He still hit .310 on balls up and away.  

Posted by MikeT23 on 4/23/2015 9:21:00 PM (view original):
Did anyone ever throw Vlad Guerrero a pitch in the strike zone?     How he do?

As much as Alfonso Soriano aggravated me on curveballs outside, that stupid SOB could hit the **** out of a ball that was ankle high.

Are you saying they're better hitters than Martinez?

Even Manny Sanguillen was a better hitter than Vlad by dumbdebater's criteria.

Well, every batter would like the pitch in their wheelhouse but, sometime in the 1800s, they changed the rules and those sneaky pitchers started throwing them where they thought the batter COULDN'T hit them.    Maybe Edgar didn't get the memo.

Posted by MikeT23 on 4/23/2015 9:29:00 PM (view original):



He still hit .310 on balls up and away.  

First of all, this is mostly guesswork, since the advanced pitch tracking we have now was nowhere near existing at the time.  Second, Williams was another guy who took a ton of **** for NOT swinging at enough pitches.  It's a lot easier to hit for a high average on balls on the edges/outside the zone when you're more selective about which ones you swing at.  See this article.

I bet Edgar had a pretty darn good average on balls on the corners, too.  That's because both he and Williams didn't swing at pitches they didn't think they could drive.  You're arguing that they SHOULD swing at pitches they don't think they can drive.  It's embarrassing that tec decided to back you up on this, even for somebody as dumb as he.

Again, no one is saying he should have swung at pitches a foot off the plate, although, had he been facing Maddux/Glavine, they might have been called strikes.   I'm saying it doesn't hurt to expand your "zone" a few inches to put the ball in play.   Again, if your plate coverage doesn't extend a couple of inches outside the strike zone, I don't think you know how to hit.

Posted by dahsdebater on 4/23/2015 9:15:00 PM (view original):
Yeah, I do think that.  We have metrics on this sort of thing now that PitchFX exists.  .200 on balls outside the strike zone is exceptional.  It's hard enough for hitters to hit balls inside the strike zone.

If the guy isn't swinging at the pitch - at least a guy as good as Martinez - there's a reason.  He knows he's not going to be terribly successful swinging at that pitch (or maybe the count is 3-0).  As an Orioles fan, I get to watch a lot of Adam Jones.  The past few years he's generally hit just under .400 on ABs ending on pitches in the strike zone, one of the best averages in the league.  Amazing how much better he could be if he could stop swinging at the balls outside the zone.  I don't believe that there's ever been an instance where the opposite was true.

I'm not saying I wouldn't ever condone swinging at a ball, for example, with 1 out and a man on 3rd, no other baserunners.  The opportunity cost is minimal there - if you do walk, you set up the double play, and with an out you're not all that likely to score at any rate.  But in virtually any other situation, I don't want my guy swinging at balls outside the zone.

I feel like we've been over this before and the "walking is a bad thing" crowd got their ***** kicked.