Should coaches or catchers call pitches?

[Jeffrey]

My question was specifically about a pitcher who was initiating the pitch call herself, and how she communicated it to the catcher.

Never seen it...and hate wristbands...Pitcher tells the catcher to start on a different pitch each pitch, or guess what she wants, or you pick.
If pitcher shakes go to the next pitch, or rolls the ball/glove change location. (or something like that - need to mix that up)
DD will tell catch to go heavy on outside FB if that's what she's feeling...or if they're jumping all over the heat, she'll tell catch to go heavy off speed.
Coach interjects occasionally.
After each inning, talk about it.
Rinse. Repeat.

 

[_MIA_]

Never seen it...

@Eric F was responding to someone who said that his DD does this exact thing...hence his question (which didn't seem like a difficult one to comprehend but alas I guess it was.. )

 

[CoachJD]

their main skill is being the last prior out

Not the rule in HS ball, and I'm pretty sure that's not the rule in most rule sets, either.

 

[CoachJD]

Who is good at pitch calling? Better yet who is bad at it?

You are saying that some players are better than random chance....how do you quantify that? What if your SS is better at it than your catcher, does she call the pitches?

How do you determine if that pitch that you called was better than all other choices? What if you call a pitch and the pitcher can't execute it exactly the way you called it?

It's ridiculous to think that pitch calling is a skill and that you are better than random chance. Almost as ridiculous as that pitch calling chart that gets floated around (based on how the batter is standing/swinging).

The reality is that a coach in concert with the pitcher and catcher are executing a predetermined series of pitches to give themselves the best leverage possible against a hitter. It's mostly based on the pitchers primary pitches, any data that you might have available on a particular batter, and what the catcher is seeing (from the pitcher, from the umpire, and from the batter).

Thinking that "Suzy" has a sixth sense as a catcher (or coach or left fielder) on what pitch to call at a particular time is not a quantifiable skill.

How many catchers have you met that are great receivers, great framers, awesome at blocking, but call a poor game. Just couldn't master that "pitch calling skill"... said no catcher ever.

Would've been a lot shorter to just say "I have no idea what I'm talking about on this one" and leave it at that. It would take six or seven hours to type out a response to explain why nearly every word of this is completely wrong.

So let's keep it short:

1) Just because you don't know how to quantify something doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
2) If the pitch is located properly and gets the intended result (not just a good result), it was probably the right call. Or one of the right calls. By this logic, there is also no such thing as a good or bad play caller in football because nobody knows if any other play could've worked better or worse, so what actually happened is irrelevant.
3) OK, fine, that pitch calling chart based on batter stance is trash. I'm with you on that one.
4) Nobody said it's a sixth sense. And nobody said it was quantifiable, either. There are lots of little skills that aren't exactly quantifiable, like a coach who understands defensive positioning (or a player who does this independently). There's no stats for outs made specifically because the coach moved a player 3 steps. It just shows up in better defensive numbers.

Maybe pitch calling is less effective without all the data (batter tendencies, etc.). But that just proves that it is, in fact, a valuable skill if you have that information.

In a perfect world, it's a skill that could be done by a computer, which would be capable of plugging in all the information and saying "Properly executed Pitch X is most likely to produce Result Y." That is a thing that can be done, at least at high levels where data is abundant. But in lieu of that, it's a skill for a person (coach or catcher) to be able to gather a bunch of that data and come up with best estimates.

 

[_MIA_]

The reality is that a coach in concert with the pitcher and catcher are executing a predetermined series of pitches to give themselves the best leverage possible against a hitter. It's mostly based on the pitchers primary pitches, any data that you might have available on a particular batter, and what the catcher is seeing (from the pitcher, from the umpire, and from the batter).

Is the bold not a skill you (catcher/pitcher/coach) need to develop and if it isn’t then my 3 YO should do equally well if tasked with that job, right?

 

[JayW]

Not the rule in HS ball, and I'm pretty sure that's not the rule in most rule sets, either.

USSSA, NSA, ISA, PGF, e.g.

 

[MDCrab]

Most pitchers 14 and under only have two pitches. Fastball and change. They think they have a rise. Especially their parents who tell their friends they have a private pitching coach. The rise….It’s typically just a high ball. Catchers at 10 and 12U need to understand location set up more than anything. As long as they know when to call for the change, let them call their own game. See what happens.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Bonesaw]

Do travel baseball teams have coaches calling pitches? Or college or the MLB? Or the US Olympic softball team?

Sorry honest questions.

 

[S Spiff]

I've always assumed that to be really successful, a pitcher, catcher, and a coach if he's calling pitches, need to be working together to execute a plan that they developed before the game. Perhaps they use the same plan all the time, perhaps they have a few. But the pitcher surely has a few ideas about how they want to try to get batters out, the coach may have some ideas about how he wants to pitch to the defense, and the catcher certainly has the best view of pitches and pitcher feedback. My daughter's a catcher, but I'd have to admit that she doesn't have the best view of what any particular batter is doing when she's receiving. At the same time, I absolutely reject the idea of the Jedi pitch caller who magically knows what pitches to call based on careful assessment of a hitter in the on deck circle. Are we going to try to keep fastballs away from the big girls batting 3-4-5? May the force be with you.

Whether it is truly a team effort or if the coach is doing it all in his head, pitch calling is only going to be really effective if it is part of a plan. If it is part of a plan, a good coach should be including his pitcher and catcher in that process to teach when they are young and to hear what they have to say as they get older. Isn't it going to work best when the pitcher sees the situation and is 80% she knows what sign she's going to get, the catcher looks over to the coach and is 80% she knows what sign the coach is going to send in? Everyone knows what the plan is and why. Who cares who throws down the first finger?

 

[Jeffrey]

@Eric F was responding to someone who said that his DD does this exact thing...hence his question (which didn't seem like a difficult one to comprehend but alas I guess it was.. )

Not exactly, and I apologize my addition to the conversation was lost on you. There's a difference is in the subtlety of what I'm describing more than just "shaking it off." I was trying to describe the constant back and forth the battery and coach have.
To put it another way. that hopefully meets your approval...
My opinion as to the conversation at hand which started as "who should call the pitches;" I believe it's best to be a very quick conversation initiated by the catcher, guided by the pitcher, and depending both players skill level and experience overseen by a coach or coaches. Ultimately it is however the pitcher's responsibility because they wear the stats so to speak.