So the ones who don't, the successful major league hitters, why do you think they aren't taking the advice of the career minor leaguer/blogger that you linked?

Posted by bad_luck on 4/22/2015 1:23:00 PM (view original):
So the ones who don't, the successful major league hitters, why do you think they aren't taking the advice of the career minor leaguer/blogger that you linked?

Stop being a retard.

The "advice of the career minor leaguer/blogger" is longtime conventional baseball wisdom.

Would you like to rephrase your question?

As a side note . . . one of my players last night worked a full count.  On the next pitch, he took a defensive two strike swing on a pitch that was not great to hit, but too close to the strike zone to take. 

Care to guess what happened?

Sure.

Why are major league hitters not taking his tips for shortening their swings?

Posted by bad_luck on 4/22/2015 1:32:00 PM (view original):
Sure.

Why are major league hitters not taking his tips for shortening their swings?

Did you mean to say "Why are so many major league players no longer following longtime conventional wisdom on approaching hitting with a two strike count"?

Sure. Why?

(Side note: is conventional wisdom always right?)

I won't go so far as saying "conventional wisdom is always right" but I will say that if you are struggling at the plate, runs are down and you are looking to "solve" that problem, perhaps "conventional wisdom" might be wise to try for awhile and then you could determine if it was right in your particular case.

Well, since a ball in play has a 30% chance of being a hit and a swinging strikeout has 0% chance of being a hit, it seems like putting the ball in play, by whatever "technique" you deem necessary, would be a good idea.

Or, conversely, batters can swing with all their might, continue to strikeout and runs will continue to not score.   Yay.

Posted by bad_luck on 4/22/2015 1:38:00 PM (view original):
Sure. Why?

(Side note: is conventional wisdom always right?)

I don't know, because I'm not privy to the discussions between major league hitters, their hitting coaches, their agents, and MLB management.

But I would assume that it's because they're being led to believe that "swing hard, all the time" is better for them.

So here we are today.  Strikeouts approaching an all-time high, run scoring approaching 1968 levels, and horrible plate discipline pervasive throughout MLB.

(Is conventional wisdom always right?  Perhaps not always.  But it's worked well for many successful players and managers for 100+ years, so it has a pretty good track record). 

Is plate discipline horrible? Striking out isn't a sign of poor plate discipline, sometimes it's the opposite. Adam Dunn had great plate discipline.

Do you think that shortening up your swing comes with a trade off?

Striking out over 28% of your PA's over a career (as Adam Dunn has done) is a sign of "great plate discipline"?

Interesting.

Of course there's a trade off.  There's also an advantage.  That's why it's a trade off.

Uh-oh.  tec got sucked down the rabbit hole.


BL!!   TELL HIM HOW JUST STICKING THE BAT OUT WILL RESULT IN 6 FOOT DRIBBLERS IN FRONT OF THE PLATE!!!!   AND HOW THAT WON'T BE EFFECTIVE AT ALL!!!!!  THEN CALL HIM A DUMBASS OR SOMETHING!!!

Posted by tecwrg on 4/22/2015 2:13:00 PM (view original):
Striking out over 28% of your PA's over a career (as Adam Dunn has done) is a sign of "great plate discipline"?

Interesting.

Of course there's a trade off.  There's also an advantage.  That's why it's a trade off.

Yeah striking out isn't always a sign of poor discipline. We know this because some hitters with great discipline strike out a ton. Like Dunn.

Ok, so if there's a downside to shortening up your swing to avoid a strikeout, don't you think that it's possible that the benefit of more extra base hits outweighs the negative of more strikeouts?