What's up, baseball players, I'm coach Dan Blewett in today's video,
let's talk about should you hit and run?
Alright
so if you're new here, I'm coach Dan, I'm a former pro pitcher,
I talk a lot about the strategy, the game, pitching mechanics, different pitch
grip, strength training, arm care, mental skills are all in this channel.
You'll also find my pitching books and my online courses
in the description below, so definitely check those out.
So in today's video, let's about hitting and running.
Obviously, the hit and run is something a little bit
more from the game of yesteryear.
It's not as much in the major league game today,
and there's some some reasons for that, and there's some pros
and cons of doing it.
So let's start first with the reasons
that maybe you do want to hit and run and some of the benefits of it.
So first off, if you don't know what a hit and run is,
it's when the runner takes off and is stealing on the pitch
and the batter knows that he's stealing.
So he's going to swing and try to put the ball in play on that pitch.
And typically if the
if the hitter doesn't connect, that runner is going to be thrown out
because you're kind of getting a later break.
And the goal is not really that
this person is a base stealer as much as they're just going to go.
And if you put the ball in play and you hear to the right side,
the second baseman on a right hand hitter is going to cover second base
and that's going to leave basically the entire right side of the field open.
So if you execute a hit and run well, the runner steals over the pitch.
Therefore, the second baseman runs to cover
and then the right handed hitter is just going to hit behind.
The runner hit a hit over into the second base area.
And even the weakest ground
ball is going to trickle into the outfield as he goes first or third.
That's essentially our hit and run or hit n run works
and be the opposite of there's a left handed hitter
the shortstop would cover on the steal and the left hand hitter
would slap it into the shortstop area.
So that's the goal of a hit and run.
We need to cover that first.
So why should you consider doing this well in the YES, in the Pro column -
Number one, it teaches strategy and coordination,
so understanding the player movement on the field, right when a certain
handed hitter like a right handed hitter, the second baseman is going to cover
left handed hitter.
The shortstop is going to cover on a steal.
This is an important thing for kids understand.
And when a runner steals and takes off, it's just
trying to figure out and help him understand
how all the moving pieces fit together.
So when you teach kids a hit and run,
you're helping to expand their baseball IQ, which is a good thing.
Also, coordination, you're asking a hitter to hit the ball into a specific location
on the field, which is very difficult to do regardless of the location.
We'll talk about that on the con side as well.
But this is good for teaching kids how to have good bat control, like can they
can they do that job?
Can they take an inside pitch, an inside out and hit over into that gap?
That's going to be open by the second baseman taking off
or the shortstop taking off to cover the base?
So it teaches strategy, it teaches coordination.
Those are good things for developing players to learn.
The next thing.
It's a very demoralizing if this works because as a pitcher, you just like,
make a normal pitch and then suddenly this guy is easily going first to third.
And you see this week's stupid ground ball,
you know, just trickle into the alpha and you're like,
Dang it
like that would have been an easy ground ball right
to my second baseman if they hadn't done this hit and run, right?
So it's very demoralizing everyone in the fields pissed off about it.
It's annoying.
So and that's good for morale.
Like obviously,
the up and down of confidence on both teams is important in baseball.
This is also going to make a lot more sense to put on
if the pitcher throws a lot of strikes.
So if you a pitcher who is not walking anybody, he's kind of pounding the bottom
of the strike zone. He's in the strike zone a lot.
This is going to make more sense as a coach to put this on.
If you have a pitcher who doesn't have to throw them
any strikes, he's got really good stuff or he's just kind of all over the place
like high fastball inside, outside bounce, a curve bounce, a slider.
It's going to be a lot more risky to do this
because the hitter might not get anything good to swing at .
And now, if that ball goes through the catcher, your base stealer
is going to be pretty much a dead duck going to second base.
So you need to have an excellent contact hitter up at the plate number one,
someone that can actually have a chance of doing this and putting the ball in play
and putting it in the right spot in the field, as well as a pitcher
that's going to be suited for it.
So again, you don't want to do this with someone who's wild.
If you have a pitcher who's like pretty much down the zone
and it's early in the count where maybe it's O or it's 10,
especially where they really the pitcher really wants to throw a strike.
Now you say, OK, he really wants to put it
in the strike zone where my hitter can handle it
and maybe put that ball
into the right spot to get this to get this runner over to third.
So you also need piggybacking on that.
You also need a choose account in general, where a fastball is expected.
You don't really want to give your hitter this task where they have
to hit behind the runner while hitting a slider or curveball.
So if you did this 12 or oh, to be pretty risky
because there's a much higher probability of the pitcher
throwing a curveball or a slider in that count and understanding what
the pitcher tends to throw in general will help give you clues.
So your goal is to pitch to pick a fastball count as a as a coach
where you're like, OK, I have a pretty good chance.
Maybe, you know, 75% odds that he's going to throw a fastball in this count
based on the situation based on what we've seen with this pitcher.
And that makes me feel pretty good with the contact it or I have up there.
Maybe we can pull this off, right?
So those are some of the strategic considerations
to putting on a good hit and run.
Now let's talk about some of the negative.
