Playing Offense vs. Being Offensive
By Brendan Dougherty
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The Odds tell us to Trust 5 basic Principles in Playing Offense

• The inability of pitchers to throw off speed pitches for strikes
• The average Fastball cannot beat us.
• The size of the strike zone- (Mid shin to Belt)
• Big Innings are created by walks and errors
• Hard Ground Balls and Line Drives win Baseball Games

A much higher percentage of ground balls (40%) and line drives (80%) turn into hits. Fly balls fall in for hits about (20%) of the time.

Approach- Hit What You Are Looking For!

 0-0 Pitch– We want to be aggressive, but we must be controlled with our aggressiveness and hit a pitch that we are looking for in that zone.  This starts with our on-deck preparation, knowing what the pitchers tendencies are for this pitch and going up to the plate looking for that pitch.

 Advantage Hitting Count- 1-0, 2-1, 2-0, 3-1, 3-0

When we are in an advantage hitting count, we are focusing on a 3 Ball wide zone and we are looking to drive a pitch in that zone. If we get that pitch we should EXPECT IT and be ready to hit it. We should never get jammed in these counts.!

Two Strike Hitting- IT’S A MENTALLITY!

The biggest key to hitting with 2 strikes is not being afraid of striking out. We will give you two strikes in an AB, the third strike is for the TEAM! We will make adjustments when we have two strikes (UP on Bat, UP on the Plate, Down in our Stance), we should never run out of bat on a FB away, we are looking to spoil good pitches and put balls in play. The odds tell us that if we force a team make 27 plays in a game we will have a great chance of winning (75%) of the time. All pitchers will make great pitches, they will also make mistakes.

Pitch Count

We want the starting pitcher to be at 20 pitches per inning and 100 by the sixth. It is a fact that college bullpens are made up of the next best pitchers (Closer being the exception)

TODAY + TODAY+ TODAY= YOUR CAREER

 Affects of Creating a High Pitch Count:

• Fatigue-velocity and late life on Baseball
• Mental Fatigue-concentration and location go hand in hand
• Improves timing- the more pitches we see the better chance we will be able to time all the pitchers pitches.
• Longer Innings- wear down the pitchers and defenders, Long Innings Lead to Big Innings
• Stress Filled Innings- Pitcher having to work out of tough innings, wears on him mentally and physically.

 Winning the Series- if we are able to get into the bullpen early on in a series our percentage of winning that series goes up.

 Statistics

At the Division 1 level balls hit on the ground Batting Avg. is .300 On Base % is .420

At the Division 1 Level balls hit as a line drive Batting Avg. is .800 On Base % is .820

At the Division 1 Level balls hit as fly balls Batting Avg. is .200 On Base % is 210

 0-0 count=                  .335 avg.

1-0 count=                  .324 avg.

2-0 count=                  .339 avg.

3-0 count=                  .359 avg.

0-1 count=                  .309 avg.

1-1 count=                  .320 avg.

2-1 count=                  .338 avg.

3-1 count=                  .357 avg.

Stats are based on a study done during 2019 major league season

Two Strike Count

0-2 count=                  .159 avg.

1-2 count=                  .172 avg.

2-2 count=                  .189 avg.

3-2 count=                  .226 avg.

TODAY+TODAY+TODAY= YOUR CAREER