Grounders vs ball in the air

[Little Angels Softball]

I'm curious which part is contrary? Personally I like your description.

Not necessarily you or anyone else I can think of, but I still hear coaches even at Nat's yelling out to their girls, "Hit the top half!" If we're playing against them, it makes me happy and sad all at the same time. My middle infielders just lick their chops while the catchers smile and dial up a steady dose of drop balls.

 

[JAD]

Ground Balls: A Hitter’s Best Friend?

The way I am reading this chart, it just shows the results of the batter. It does not address runners on base. A weak ground ball to 2B with a runner on 3B is an RBI 80+% of the time. As others have mentioned, a ground ball also requires an infielder to field it cleanly, make a good throw, and the ball has to be caught. 60 FT base paths also come into play on ground balls. Speed kills and routine ground balls in baseball can become infield hits in softball.

 

[strawman]

The way I am reading this chart, it just shows the results of the batter. It does not address runners on base. A weak ground ball to 2B with a runner on 3B is an RBI 80+% of the time. As others have mentioned, a ground ball also requires an infielder to field it cleanly, make a good throw, and the ball has to be caught. 60 FT base paths also come into play on ground balls. Speed kills and routine ground balls in baseball can become infield hits in softball.

Yes, but a line drive to the gap is an RBI 100% of the time. And you now have another runner in scoring position and no more outs than you did initially.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

The way I am reading this chart, it just shows the results of the batter. It does not address runners on base. A weak ground ball to 2B with a runner on 3B is an RBI 80+% of the time. As others have mentioned, a ground ball also requires an infielder to field it cleanly, make a good throw, and the ball has to be caught. 60 FT base paths also come into play on ground balls. Speed kills and routine ground balls in baseball can become infield hits in softball.

I haven't checked in a while, but last I checked the stats suggesting that line-drives were the most productive also applied to D1 softball ... with grounders and flyballs being in relative proximity to one another and much less productive than line-drives.

As for situations ... absolutely. Sometimes sacrificing your at-bat is what is best for the team. However, assuming you are "swinging away", then I like my hitters thinking of hitting the outfield grass quickly ... a line-drive to the gap is a good default goal ... assuming the third base coach doesn't have something else in mind of course.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

I know there are arguments either way for field size, styles of hitting/slapping and so on. But using major league stats on ground balls is not comparable at all to softball. How often do you see a softball player trot to first on a grounder as opposed to baseball, infield singles in baseball are nonexistent. That being said I would not encourage a kid to swing down and purposely try to hit grounders. Tripp at OU teaches the swing down to create backspin method, I'm not sure when slowing down swings that is what actually happens but lots of bombs fly out of Norman. With that logic you would THINK there would me more ground balls. Who knows.

I'm gonna get banned from this sight for saying this. Hitting is the most overcoached aspect of any sport. I like Pete Rose's philosophy, See the ball, Hit the ball.

Last I checked, using the MLB stats for this particular topic led to the same conclusions as for high-end softball. The focus should be on hitting line-drives.

As for hitting being 'over coached' ... yes & no. For many, keeping things simple is the way to go. That said ... your example of Pete Rose misses the mark IMO. Pete Rose was in sequence. I get several hitters that come to me "out of sequence", and if the sequence is not coached for these individuals then the philosophy of "see ball, hit ball" won't play out well for them.

Basically, once you get it ... the swing is incredibly simple ... and "see ball, hit ball" can be fine.

Simple can work ... but ignoring what isn't often natural for many folks isn't necessarily the path to success in hitting ... IMO anyway.

 

[CoogansBluff]

Most softball pitchers try to keep the ball down in the strike zone.

Why is that?

 

[JAD]

Yes, but a line drive to the gap is an RBI 100% of the time. And you now have another runner in scoring position and no more outs than you did initially.

I would be a happy camper if my DD hit a line drive every at bat, but I have seen a lot of line drives turned into double plays, and my DD is slow, so she is not a threat to " leg out " an infield single.

 

[JAD]

Most softball pitchers try to keep the ball down in the strike zone.

Why is that?

Because good batters will send belt high pitches into the outfield parking lot.....

 

[CoogansBluff]

Because good batters will send belt high pitches into the outfield parking lot.....

That, and I assume because balls low in the zone induce more ground balls.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

Most softball pitchers try to keep the ball down in the strike zone.

Why is that?

Many believe that keeping the ball low in the zone keeps the ball in the park. Thing is ... I've seen plenty of HRs off of pitches low in the zone.

Are these commentators correct when they preach keeping the ball low in the zone? Is it a function of the batter? Let's say a hitter has grooved a good barrel path that will result in a steeper, more diagonal barrel, at impact, for a ball lower in the zone. Wouldn't this increase the probability of getting the ball in the air?