Every pitch a batter sees turns the at bat in the favor of the batter. Even if the count is 0-2, after seeing 7 pitches, the batter, and almost as important, the batter on deck has a real good eye on the ball. Not to mention that if a runner is on base, you increase the chances of a stolen base opportunity / pb/wp, for advancing a base.
quality at bat definition?
- Thread starter 29dad
- Start date
Welcome to Discuss Fastpitch
Your FREE Account is waiting to the Best Softball Community on the Web.
There is research that suggests that the batter's chance of reaching base does increase a little for every pitch beyond about #5 or #6. But I'm not convinced there is any real skill involved, thus not a quality at-bat, IMO. Some praise the hitter for ''fighting off'' strike three. But with every swing, the intent is to square barrel to ball. (I don't buy the idea that hitters are hitting foul balls intentionally to get a better pitch later.) Those who foul off 5 or 6 are failing to hit the ball squarely. If they'd done better, they might've gotten more of the ball and popped it up or grounded out weakly.
Also, long at-bats require many foul balls. You can't have a PB or WB or SB on a foul, so I don't see significant base-advancement value in 8-pitch at-bats.
I'm going disagree here. First let me say that I don't think they're intentionally fouling off pitches. But that doesn't negate the idea that fouling off several pitches is advantageous to the hitter, nor does it indicate the attempt is not skillful. If the batter is getting a better and better picture of the pitcher on each swing, each pitch seen, and doing it through swings intended to put the ball in play, then how is that not skillful? It would be different if the batter was simply swinging randomly and making contact - no skill, just "dumb luck" (a ridiculous sequence of probabilities occurring). This may be one of those intangibles that cannot be accurately measured in a single at bat.
About 9 months late to answer here, but ... IMO, this is not skillful because the goal of swinging the bat is to hit the ball square, not foul it off. So while it is true that the batter is getting a better and better picture of the pitcher, the better is getting this advantage by repeatedly failing at the main goal - to square. If you fly to CF on the first pitch, and I hit that exact same pitch back to the screen 7 times and then strike out, why is my bat quality? I didn't demonstrate a skill. I demonstrated a poor ability to square.
Just add "any RBI" to that and you just about have it covered. I also consider seeing three additional pitches after acquiring two strikes to be a quality at bat as you're making the pitcher work and not letting her get you out with "her" pitches.
I don't pay any attention to Gamechanger's definition of QAB.
So it's only skillful if you make square contact? That seems a bit harsh.
Didn't say that it's skillful only if you make square contact. But will say that it isn't skillful to repeatedly fail to square the ball into fair territory. An 8-pitch at-bat requires that you fail a lot. Have a hard time thinking of that as quality.
I understand what you're saying but I think there are players who actually do hit foul balls on purpose as they wait for a pitch they can drive. Or they just end up taking a walk. Certain slappers in particular seem to be masters at this.
No, you said:
The implication is clear: fouling it off is not skillful, square contact is. So is not-square contact in fair territory partially skilled? And what about square contact into foul territory?
Honestly, you don't think it takes skill to hang tough in an at bat fouling of marginal pitches to get to a good one? An 8 pitch at bat requires that you fail more than a 1 pitch fly out, but the 1st batter saw 8 pitches whereas the 2nd batter saw 1. Ted Williams would say that batter #1 had the better at bat.
Similar threads
