find this very interesting & helpful:
http://metsmerizedonline.com/2012/10/small-sample-sizes-ppas-and-fun-with-numbers.html
Hi Bayonne,
Hey, thanks for bringing back that blast from the past. But what does Keith Hernandez know about the importance of being philosophical when it comes to hitting in lieu of being pragmatic instead?
Also, regarding that study that Joe D. referred to in his post – how much information has to be accumulated before it becomes trite? And of course, the use of stats is devoid of any real imagination and we know imagination is vital for the creation of circumstances and events that leads to success outside those that are controlled – like math, physics, science, etc. – not athletic competition.
Again, I can understand fans talking in terms of sabermetrics and other advanced stats in terms of using it as a different language as opposed to the spoken word – like one saying Carlos Beltran had a range factor of 1.67 compared to the league 2.01 with the other saying he has lost a step or two resulting in hits other players could have caught – or allowing one enough time to stretch a hit for an extra base – and thus is a defensive liability not with balls he could catch but with those others could get to but not him.
And what the range factor won’t say is where his range has become limited – is it in all areas of fielding or perhaps more running back for the ball as opposed to running in or to his left or right. And if it is running back on the ball more than running in, does that mean keeping him in the game when the winning run is on third and the outfield has to play shallow anyway?
Also, is his great throwing arm worth more in saving runs by inhibiting base runners than it is with having lost that step or two in the field?
Bayonne, I gather those points are really trite as well – after all, they come from who doesn’t have the slightest idea of what he’s talking about, right?
I would have guessed Murph …
HI ReallyDude,
You asked: “Why is “get a good pitch to hit” so hard to understand? It doesn’t just mean down the middle! You read an article on SNY bout Hudge so you think you know exactly what he’s about. You do have mean copy m paste skills…”
1) He didn’t mean just down the middle?
Did you not read the article in it’s entirty and just the one quote from Hutchen which I emphasized?. OK, lets bypass the summary about what Sandy wants, etc. since that is still mostly third person. Go toward the end.. The author says “He snatched a piece of paper and drew a plate. The surface is 17 inches wide. He shaved off the outer two inches on each side. He tells his players, in general, they hit .200 on those outer edges.”
Fine, that is third person. Let us take that as writer exaggeration to make a point. But then he quotes the first person (Hutchens) who again said: “We want to hit these 13 inches in the middle”.
If that “doesn’t just mean down the middle” what else does it mean – since the author said Hutchens told his players they hit .200 on the outer edges?
Here again is the entire article.
http://www.nj.com/mets/index.ssf/2012/03/mets_hitting_coach_
2) I have mean copy and past skills?
Actually, thanks for pointing that out. I always had them because it is essential for anyone to justify the creditbiliy of his position by providing first hand information (thus my tendancy to avoid articles written mostly in the form of the third person which is so often interpretation, exaggeration or even a question of just not being too well informed). You see, I have often been accused of making up things or talking about links that never existed.
BTW – I know you were not questioning my integrity, rather, the conclusions I came to based on my research which is quite fair – after all, I’m doing the same with you, too.
Thats still 4 Inches worth of strike zone that the Pitcher can attack and get you out!
You do not WALK to first then you walk to the dugout!
And a guy like Davis LOVES to hit bombs on those pitches on the out 2 inces of the plate!
Each batter has his OWN preference for hitting…
You guys think he means just swing at middle strikes but thats NOT what hudgens said!
If thats what he meant then he should have said that and not leave it up to the batter on what he should and should NOT swing at!
Hi Metsie,
Exactly the point. So what if by the “middle” the hitting coach meant those just 13 inches? So what? Pitchers work the entire plate and how often do we see a pitching sequence where all the tosses thrown were focused on those other four inches – coming inside and then outside, hight and tight or low, etc.? Batters need to concentrate on all seventeen inches. A coach can talk about what to do when pitches come within that 13 inch zone but it’s another thing telling batters to “hunt” for it. That handcuffs them.
Also, as you point out, there are many hitters who thrive on pitches on the corners. In fact, Yogi Berra is noted as being one of the most notorious “bad ball” hitters around (meaning he would gets hits on pitches often outside the strike zone. Can you imagine Hutchens telling him to hunt for a pitch toward the middle. Even more, no matter what one thinks of Yogi’s managerial strategies, he knew about hitting. I doubt he would hire a coach who spoke about approaching pitches in the manner Hutchens did.
This was again one of the many points LaRussa brought up and another example of the trend of hiring general managers with the dual role of running the team both financially and competitively who only have experience in one.
