Are slappers overrated?

[BuckeyeGuy]

A compromise conclusion might be this - Be wary of slappers with high batting averages who don't bring something else to the table. Valuable slappers need to bring additional value with extra-base hits, walks, steals or ROE.

IMO what else they bring to the table is going to depend on where you bat them.

I don't know much about slappers, or the strategies employed to use them. Also, there seems to be several different flavors of slappers? Before finding DFP I always viewed a slap hitter as a glorified drag bunter. Now, I'm just confused (but learning)!

Most of what I'm reading here leads me to believe that slappers are generally: singles hitters, fast, smart, not many K's. Am I close? Not that there aren't exceptions, obviously, I'm just trying to define a very broad set of skills that apply.

So, where do you bat a low OBP slapper in order to maximize lots of balls in play with great speed and few K's? If what you're seeing isn't due to limited sample sizes, then a low OBP slapper should hit behind your high OBP that steals successfully (successfully meaning high success rate relative to the cost of being caught). Batting a slapper with a low OBP 1st because she's fast is the same mistake we've talked about elsewhere - sacrificing runs in the name of tradition. Put your low OBP slapper behind the base stealer with high OBP. My guess is you'd see her OBP go up (especially if you include ROE, which ought to be acceptable in this case as slapers put additional pressure on defenses) as defenses now have to worry about the runner at 2B.

 

[KCPRK]

DD is told by her slapping instructor who is a pro slapper for a world champion team-if yoru not a triple threat and cant read defenses you are not going to be successful slapping at the higher levels. Too many people think they can only small game slap these days, don't know how to read defenses, and are being used poorly by their coaches.

Real slappers are rare and can chop slap, soft slap, sac bunt, drag bunt, hard slap, and hit for power or power slap. They can read defenses and pitchers. if you cant do all that its too easy for the smart and evolving defenses and coaches to shift on you and nullify your slapping advantage.

Hope that helps. My take is theres such a push for slappers that many aren't developing all the needed skills to truly be a slapper AND coaches don't understand how to use them.

 

[vdubya]

Straw man - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You read Wikipedia. Neat. Try to comprehend the point of the post.

Hey vdub: feel free to contribute after you read a book or 2.
QUOTE]

I contributed. Did you miss the point?

 

[midmosoftballdad]

FWIW,

Taylor Gadbois arrived at Mizzou as a Right handed hitting shortstop with VERY good power. Mizzou had another tremendous SS in that class (Corrin Genovese) and the defending Big 12 Defensive POY already at SS in Jenna Marsten.

Gadbois was good as a right handed hitting SS, but Earleywine thought she could be ELITE as a left handed hitting slapper. She's got possibly the strongest arm on the team (an absolute cannon) and she's got ridiculous speed (She had multiple Big time D1 track offers in addition to softball... and basketball). She redshirted, spent a couple years transitioning to the left side of the plate (and CF). In 2014 she was an All American, but still working hard to get comfortable from the left side.

in 2015 as a Jr, she's now swinging away from the left side with power. She'll be a much more complete and dangerous hitter than last year.

She's a FANTASTIC kid, and will make an amazing coach someday.

Personally I'm not a huge fan of one dimensional slappers, and Gadbois has steadily increased her ability to drive the ball from the left side. These last two years of her career should be exciting to watch.

 

[flipper14]

This is an interesting conversation. I think it depends. I had a DI slapper in my high school lineup who switched from hitting from the right side as a freshman to half/half as a sophomore, to slapping full time as a junior and senior. First-team all-state player in Illinois, although I think I would have preferred if she would have continued to hit from the right side because she did have a lot of pop and could be a run producer.

We turned another girl around after her freshman year who became a far better slapper than she would have ever been as a right handed hitter.

I will say that the girls that I absolutely hated playing against were slappers. We could pitch around great hitters. Didn't want to put slappers on base. But, one could certainly make the argument that that's more about speed than slapping.

 

[bucket pinata]

My older DD is a triple threat slapper, being able to hit for power is very important because some fields that we play on are not hard enough to bounce the ball high enough to get to first even with 2.65 speed. She loves to keep the D guessing on how to play her. I realize that most successful slaps are singles but that is only for the next couple pitches cause she always has the green light and she will be on second in the next few pitches. That being said she really digs the long ball.my favorite play which catches many teams flat footed is the suicide slap.

 

[slingnit]

Not sure what/who all has been discussed but slapper Courtney Ceo led the nation with a .493 ba last year.

 

[BuckeyeGuy]

Not sure what/who all has been discussed but slapper Courtney Ceo led the nation with a .493 ba last year.

OPS GPA
1.160 0.397

That pretty darned good, no matter who you are!

 

[MsDinosaur]

I have stolen base stats, but not ROE. My theory would be that the slappers' ROE stats go down as the playing level goes up and that it has minimal value in major D-I college softball.

I don't know CB. Most of the times I've seen GREAT defensive D1 teams throw the ball away disastrously have been while trying to get a speedster out at first. At the really high levels getting a team to make one single error can be the key to the game.

However, it doesn't make sense to me to have a non-productive slapper just to have a slapper. I agree on that.

This is a fascinating thread; I'm enjoying it a lot!

 

[Elk Grove Hurricane]

After watching my kid at her first slap lesson, my answer is: I sure hope not.