Hitting a baseball is both extremely complex and mind-numbingly simple.
Hitting is the difficult act of trying to cover the strike zone against pitchers with top-end velocity, while also dealing with advanced game theory of trying to figure out which type of pitch a pitcher is going to choose.
And at the same time, it can be reduced to the simple motto of "hit strikes hard."
Christian Encarnacion-Strand in fact hits strikes hard, but the Triple-A Louisville first baseman has an even simpler approach. He just tries to hit everything hard.
That strategy shouldn't work. For almost everyone in baseball, it doesn't. This year, Encarnacion-Strand had swung at 41% of pitches that are well out of the strike zone. That would seem to be a recipe for disaster.
In the major leagues, these pitches are in areas defined as the chase zone and the waste zone. They are the pitches that are not even close to being strikes. They are pitches that are more than one ball's width out of the strike zone. On-base percentages are made on taking these pitches, but batting averages and slugging percentages go here to die.
This year, major league batters were hitting.092/.461/.115 on chase/ waste pitches. Since 2015, they had hit .104/.452/.132.
A full 31% of pitches are thrown in these zones, accounting for more than 83,000 pitches in the majors. s of mid-June.
Denne historien er fra June - July 2023-utgaven av Baseball America.
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Denne historien er fra June - July 2023-utgaven av Baseball America.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Wood Has Towering Upside- Nationals rookie James Wood also stands 6-foot-7 and also has game-changing power.
Aaron Judge and Oneil Cruz are 6-foot7 sluggers who stand out for their power in this year’s MLB Best Tools voting. Wood spent half of this season with Triple-A Rochester before making his MLB debut on July 1. While he was in the International League, he captured managers’ attention. Wood unanimously won Best Power Prospect and also claimed Most Exciting Player in a survey of league skippers. Wood hit .353/.463/.595 with 10 home runs in 52 games for Rochester. His .242 isolated slugging was the best for a player 21 or younger at Triple-A this season.
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