Then he isn’t TEACHING them what some believe is his Philosophy!
This is the point most of this argument is dancing around….
They think he is teaching to swing at all strikes because all strikes are hittable and therefore YOUR PITCH….
I bet most players don’t agree with that definition.
So they will define “YOUR PITCH” (thier pitch in thier head) as strikes they like…They will not swing at ALL Strikes as they believe the philosophy is treaching….They simply WILL NOT LEARN the lesson or implement it.
If they are correct about what Hudgens means and define your pitch to mean ALL STRIKES then Hudgens should stop giving them a say one what pitch to swing at and tell them hunt STRIKES and swing at them!
He’s not saying that!
And they certainly are not doing that!
So someone here has a problem with the definition of YOUR PITCH….
Either the folks supporting the philosophy have it wrong or
The Players are not understanding what Hudgens means…
And in BOTH cases the FAULT lies with the Coach because he is not giving CLEAR INSTRUCTIONS on what they are supposed to do.
YOUR PITCH seems to have many interpretations among people…
Some think it means ALL Strikes
Some think it means Strikes in the Middle
Some think it is Strikes but only the ones you can or like to hitand drive
And some might even think it means only swing at pitches you like to hit Strike or not!
Thats a lot of wiggle room with very different results based on how you define the lesson HUNT YOUR PITCH….
If Hudgens wants to see his philosophy implemented properly perhaps he should be more SPECIFIC in his coaching so there is no FUDGE FACTOR or misinterpretation of what he means….
1 – HUNT FOR STRIKES, ALL STRIKES and SWING AT THEM!
2 – Hunt for Middle strikes and let him srtrike you out if he can hit the corners
3 – Hunt for a pitch you like to hit but only if it is a strike (leaving open the strike locations you don’t like to hit to get you out)
4 – Hunt for Pitches you like to hit Strikes be damned!
If you ask me he would be much better off with #3 or #4 and then work on how to fight off pitches with two strikes on you….
The PPPA will go sky high, they won’t swing or be able to fight off pitches in zones they don’t like to hit when they have to and there will be no confusion as to what he means because it is as clear and a Sunny July Day!
Hi Metsie,
I think Yogi would apply to number four.
But to be honest, I do have to wonder why Hudgens (notice I finally spelled his name right?) preaches such a philosophy. With all his years of experience in professional ball he should know better despite whatever the CEO on top believes.
I also have a question I would love to be answered regarding the team batting average of .200 swinging at pitches on the corner. Does that stat account for hitting when behind in the count giving the pitcher an extreme advantage. Instead of “hunting” for a pitch in the middle (or 13 inches) the batter is now forced to defend himself on pitches all throughout the strike zone – not to mention borderline pitches and having no choice but to swing at deceptive pitches on the chance they might not fall out of the strike zone or sensing that they were going to instead.
Really Dude?
Is EVERY STRIKE a good pitch to hit?
Seems you guys who think YOUR PITCH=ANY STRIKE and ANY STRIKE=GOOD PITCH TO HIT are the ones who don’t really know what your talking about….
Joey D is clueless!
Metsie. I can’t figure out if you understand and support Hudge or if you agree with Joey D’s B.S. ???
Every hitter is diff. Whether it be pitches in or out up or down. O they need to know what they can handle so they can attack those pitches. There is however 1 constant… all big leaguers can handle the fb down the middle. He teaches to be aggressive on pitches you can hit, layoff pitches you can’t hit hard PERIOD
Btw who hits bombs on the outer 2 inches with any kind of consistency? Name 1 who’s hit more than 1 bomb on a pitch on the outside corner even once or twice all last yr????
Get a clue!
You’re wasting your time copy n pasting several paragraphs of your nonsense…NOBODY READS IT!
Well All I know is the result….
Perhaps if I talked or let Hudgens coach me for awhile I would know what he means by HUNT YOUR PITCH…
the problem I think is he may mean one thing but the message being recieved is another story….
And that is because YOUR PITCH is UNCLEAR….
Hudgens needs to clear up what YOUR PITCH means…
Is it middle strikes?
Is it Just itches you like to drive?
Is it ALL strikes?
If it’s ALL strikes then I support his philosophy and suggest he should say HUNT STRIKES not leave is the subjective YOUR PITCH cause that could mean 40 different things on a 40 man Roster cause your leaving it up to someone else to define what YOUR PITCH is…
Mine is a Fastball outside and thigh high….Somtimes they are strikes, some are just off the black as well…But I can hit both a long mile….
A Strike low and inside is NOT MY Pitch….
Does that mean I should not swing at those? Is that my coach’s BEST coaching?
