General Baseball Topics
March 26, 2011 | 
Author One of the biggest reasons why I love baseball so much is the mental side of the game. At any given point during a baseball game there are countless small mental battles occurring within the larger context of the game itself. As a catcher, I need to be constantly aware of these cranial skirmishes and try to use the information I have gathered to try to outsmart my opponents. Oftentimes, I’ll do things for no other reason than to mess with a batter’s head. One of my favorite things to do is to give the pitcher a couple of shakeoff signs in an obvious fastball count and then blast the batter’s hands with an inside heater. Sometimes I’ll “tip” a pitch location by making a lot of noise setting my feet on a few pitches in the early innings so that later in the game I can make a bunch of noise setting up on the outside corner, then silently slide inside and watch the hitter’s beloved $150 Sam Bat get obliterated by the pitch he swore to God was going to come in on the outside half.
Not unlike this bewildered gentleman
Really, anything I can do to make the hitter start thinking and second-guessing his instincts, I’ll do it. A confused baseball player is a worthless baseball player. Even more worthless than a confused baseball player is an intimidated baseball player. Every athlete knows that if you “play scared,” you’re destined to lose. Therefore, part of your job as an athlete is to try to scare your opponents and make them fear you. If a batter is afraid to face you, there’s no chance he’ll succeed when he timidly steps into the back far corner of the box. Read the rest of this entry »
Had a great time eating Italian Beef and talking baseball with Tom & Jack of Corn Belt Baseball. Check out the conversation here.
Have you seen this video about the Seattle Mariners’ new approach to strength training? If you haven’t please check this out.
I got a kick out of this man Elliot running around calling everyone a “beautiful rotational athlete.” Interesting guy.
Now, I DO think he knows what he is doing, but he acts like his new program is a whirlwind of modern science – it isn’t. Good trainers have been doing for years what he is now introducing as revolutionary, and the training isn’t nearly as complex as he makes it out to be…case in point: he pulls out a chart of Dustin Ackley’s power curve, then a minute later shows one of their players doing lateral hops. Wow! All that technology boils down to…..lateral hopping. Lateral hopping is a good plyometric for pitchers but lets, please, not act like it’s never been done before. That could have been prescribed without dropping a dime on sophisticated software.
And take a look around this “bare” weight room. Little equipment? Hardly; they just removed the superfluous machines that no good trainer would keep around. The good things (and heavy, at that) are still there – squat racks and a lot of dumbbells. And the pulley systems are pretty expensive, despite being minimalistic, so I don’t like them pretending like it’s the gym Rocky trained in.
But Hooray for the Mariners, they do seem to have found someone who at least knows something, even if he is playing it up a bit too much.
Steroids get a bad rap in sports, and rightfully so. After all, they give athletes an edge over their competition, and can subsequently take jobs away from “clean” athletes who are physically overmatched by “dirty” athletes.
Yet, a fundamental reason we spectators watch athletics is to witness, and vicariously share in and celebrate, the limits and athletic prowess of the human body.
This is one reason the Olympics has forever been successful, despite the fact that it often features sports that are obscure to the masses for the better part of 4 years.
Thing is, increases in human performance are beginning to taper down as we reach our genetic potential. Back in the 1900s one could break a world record in the 100m dash by a half second. Now, world records are lowered only by the hundredth, maybe a tenth if we are lucky.
Where is the fun in that? We can no longer go out and see something we haven’t (basically) seen before. If not for the actual stopwatches, no one would know the speed difference between Usain Bolt or Carl Lewis if not running against each other, because the speed difference that translates to even a huge 1/2 second difference in the 100m is likely not perceivable by the human eye.
And sure, sports have incredible value beyond just the limits of a singular performance, but thats not what is at issue here. I’m talking about the single physical events: the sprint, the distance of the homer, the throw, the swim. These are objective, relevant and salient without mention of other competitors.
Thus, I would like to make an appeal for the greatness of steroids on the grounds that they allow us to continue to explore the limits of the human body, knowing that our natural genetic potential for athletic feats will one day, if not already, be tapped without them. Read the rest of this entry »
On the weekends, college teams play conference games that count toward their shot at making the NCAA tournament. The games played against conference foes are the most important of the year, and as such call on coaches to put forth their premium lineups.
Typically, a team throws their best starters in order from friday to sunday, and the best relievers get used up in the same fashion. In a three, and especially a four game series, the Sunday games get awfully interesting due to pitching depth.
In Major League games the difference between top relievers and lower relievers is not nearly as great as it is in college. Major leaguers are the top in the world, and every single one can hold his own, or they would not be there.
In college baseball, the effectiveness of pitchers varies much more as one progresses down the depth chart. When the top and the middle-tier arms are used up on Friday and Saturday, Sunday often becomes a slugfest, coming down to the talent left in the bullpen. Teams that are deep in their pitching staffs have the ability to sweep a series, but those who run thin have a tough time finishing with their brooms. Read the rest of this entry »
Everyone watches baseball on TV, and it looks much too easy to be as difficult as it apparently is. Some things are better in real life, and pitches are one of them.
The standard over-the-right-shoulder camera view on the pitcher tracks the ball brilliantly as soon as it leaves the hand. Seemingly, we would pick up everything thats going on, but this is far from the truth.
Countless times have I heard, “how did he miss that pitch? It was right there. Maybe it was, or maybe it wasnt. Thing is, what the baseball does when being thrown 85+ mph is crazy, especially by the Major League pitch-smiths. Ever watched Greg Maddux pitch? If you have, you have probably watched his fastball start at a lefty’s hip and mozy on back over the inside corner of the plate. That is how it is shown on television.
Reality? Maddux’s fastball darts, sharply and lately. Imagine a bird flying directly at you and then suddenly changing direction right before slamming into you. Thats the kind of movement he has on his fastball.
Fastballs from most pitchers look pretty much straight, or have a nice gently tail to the arm side, but this is, again, a deception by the camera. Very few major league pitchers throw straight, and the ones who do (and are successful) throw in the upper 90s.
Sharp movement on the fastball is crucial to success, and it makes sense when you consider that the difference between a long fly ball and a homerun is maybe an inch on or off the barrel. The batter barely misses that pitch that moves off his barrel at the last moment. This is how Mariano Rivera has made living throwing nothing but cut fastballs, ones that the TV camera really doesnt even display. Think about how late breaking and sharp his cutter must be if he can throw it every single pitch over 15 years, and every hitter knows it.
Human eye reaction time is such that a hitter cannot watch the ball travel the last 6 feet or so to the bat, and so his swing is really just a well-vectored guess. So, if a pitcher can make his pitch move in that last 10% of its travels, then the batter’s barrel won’t contact the ball where he intends. Thats why Mariano Rivera gets everyone out, even when they know what pitch is coming. It’s beyond their perceptual abilities to square it up.
And its not just the fastball. Changeups look straight, curveballs look loopy and round. Good curveballs even in college baseball literally spike themselves into the ground when viewed from the plate. The round, looping curves that the camera shows us are really some of the most diabolically sharp-breaking, physics-defying pitches you will never get the (dis)pleasure of facing.
This is all stuff that fans who have unfortunately never played at a high level may not understand about the game. The pop of the mitt and the blur of the ball at the ballpark gives fans part of the picture, but they still only watch as if through a keyhole, never truly seeing the game as it actually is. When you are privileged enough to play against players with that kind of talent and potential you realize how frighteningly difficult it is to have success hitting in the Major Leagues.