I got a call the other day from a collegiate athlete in Arizona playing in a summer league in the hot desert sun. He had a question about hitting philosophy that I feel the need to share with you. He explained that his philosophy since high school was to take pitches until he got a strike. This way he could work pitchers deep into the count and learn what the pitcher had to offer. While I understood his thinking in this situation, he was finding himself swinging and weakly hitting quite a few off speed pitches. I told him it was time to rethink his philosophy.
You can have the most consistent hitting mechanics possible, but if you’re hitting philosophy is out of wack, you’ll struggle. I told him to look at the situation from a statistical perspective. Statistically speaking are you likely to see a fastball when you’re ahead or behind in the count? Ahead of course. Given the choice between a fastball and an off speed pitch, which do you have a better chance of mashing into the gap for a double? Most of us would say fastball, hands down. So, given these two questions, count and pitch selection, we have to reach the following conclusion: It’s most effective to swing at fastballs when you’re ahead in the count. The counts where you have the highest chance of seeing a fastball are 0-0, 1-0, 2-0, 3-0, 3-1, and 3-2. Based on those counts and the answers to the above questions, you essentially work AGAINST your hitting philosophy if you’re not aggressive on those counts IF you see a fastball in your hitting zone.
Let’s talk about your hitting zone briefly. Here again, your hitting zone falls in the hitting philosophy category and has nothing to do with hitting mechanics. Ignore this part, even with the best hitting mechanics, and you’ll struggle at the plate. I’ve written on hitting zone strengths before, so I won’t expand on it fully. Check out the article, Hitting Mechanics Only Get You Half Way for a complete description and video of me teaching how to find and develop your hitting zone.
Essentially, you as a hitter want to figure out which locations on the plate you hit well consistently. For example, I could hit the inside to middle-outside parts of the plate best. Therefore, my focus early in the count was to find a fastball that matched my strengths. I didn’t care if it came on a 0-0 count, or a 3-1 count. I’d wait for a fastball in my range. Chances are very good that if you approach each at bat this way, you will see a fastball in your hitting zone. And, if you know you can swing and mash it with an 80% success rate, why on earth would you wait until you have a strike on you? Your chances of seeing your fastball then are significantly less.