Or would he better off just telling me how to deal with those pitches instead?
What I DO have a problem with is one size fits all Team Batting Philosophy….
Each player has a strength and weakness and I would prefer the hitting coach works to make each better WITHIN thier OWN paramters instead of something that is easy to say through a loudspeaker but doesn’t work for every batter on the team.
Truth of the matter is the entire team would be all that much better off if instead of telling them what pitch to swing at he should show them how to fight off pitches with 2Ks on them that are close enough to call strikes so they can extend thier PA and maybe get that pitch they would LOVE to hit….
All this be patient crap is moot if you teach the players how to do that!
Whatever you do early in the count doesn’t matter….Because even if the Pitcher gets ahead you know what to do!
Hi Metsie,
I guess if I’m cluelsss when it comes to what Hudgens says it’s because my conclusions are based not on my own observations but from what I have found to be been said (accompanied by links for backup) by otherprofessionals instead whom, I guess, are really clueless and don’t know what they are talking about as well – you know, Tony LaRussa, Terry Francona, Bob Ojeda, Larry Bowa, Mitch Wlliams, professional hitting instructors, even Terry Collins when it came to Ike Davis. And those links are provided for others to review and then point out what I might have been misinterpreting. Again, if Hudgens referred to each individual hunting for his one pitch, instead of defining what that pitch has to be on a group basis and not per hitter, none of us would be questioning him on that issue. As those other “clueless” ones mentioned above have said, that affects the entire at-bat.
As far as relying on stastical analysis, besides my own opinons about the limited use of them for professional baseball matter decision making (which is different from fan dicussion) not only have many of the above commented on the fascination with OBP and the conclusions derived from front office executives works against those on the field, Al Leiter also discussed that with Brian Kenny when it came to Kenny’s suggestion to employ more extreme shifts for each one in the batting order based on what the saber charts show, pointed out how that would have a negative impact on the pitcher and his game.
And even Bill James cautions about the limited use of stats for it is devoid of so many intangeables, as pointed out yesterday in the transcript from a 60 Minutes episode with and about James from 2009 that I had attached. The end of the segment was like this:
SAFER: “James says he’s always looking for new numbers to help the Red Sox. But even he admits the numbers will never say it all.
“There’s something in baseball that you really can’t quantify. And that is, the mix of guys at a given moment, there’s some magic or whatever, that goes on. That all the James-ian theory in the world will never find the answer to,” Safer Says.
JAMES: “It’s mostly intangible,” James says. “I mean, I don’t understand most of it. I don’t think that anybody in the Red Sox would tell you that we have that magic stuff figured out. But there are people here who understand that part of the equation a lot better than I do.”
Also, there is the tendancy for many to imply that advanced statistical analysis has provided new insight that was not understood before. What I posted yesterday is a perfect example. In that 60 Minute segment which credits Bill James with disproving the myth about Fenway Park:
“Example: Fenway Park and its infamous left field wall, the “Green Monster.” Fenway was legendary as a right-handed hitters’ park. But analysis showed it actually favored left-handed hitters, and the Sox line-up has been lefty-heavy ever since.”
This is why I felt the need to post something about my own understanding which I concluded a long, long tima ago on my own:
“For example, the ballpark factor. When I was a kid I knew that the Green Monster quite often saved a pitchers life more than it allowed a Bucky Dent to hurt him. A hard line drive that had the power and projectory to be carried over any normal outfield fence would instead bounce off the wall half-way through it’s flight with the left-fielder positioning himself near the wall – but at the same time most closer to the infield as well – to play that bounce and thus a swing that would have meant a home run in most other parks became a single due to Fenway. It could also prevent a runner from scoring from first on that type of play.
“In addition, the Green Monster saved a pitcher from being victim to the Texas Leaguer to left – the left fielder has to play in more because there is so less territory to cover behind him that he can get to those bloops because he is not playing the usual normal position he would have to in other places. The same with the old Yankee Stadium in right. With it’s 344 foot distance, there were many cheap shots that went over the fence for home runs but at the same instance, there were those in between pop ups that instead would not fall in.”
Again, my point is not to put down advanced statistics – I think they are definitely an asset for fans to get a better understanding of an individual’s profile especially when one cannot observe him on a daily basis. And that is the same for those in the front office.
But there is a difference between using advanced reference material for more precise information than there is the discovery of new revelations about the game itself and/or those with limited knowledge of the game (or, in Sandy’s case, none as he has never tried to hide that fact) can suddenly learn all they need to know from it’s deep study in order to run a team professionally. That information by itself is very superficial – as brought out by those who I have mentioned above – including Bill James.
