Lots of baseball players. I'm Coach Dan Blewett.
And in today's video, let's talk about how to chop up the plate in the middle
have thirds and corners to determine
what's the most effective pitch strategy on a given count
and how we can maximize strike throwing with the idea
that we want to throw a quality pitch in some counts more than others.
So in today's video, we'll talk about some pitching strategy here in baseball
and how we can get the most out of our command.
And the strike zone so we can get more hitters out.
All right. So if we knew here, I'm Dan Blewett.
I'm a former pro baseball pitcher.
In the description links below, you'll find my online pitching courses,
my three baseball books and other ways to support the channel
and to grow your knowledge as a ballplayer.
So definitely check those out.
So in today's video, let's talk about middle halves, thirds and corners
and elevating and bouncing pitches, which are all the sort
of main locations that you'll throw to as a pitcher.
So the big thing to cover and I'll link to the description
link below where you can find my video about the strike zone basics
and understanding margin for error and how they interact with the count.
But for now, let's quickly cover the fact that margin for error
is one of the main things that dictates
what you do as a pitcher and what you throw in a certain count.
So margin for error is how much can we miss
and still do the job that we're trying to do.
So a good example is kicking a soccer ball into an open goal.
If your only goal is to kick it in the goal,
if there's no goalie there, then you would aim for the center of the goal, right?
That way, if you kick it a little bit to the right
or a little bit left or a little bit high,
you still maximize your chance of kicking in the goal.
That's your only job right?
If your goal only goal is to throw a called strike,
then the most logical thing to do would be to throw it right down the middle.
Nor not throw it down the middle, but aim right down the middle.
That way you can miss here. You can miss there.
You can miss here you can miss there you can miss up you can miss down
You can miss in a lot of different directions
and still throw that called strike as much margin for error as you can.
If your goal is to throw a high quality pitch and nail your spot in the corner
and you don't care if you throw a ball because it's own too than aiming for
the corner makes sense
even though you'll lose quite a bit of margin for error
because even a little miss over here becomes a ball.
Whereas over here a little miss is still a strike.
So that's the core thing to remember.
Margin for error is the underlying principle behind where you set up
based on the count in the hitter in the situation and margin for error is is huge.
Okay.
So let's talk
about how to cut up the plate to be most effective based on the count.
So basically, if you're a coach and you want to learn how to
teach your kids how to call pitches, which I really think
kids should call their own game, not coaches,
then what you should do is explain that an easy way to start this is to say
that each count sort of corresponds to a different slice of the plate.
So when we need it, let's go down this first.
So throwing down the middle, aiming down the middle,
we aim down the middle when our main goal is just to throw a strike
and probably get ahead and account or catch up in the count.
So we aim down the middle, not because we want to end up here.
We aimed in the middle because again, it gives us the most margin for error.
And the counts that we would do that on are 30201031 counts like that.
We're, we're pretty far behind and we need to catch up again.
There's exceptions to all this. I won't go down
that rabbit hole in this video because it's more of a basics video.
But in general, you'll aim down the middle when you're behind in the count,
especially if you're more than two pitches behind like 2003030 or three and one.
The next location is cutting the plate into two halves.
So you slice it down the middle and then the catcher is going to set up
with the center of his body and the center of his mitt,
splitting one of the halves, either the outer half or the inner half,
depending on the hitter and the halves they give you,
they start to move the pitcher to one side or the other.
So mentally it helps the pitcher say, I need to get the ball in
or I need to throw the ball away.
But it doesn't give us too much, you know, it
doesn't put us too far to the corner where we lose all of our margin for error.
And then we're probably
at risk of falling behind or running the count and count back.
Even so, splitting the plate into halves is great on even counts especially.
So like one, one, two, two and three two isn't even count
because basically you're full on both balls and strikes.
So going to the halves on zero one, one, two,
two or three two is a really good tactic, especially for amateur pitchers.
And my last note on throwing to the Habs pro pitchers,
including major league pitchers, throw to the half of the plate
much more than you realize when they're going first pitch,
second pitch, even count, they're going on the halves quite a lot
because again, it moves their mentally to that part of the plate,
but it still gives them a little bit of room to miss.
