Posted:
#26
Quote Originally Posted by depeche2:
I understand what you're saying, but couldn't a harmless infield popup also result from guys that can consistently make it tough for the hitter to properly square up the pitch -- from a guy that throws a rising fastball or very hard or movement such that a hitter consistently gets under it. I understand it could result from a hitter that just screwed up and the pitcher got lucky, but couldn't there also be an explanation favorable to the pitcher?
I understand what you're saying, but couldn't a harmless infield popup also result from guys that can consistently make it tough for the hitter to properly square up the pitch -- from a guy that throws a rising fastball or very hard or movement such that a hitter consistently gets under it. I understand it could result from a hitter that just screwed up and the pitcher got lucky, but couldn't there also be an explanation favorable to the pitcher?
Depeche, it's hard to give you a precise answer here because you've sort of stumbled upon one of pitching's biggest statistical debates. How much control does a pitcher have over a hitter? Looking past intangible angles like pressure situations, mind games - and basically anything psychological... what can a pitcher control? To a reasonable degree a pitcher can control three things: location, spin, velocity. Location and velocity are self explanatory and spin is really about movement. So a pitcher controls the movement, location and velocity of his pitches. He can't control the defense behind him, but it's a statistical fact that a defense has a better chance of recording an out if a ball is hit on the ground. Thus the idea recently arose that pitches that produce downward contact are preferred. Some people classify three different hitting results: ground balls, line drives, and fly balls. Ground balls are obviously the best whereas fly balls and line drives can either result in an out, a hit or even a home run. Now if you want my opinion, I prefer to simplify these results even more. Line drives and fly balls are basically the same thing to me. They can both produce similar results, and if you look at the trajectory of the ball they both mean the ball is moving up after contact (as opposed to ground balls which are moving down). Therefore, I like to think of two hitting results: Up-contact or Down-contact. Here's where I'll answer your question. I prefer down-contact, so I don't care whether a ball is popped up to the in-field, to the outfield, is hit on a line drive right to center field, bounces over the wall for a double, or sails over the fence for a home run (you get the point). In an over-simplified sense, they're all the same to me - they're all the fault of the pitcher. So a long winded answer is, I don't think a pitcher can induce in field fly balls - nor should he want to. A pitcher should always be looking to do two things and only two things: get strikeouts or produce ground balls.
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