TN Baseball Report

The answer is simpler than you would think. In general, bad hitters you pitch away, occasionally show in off or up in to keep honest. Good hitters you have to pitch in. Have to. My last post I showed 2 charts on Beltre and Miggy. Go look at their numbers on FBs in the 9box illustration. To your point, great hitters have all the same general approach and don’t adjust their path or approach according to the pitcher. Several years ago I ran some numbers, from lefties and righties, on pitch location percentages across the league. These numbers are rough and could be slightly different now, but it makes sense from my experience behind the plate. These numbers were for RHHs only. 68% of pitches thrown in a MLB game are located middle of plate to away. So, almost 3/4 pitches thrown to RHH’s are located middle to away. As a catcher, I knew how hard it was for pitchers to locate in. 3/4 results of the pitch call are negative, UNLESS you are pitching in to show for away. Ball, HBP, you yank it back over middle in(no bueno), or you paint it for a strike(bueno). My hitting coordinator my first year in the minor leagues was Mike Lum. Go look him up. He played with Hank Aaron. Anyway, I asked him what Hank’s hitting approach was. He said Hank didn’t care about location of pitch, he just tried to hit the ball hard back up the middle. Stay back on off speed and drive it up the middle. @RealCJ10 same thing. Back spin the ball through the CF wall. I never cared about other team’s reports on me. I looked for a pitch I could hit hard back up the middle. Little late? Drive it oppo, little early, I’d pull it. Stay back on offspeed. Simple, but I always wanted to drive it back up the middle hard.