Hey, what's up?
I'm Coach
Dan Blewett in today's video, let's talk about the strike zone in baseball.
Let's go over the basics.
How the strike zone works.
The size of the strike zone, the expansion of the strike zone, why we use margin
for error as a good way of deciding what pitch to throw based on the count,
how to chop up the plate, how pros do it, how amateurs kind of screw it up.
And more here in today's video about the strike zone
and counts.
All right. So if you're new here, I'm Coach Dan.
I'm a former pro baseball player.
You can look me up.
I have three books about baseball.
And if you're looking to learn more about the game,
I highly recommend you pick up a copy.
So in today's video, let's talk about the strike zone
and how we chop of the plate, how we can understand the strike zone
and how margin for error helps us decide what pitch to throw next.
Now, the reason pitchers get hit hard
is when they throw too many pitches in the center cut portion of the plate.
Right.
So we know that throwing the ball down the middle of the plate is bad
for pitchers and it's good for hitters
throwing the ball on the corners of the plate
and on the edges of the strike zone, whether it's the bottom border
or the very top order, is much harder for the hitter
to make solid contact on the barrel of the bat.
So at a basic level, one of the fundamentals of good pitching,
besides changing timing
and throwing balls, the break and all those different things
that make it difficult to hit the ball square
is just to get your strikes by throwing on the edges of the plate.
Right.
Some be harder for the hitter to barrel up and hit the ball hard.
Now, the problem with that and this is why pitchers use margin for error
and this is one of my big gripes with amateur baseball,
is that we have to use a balance of margin for error to make sure
that we can be ahead in the count versus falling behind in the count.
Now, falling behind in the count is bad because when a pitcher is closer
to walking, a hitter say it's a two count, meaning two balls in those strikes
or three one count, three balls and one strike.
That pitcher does not want to give a free pass to the hitter.
That's one of the worst things a pitcher can do
because they didn't have to earn their way on base.
And when hitters hit the ball in play, even when they don't hit that hard,
they still get out. Right.
And they hit they hit it very hard.
They still get out.
So a pitcher forcing the hitter to put the ball in play is a very important thing.
You can do.
Walking them and giving them first base for free is very bad.
So pitchers don't want to walk hitters.
The problem is the and this is what makes pitching
so tough is throwing to the corners of the plate
makes it much more likely that you're going to miss outside of the strike zone
and thus fall behind the count and thus either walk
more hitters or have to bring the ball back over the middle of the plate
to catch up on strikes.
So what pitching ends up becoming is a balance act
of throwing to the corners where you have
lesser margin for error, which I'll explain a second.
And throwing to the middle the plate where you have more more margin for error
so you can get ahead earlier.
So here's the analogy.
If you had an open goal in hockey or in foreign soccer
and you're right there, all you have to do is kick in the goal.
Where would you aim?
You would aim in the dead center of that soccer goal or that hockey goal.
Right.
Because that gives you the most margin for error, where if you mishit it,
you still have a couple of feet to the right,
a couple of feet to the left, a couple of feet up and down
to still do the job, which was kick it in that open goal.
Right. Or hit it with your hockey stick.
It's the same thing in pitching.
If I aim down the middle, I can miss a couple of inches.
This way, this way, this way and this way and still throw a called strike.
So when a pitcher really wants to throw a strike, it makes sense to aim down
the middle of the plate, not because he wants to throw it there,
but because if he aims there and misses, it gives him
the most chance of still throwing a strike even though he didn't hit his spot.
Exactly.
So the goal of throwing or aiming down the middle is never to throw
it exactly down the middle.
It's just to say, hey, this is our aim.
So now if you're not perfect, which
no one is, now you're going to miss and still be in the strike zone.
So that is a tactic that makes sense
when you're behind in the count and you need to catch up
because it gives you a higher likelihood of throwing a strike or early in the count
when you want to get ahead of the hitter.
Now, when a pitcher gets ahead
and say the pitcher is oh one or one and two or own two,
now it doesn't make sense to aim down the middle as much
because we're not as worried about throwing strikes and our main worry
at that point is throwing a quality pitch that's hard for the hitter to hit.