And to say they reveal more about the game than observation, well, I did not post my thoughts about Fenway because some politely have said I am clueless, but rather to give an example of how the level of the intense, detailed understanding of the game that we have today did not suddenly originate in the early eighties as professed. Bill James is credited about showing how Fenway Park did not favor right handed hitters while I demonstrated how that fact was known long before that. So, the point is simply that old-time “traditionlists” were well aware of these things long before that. And the history of baseball shows that different types of play are adopted over different eras and we must expect that to be the case in future decades as well. Who knows, it might be in terms of starters going longer. We shall see.
So, don’t shoot me, I’m just the messenger.
Well joey even if you ARE clueless when it comes to what Hudgens says, you certainly are not alone….There are a lot of people here who are right there with you…
Even MORE in the group if you count those who THINK they know what he means when he talks, including many players on the NYM Roster!!!!
Thats the real issue in all of this…
Hudgens direction isn’t clear, isn’t precise, all open to the interpretation of the listener!
And VERY DIFFERENT depending on how “YOUR PITCH” is defined by that listener!
A Good Coach would not leave so much open to interpretation…
He would make it as CLEAR AS DAY to ensure they do what he MEANS not what they THINK he means!
There would be no debate on what YOUR PITCH is…
He would tell you what your pitch was by being clear on what that is!
I don’t think that is happening at all!
Everyone here has a different opinion on what it means….
That means players do too!
Hi Metsie,
Well, if you go by the list of players, managers I provided (along with BIll James when he referred to a statician telling one how to hit) and include those many others who have offered opinions like you and I have and I think there is a large enough contingent to say there is something wrong somewhere.
But credit Bobby Ojeda for first bringing it to the attention of the fan base early in the season, warning us of what to expect during the time that the Mets were playing well and scoring runs. That clueless guy saw it coming.
Metsie & JoeyD,
You obviously don’t understand hitting OR you don’t like Dave Hudgens???
I’m gonna go out on a limb and speculate that his hitters who average over a million dollars a year in salary, ie professionals, do understand exactly what he means even if you don’t!
Just because you don’t have the foggiest idea what he means, doesn’t mean they don’t…
Hi Ricky/Bobby,
Can’t speak for Metsie but as far as myself, I’ll only repeat something I wrote to Metsie about that:
“Well, if you go by the list of players, managers I provided (along with BIll James when he referred to a statician telling one how to hit) and include those many others who have offered opinions like you and I have and I think there is a large enough contingent to say there is something wrong somewhere.
“But credit Bobby Ojeda for first bringing it to the attention of the fan base early in the season, warning us of what to expect during the time that the Mets were playing well and scoring runs. That clueless guy saw it coming.”
Bayonne also attached something Keith Hernandez had to say on the subject and I followed up with essays written by professional batting instructors regarding the importance of having to hit outside and inside pitches as well because if one can’t, that weakness is going to be exploited by the opposing pitcher – because the pitcher is going to use the entire strike zone..
And remember, I did raise the question of how one with the experience and background in the game like Hudgens could be instructing his hitters on plate discipline in a manner so much different than others. Compare what Tony LaRussa said to that of Dave:
LaRussa: “You watch your productive hitters in the big leagues, and they get a chance to drive in a run, they look for the first good strike, and the better the pitching, especially this time of the year, you get that first strike, that may be the last one that you get to see. So you’d better be ready to swing early. It’s not sitting up there and taking strike one, strike two so that you can work the count.’’
Hudgens: “Hunt your pitch…. “We want to do damage in the middle of the plate. If he doesn’t give you that pitch? We’re walking to first base.”
Now it does appear they were both saying the same thing with “hunt your pitch” and “look for the first good strike”. But what they then differ is when Dave says “If he doesn’t give you that pitch? We’re walking to first base.” which specifically refered to pitches within the middle 13 inches of the plate. But as we know, there are two additional inches on each side and LaRussa counters with “you get that first strike, that may be the last one that you get to see. So you’d better be ready to swing early”.
That “first strike” referred to by LaRussa as “may be the last one that you get to see” did not mean the rest of the pitches were going to be outside the strike zone – it was the ” first good strike” that a batter thought he could hit.
Well Rickey if the understand then why aren’t they doing what he means?
You see thats the REAL point here….
You can’t bitch that they did not follow the philosophy and then say they know what he means because you have no proof the understood it enough to implement it!
They are taking FAT strikes….
Is that what Hudgens is telling them to do?
If so then the problem is Hudgens not the players!