Meatballs - Topic Revisited

True BP, with intentions of getting a quality at bat should be treated as such....by BOTH parties. No one benifits from meatballs. Except for me on spaghetti night!

FiveFrameSwing said:

Sometimes the pitcher wants the batter to hit ....... not a solid contact, but something that can be fielded for an out.

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I don't know any good pitchers that think this way. They may have pitches that will induce more ground balls than other pitches for example a drop ball, but I can assure you that any pitchers that I have had the pleasure of calling pitches for, have the intent of striking out the batter every at bat. Said another way, no pitcher says "I will intentionally throw this pitch outside to let the batter hit the ball to our second baseman." That mentality doesn't exist. Pitchers first priority is to induce a swing and miss or a called strike, every pitch. The only other pitch is a waste pitch to set-up the next pitch.

Having a strategy to purposely induce balls put in play is a dangerous game that no pitchers play. At least in my experience.

There's something integral to pitching instruction that has never made any sense to me. Wouldn't it be much simpler and more practical if the focus of pitching instruction was geared simply toward consistently hitting a target, regardless of location relative to the home plate??? If you learn to pitch to a target then it really doesn't matter where the target is i.e., middle of plate, inside edge, 2 balls outside, high, low, etc. Home plate would only be necessary during games! Am I crazy or crazy like a fox?

Throwing BP does not need to be "meatballs", but it needs to be a lot more strikes than balls. Live pitching and BP are two different things.

JAD said:

Throwing BP does not need to be "meatballs", but it needs to be a lot more strikes than balls. Live pitching and BP are two different things.

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I agree, however if we truly practice the way we play, how does a batter honestly benifit at reading all the variables they'll see in a game scenario. In games, they're looking for speed, spin, and location. Yet in a lot of practices, they're seeing nothing but slower speeds and no spin as their only means of bp... I think Doug is saying that there needs to be more live pitching and less bp.
My thoughts are, if a player is just looking to perfect their swing with attention to something specific like bat angles or speed, there's a place for meatballs in that scenario. But if we're preparing them for sucess at the plate, we need to make them practice as much as possible in real game like conditions. Put a competitive edge on it by doing something like the winner of today's bp gets to pick tomorrow's music that's played during practice. That way they have some kind of motivation, rather than just going through the motions.

Greenmonsters said:

There's something integral to pitching instruction that has never made any sense to me. Wouldn't it be much simpler and more practical if the focus of pitching instruction was geared simply toward consistently hitting a target, regardless of location relative to the home plate??? If you learn to pitch to a target then it really doesn't matter where the target is i.e., middle of plate, inside edge, 2 balls outside, high, low, etc. Home plate would only be necessary during games! Am I crazy or crazy like a fox?

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Yep I agreed back when it made the difference. The new lingo from ESPN3 commentator is "rotation/location" & "2PlanePitch"

coaches trow bp to help batters with the goal of getting them on base. pitchers throw bp with the goal of keeping the bases empty.

Look, when either of my two pitching students (neither is my DD) is used in batting practice or scrimmage, although I have no power over the situation (in high school ball), I would like to think that these two can use all their pitches, particularly the ones they really WANT to throw. Both love throwing the rise-curve (a.k.a., the "crise"). I have stated time and time again that I believe when most batters miss, they miss under the ball, which is what makes the rise-curve (or even pure riseball, if you can throw one) a great pitch to use in the arsenal of pitches used in batting practices or scrimmages.

I think part of the problem is that some coaches believe a riseball to be a low-to-high pitch without regard to the rotation of the ball. They, therefore, have a tendency of undervaluing the riseball and all of its variants, which can greatly limit a pitcher's ability in the chess game with the batter.

Ever seen power hitters foul-tip under a rise-curve?

Strong hints here to a few I know who frequent this board.

Rocketech1 said:

I don't know any good pitchers that think this way. They may have pitches that will induce more ground balls than other pitches for example a drop ball, but I can assure you that any pitchers that I have had the pleasure of calling pitches for, have the intent of striking out the batter every at bat. Said another way, no pitcher says "I will intentionally throw this pitch outside to let the batter hit the ball to our second baseman." That mentality doesn't exist. Pitchers first priority is to induce a swing and miss or a called strike, every pitch. The only other pitch is a waste pitch to set-up the next pitch.

Having a strategy to purposely induce balls put in play is a dangerous game that no pitchers play. At least in my experience.

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Many pitchers are simply not big-time strikeout pitchers. A "pitch to contact" strategy works well for many pitchers.

There are many pitchers that share a common goal with the batter .... in terms of contact being made. Such a pitcher wants the ball to be put in play for the team to field the out.

Given a good pitch caller, and a pitcher with good location/movement, a strategy of going against a #3 to #5 batter with an approach of collecting an out with a single pitch, can be more productive than a strategy of going after a KO.

Sorry to break it to you ..... but it's a "team sport" .... and many pitchers eventually need to learn that.