And if you're on the half and you miss by two inches in or away,
wherever you target supposed to be, that's on the third of the plate.
And that's a high quality pitch.
All right.
The next location is the inner third or outer third.
So splitting the plate into thirds.
So you cut the plate into three slices and ignore the middle slice.
So the counter
you throw to the inner third or outer third are going to be
when you're ahead in the count as a pitcher.
So only one or one and two.
Again, we could go down a rabbit hole in this.
It could be one in one or even the first pitch of the bat.
If it's a really important situation, the hitter's really, really tough.
So it can always depend.
But in general, it's a great rule of thumb to say we're going to go to the third
to the plate, in or out of third only when we're ahead in the count.
So one, one, two or even oh two.
But the third to the plate is where it becomes really difficult
to hit as a hitter, where you're going to start to jam guys when you go inside
or they're really going to have to be good to hit that ball hard away
because it's starting to get to the words the edge of the plate.
It's not so much.
It's not so far in or out world.
We're on the corners where we have very little margin for error.
But the thirds, the inner outer third still gives us a lot of plate to work
with while still being very effective if you do hit your spot.
So inner outer thirds are going to correspond to being ahead in the count.
All right.
And our last location here is I'm going to I'm going to lump a bunch together.
This is corners elevate or bounce.
And these all have essentially
the same intention, which is to either get a strikeout
or to just throw the toughest possible pitch in that situation.
So throwing a fastball on the outer corner, inner corner,
they're not really strikeout pitches because
really they're only going to miss that pitch
if they're not very good or the umpire just calls them out on strikes.
If you really want someone to miss and to strike them out on a fastball,
you're going to elevate that fastball
because that is where hitters, they think they can get up, too,
but they really can't in time, especially with their hard.
And you have a good four seamer.
So it's good to think of oh two as like your strikeout count.
It's your main count to just say, I'm going to strike this guy out
and if I miss,
I'm going to miss off the plate for a ball and that's perfectly fine.
We don't really want to do that.
On other counts because it tends to run a pitcher's pitch, count up,
and especially for amateur pitchers who don't have great command.
If we get a chance to be oh two, let's try to get them to swinging the bat
while still trying to get that strikeout.
And then if we don't on one and two,
we want them to put the ball in play with weak contact.
That's where we go
back to the third to the plate and don't try so hard to strike them out.
But on oh two we can go to the corner, in or out, or we can elevate a fastball,
which means you're throwing it just above the strike zone.
Or you can bounce that
bounce that curveball or slider or fade that change up into the dirt.
Those things make sense because on oh two, if we get the strikeout, it
eliminates the possibility that they hit a blooper that falls in,
they hit a swinging bunt that we can't field
or they hit a ground ball that goes to our shortstops legs.
It eliminates all that bad luck that's present in baseball.
But I again, I don't think it's a good tactic to do that on
any time you get two strikes, you shouldn't be go hunting for strikeouts
on 2-2 or 1-2 as much
because and again, situationally, they can that can make sense for sure.
But we don't really want to be as strikeout focused on those counts
because it will tend to run your pitch, count up
and if you're a starter, it's going to be really hard to make it later into games
and make it deeper into games and to eat up to innings that help your team win.
So when you're 0-2, you can go to the corners,
elevate the fastball or bounce that breaking ball.
All right.
So let's summarize.
A really good pitching strategy.
Simply can be can involve slicing the plate into four slices
and giving each of those slices a corresponding count.
So aiming down the middle again, this is we're going for margin for error.
This could be 3-0, 3-1, 2-0
1-0 or first pitch of the a bat, cutting the plate into halves.
That's best for even counts like 1-1, 2-2 or 3-2
Going to the third to the plate, that's best for 0-1 1-2 or 0-2
two or oh two when you're heading the count.
And then going to the corners of the plate or elevating
or bouncing a breaking ball, that's going to be best for own to count.
So if you're a coach and you want to start teaching your kids
how to call a smart game and help them learn the deep, amazing
strategy side of baseball, this is a great place to start.
Assign a count to a slice of the plate, so thanks for watching.
I hope you found this video helpful.
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Thanks again for watching and I'll see you here in the next video.