Like why you might not want to do a hit and run,
so no one, if you have no idea what the pitch could be.
So if you are really
a pitcher who just throws like three pitches for strikes
and he's just like kind of really keeping hitters guessing,
that's not a good situation because you don't want to be 10
and send the runner, and he throws a nasty change up
and you hit a whiffs through it.
Now you have an out at second base,
so obviously it's not a guarantee that they are going to get
thrown out of second base, but a pretty good likelihood.
If your catcher's not terrible and this runner is not like a crazy fast,
you know, flame foot, then we call people flame foot flame feet, I don't know.
Anyway, so if you don't know if you have no idea what the pitch could
be, the pitcher is very unpredictable or the pitcher is very wild.
You definitely don't want to do this.
Number two, remember, even good hitters can screw this up.
This is not an easy thing to do.
And the other thing you don't want to do is take the bat
out of a really good hitter's hand.
So say, for example, you two run on first and Mike Trout was up.
Well, Mike Trout is incredible.
So do you really want to ask Mike Trout to try to hit a pitch
into the into the second base gap just to get this guy first or third?
What if this pitcher grooves and inner half fastball to Mike Trout?
Do you really want him to then like, try to inside out into second base?
Or do you just want to let Mike Trout demolish that ball into the gap?
That's one of the trade offs here.
You don't know what's going to happen and what this pitcher's going to throw.
So if you're doing this with one of your more dangerous hitters
like you're two or three, four or five guys,
this pitcher might throw him a cookie.
And now, instead of just destroying it, hitting a dinger or a double
or just really hitting it hard,
they're going to have to try to shorten up and head to second base.
So you kind of take the bat out of the hitter's hands,
which can really screw
your team over, depending on the situation and what the pitcher throws.
So that's another consideration.
You probably want to do this again, more the contact hitter or someone
who's not as good of a damage threat on in the batter's box.
So again, don't take Mike Trout's bat out of his hand
just to shoot for the best possible scenario, which is the single.
That's the other thing to remember.
The best case scenario in this situation is you hit a single to the right side
and you have a runner on first, and that runner on first goes to third,
so you get first and third.
first and third is the best possible scenario from this.
So you have to ask yourself why and is the hitter
capable of getting a better outcome than that in general?
So again, I'm Mike Trout's up.
You don't need to do this. That doesn't make a lot of sense.
But if your eight hole hitters up have been kind of overmatched today
and it's unlikely that he's going to get a hit, or it's
very likely that he's going to ground and do a double play,
then this might make sense because now he can hit the ball on the ground.
And with that second baseman vacating or the shortstop vacating,
depending on the hitter, the handedness of the hitter,
now you're like giving that hitter who's kind of weak a boost.
So that might make more sense, but you don't really
want to do this with good hitters
because you're going to take the bat, other hand, and even the best hitters.
If you ask Mike Trout to try to put a high, high fastball
into the second base gap like he might be to do it, he might not,
or the pitcher throws him really far inside as a righty.
He is like no chance of hitting the ball where it needs to go for this,
the hitting run. So that's another consideration.
The other thing is, if you hit a line drive or you hit in the air.
Very high chance is going to be a double play
and you're and you're in your base is going to be cleared.
So there's the again, the highest upside you can hope for in the hitting
run is first and third and no outs recorded.
But there's a lot of downside.
Line drive, double play, pop up, double play,
fly ball
into like shallow or medium outfield might also still be a double play,
depending on how fast the runner can get back.
So again, the runner's going to be stealing.
So that ball's put in the air.
There's a very good chance
he's doubled off, not to mention if the hitter swings and misses
because they throw a slider or a change up, or it's a weird location,
that guy's going to be probably thrown out at second base.
So you have to remember that there's a lot of downside
to doing a hit and run, and that's really the main
negative about it and why a lot of coaches don't bother with it.
Because the hitters got to be really good at it.
You've got to have a really good chance
of them throwing a strike for that here to hit, and it's got to be a strike.
They can actually hit into that part of the field because again, a really high,
they bounce a slider, they throw a really tight end of the hitter.
They're not going to be a punch that to the right side.
And when you're asking the hitter to do all those different things, you have to say
the best case scenario is first.
The third is is really worth all that effort.
So again, at the youth levels, I think this is good to get players
understanding the strategy, the game and the player movement of the game,
some of the things you can do.
But there's a reason that you don't see the hit and run that much
at the higher levels because it's harder to pull it off.
There are some high school teams that are amazing at it.
They really work at it, and it can really change a game in a critical situation.
So kudos to you if you're one of those programs, are you seeing that happen?
It can really demoralize a team and work.
But again, it's like kind of a high risk kind of low reward.
So it just really depends.
But hopefully today in this video, we've talked through
a lot of the pros and cons and what could be beneficial
and why you might not want to use it as a coach, as a player or as a parent.
All right.
Thanks for watching this video.
Be sure to leave a comment. Do you use the hit and run?
Do you like the hit and run? Do you hate the hit and run?
You know, leave a comment below and we'll talk about it.
Thanks again for watching and. We'll see you in the next video.