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