So now we might aim for the corner
or the third or the half, which I'll get into in a second.
And that's going to give us less margin for error, because if we still miss
with the same relative grouping, half our misses
are now going to be off the plate and half our misses are going to be on the plate.
Or if we aim down the middle, a lot more of our misses will be on the plate.
So aiming to the corner gives us less margin for error
because about half or more of our misses are going to be balls.
So this is why when we have more strikes as a pitcher and we're ahead,
we can start to aim further off the plate and still be safe
because we have enough likelihood of throwing a strike,
but a high likelihood of throwing a quality strike,
whereas earlier will aim down the middle more often to give us a higher
likelihood of any strike, but also a less likelihood of a quality strike.
So that's an important distinction, and that's a fundamental understanding
that all pitchers need to know, because, again, the goal of throwing down
the middle is never to land it down the middle,
to hit your spot down the middle, but instead to get you ahead in the count,
which allows you to do other things which we can cover now.
So the other things that are important, when you get ahead in the count,
you can start or start to throw your other pitches
that are less likely to be thrown for a strike.
So every pitcher, I mean, maybe not every pitcher, but
pretty much every pitcher throws their fastball for the first strike
more than any other pitch because it's straight.
So if you throw your fastball for a strike 70% of the time, which is great,
you might only through your curveball for a strike 50% of the time.
You might only throw your change up for a strike.
Which isn't it, which is your third best pitch maybe, maybe 40% of the time.
So if your life or the game depended on it and you had to throw a called strike,
say it was three, you know, with the bases loaded in the winning run on third base,
if you had to throw a strike, you would pick your best commanded pitch
the pitch you throw for a strike
more than any other, which is usually your fastball.
And so when you're behind, it kind of forces you to pick pitches
that you'll throw for a strike more often, which are more often fastballs.
That's good for the hitter and bad for the pitcher.
When a pitcher is ahead in the count,
he can say, okay,
well, I'm on two or I'm on one, so I'm ahead.
Therefore I can throw that changeup.
That's going to be harder for the hitter to hit
because they're not expecting a change up
or the curveball breaks, and that's just a harder pitch to hit.
I can throw that pitch even though I'm only going throw a four called strike
50% of the time or 40% of the time.
But I can throw it in this situation because I'm so far ahead in the count
that if I miss, I'm still not in any real danger of walking the hitter
and the hitter is more likely to swing at it
because they're trying to not fall farther and farther behind the count.
And that's what we call expanding the strike zone.
And this is another really important concept.
So expanding the strike zone means that hitters
start to swing at more pitches that are outside the strike zone
because they're afraid of taking it called strike.
So if it's own two and you as a pitcher throw a pitch right here,
the hitter is more likely to swing at that oh and two, because they know the umpire
might call that borderline pitch.
Even if it's a ball, a strike
a hitter might swing in a curveball that's breaking out of the dirt
or out of the zone. And it might be caught here.
They might swing at that one more likely on oh two, because, again,
they're afraid of getting called out on strikes on two or no or three
and one or three, you know, a hitter is going to be much more disciplined.
They're only going to want to
pick fastballs if they can correctly identify the spin.
They're only going to want to swing at pitches
that are center cut right down the middle of the plate because they can be picky
because even if a pitcher throws a called strike on three and one,
the hitter is still
has the count in his favor and they're not going to be
called out on strikes on that pitch.
So this balance of who's ahead in the count really determines
whether or not the hitter is going to expand the strike zone
and start to swing at pitches that are even worse for the hitter to hit.
So hopefully this overview of how the count and the size of the plate
and margin for error and now all those factors sort of collide
to the certain to determine what pitch you'll throw as a pitcher.
Hopefully this overview has been helpful because this is really the foundation
of making smart pitch calls and smart location calls
in the strike zone.
Too many amateur pitchers make the mistake of when they get a strike,
they immediately go to the corner of the plate.
What's really more important is using margin for error effectively
and by not always jumping to the corner, but maybe using the outer half of
the plate or the outer third of the plate, which gives you a good blend of both
a high quality pitch potential and more margin for error.
So you can get the strike that you need. All right.
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