David Pearson

Thanks to @chrissolari for this; the chances of this happening are so slim! freep.com/story/sports/c…

Uncommitted ‘27 3B/P Gavin Stanislawski (IL) keeps the barrel in the zone long enough to drive this one to the gap for a run-scoring 2B. Big 6’2” 225 frame with 6.7-speed. @PrepBaseballIL || @PB_Uncommitted

Good start to league play for @UIBaseball, taking two of three from Penn State over the weekend! #Hawkeyes head to Michigan State next. Our highlights from the Hawkeye Radio Network with video from B1G+.

A Coach Cignetti jewel: “Good players want coached. Great players you can’t coach them enough, they want more, more, more. Inconsistent players want to be coached on their terms.” …(and always have a response or excuse)

Great win tonight for @CoachJBowler and @ParklandMBB in the first round of the National tournament. Tough come from behind win. They kept grinding and never gave up! #Cobras #JobsNotDone

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.

Love the communication from Maddux Guys seem to respond to him well He’s also surprisingly has great Spanish 😂

The hitter’s swings, foul balls, and takes give you a good idea of his approach. What do I mean? Fastballs: Is he late on the FB? Where are his foul balls? Pulled foul? Or over the opposite dugout? Or, is he taking them? So, if late, this means that we pitch FB in, up, and expand down. If he’s taking them, he might be sitting strike offspeed. Also, if he’s late on FB, be careful throwing a get me over strike offspeed pitch. You will be doing him a favor. A good question to ask is, where can we go where his barrel can’t square the ball up? Offspeed: is he pulling them foul? Are his takes good or bad? Does his swing look comfortable on the offspeed? Where does he chase? A good tidbit to follow is that we should chase bad swings. The best hitters in the world can make the adjustment pitch to pitch. Most players, especially at the HS and below level, can’t do that. So if he takes a bad swing on a pitch, throw it again. If he takes it, throw a different pitch, then go back to bad swing pitch. Another tidbit is that if the hitter fouls a ball straight back to the backstop, be very careful repeating that, because he just missed it. Many more nuances to this but this is basic food for thought.

🚲

Have a day, No. 2 💯

What. A. Catch. 😤 #Hawkeyes x #SCTop10

Sophomore Kaden Budke hits a home run in the bottom of the 9th inning to give the Cloud County T-Birds a 6-4 victory. #CloudBaseball | #BackTheBirds

⏰⬇️

Spring training hits a little different for the back-to-back World Champions. 💙🏆 #SpringTraining #CactusLeague @Dodgers

Hawkeye 𝐖. ⭐️

Smooth with it. 🙂‍↕️

𝗕𝗮𝗱 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺𝘀 ... NOBODY reminds anyone of the standards 𝗔𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺𝘀 ... COACHES remind team of the standards 𝗚𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺𝘀 ... CAPTAINS remind team of the standards 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺𝘀 ... EVERYONE reminds each other of the standards

#ProBison Bennett Hostetler catching for the Marlins on MLB Network @BennettHostetle @NDSUbaseball

Baseball players, two of my favorite quotes from New York Mets scout Kevin Whiteside: @CoachCrick 🐐 “You better love the weight room like you love your mama.” “Big butts equals big paychecks.” Translation: Strength matters. Get in the weight room and go to work.