INWARD BATTLES
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE AT-BAT

- Perry Husband, Guessworks, Effective Velocity

To understand the psychology of the at-bat, you must know what the physical and mental difficulties are that are involved in hitting and pitching and the dynamics of what happens when the athletes are wearing the right armor, or not. The at-bat, when truly understood by both pitcher and hitter, has the makings of a physical chess match that is unequalled in all of sports. The outcome of most at-bats is determined by the failing of one opponent far more than the great performance of the victor. What a great advancement of the sport if we could have both pitcher and hitter at their best at both the physical and mental/emotional aspects of doing battle against one another. May the best man, at his best, win. Then there might finally be some room for that old cliché, “if you try your best, you are a winner in my book.”   

Let’s use an example of a golf swing to understand the complexities of hitting. In golf, the ball just sits there, a major cause of most hackers’ anxiety level. Golfers are forced to realize that all failings rest purely on their own shoulders. There is no movement of a slider, no fear of getting domed, no ball speeds to adjust to, just a ball sitting there in one place, at one point in time. So the golfer is only dealing with one set of timing. The timing of the body parts to produce the most powerful, most consistent swing possible.

In baseball, the hitter can be 50% late and still flare a double down the right field line and be a hero. There is no room for pictures in the scorebook and no money lost if he did it ugly, only that he did it.

The world is used to the nine different 6” by 8” boxes of the strike zone. With the surrounding area there are 25 of those boxes within reach of the hitter, different possible locations all within six inches of the strike zone. Now what if these multiple points of contact all had different possible speeds within each and those speeds varied from 65 MPH to 105 MPH and sometimes, one of those speeds was coming at his head? The answer is an infinite number of variables to deal with not the least of which is the inherent fear that at any moment, a single errant pitch could end his career.

Hitting combines physical reactions that are amazing and spit second decision making processes that simply cannot be accurately described by any scientist, much less a typical coach. In fact, the last serious study done concluded that if aliens were to hear all the elements involved in hitting a baseball thrown 90 MPH, they would conclude that it was an impossible act. The physical aspect aside, balancing out the fear, anxiety, focus and many other mental faculties that must be right to be at their best, hitters are incredibly diverse athletes if they have even marginal success at the higher levels.

If the hitter puts the ball on a tee in order to take some of the variables out, they begin to understand how difficult hitting the ball consistently well can be even in this limited context. To hit a baseball perfect, two things must happen, the exact center of the bat must hit the exact center of the ball because both objects are round and the bat must come back to square to whatever line the perfect hit would leave on. If the hitter releases the bat early or late, the ball is pushed or pulled off the intended line, the contact can be good, even great, but not perfect. The odds of both of these things happening are not very high. In the past couple of years at the major league level, there were roughly 48,000 pitches thrown in the exact center of the strike zone, middle height and middle of the plate. Of these perfect pitches, just a few were hit exactly in the place that would be defined as the perfect hit, right by the pitchers ear (the ball comes in on a line near the pitcher’s ear so it must go out on that line to be perfect). It would be difficult to know the exact answer to how many perfect pitches were hit perfect, but it is a staggeringly low number, less than one or two percent is safe to say.

Once in perspective as to the difficulty of the task of hitting a round ball with a round bat perfectly, whether off the tee or even pitched in the perfect location is hard enough. Now to consistently hit the ball solid at incredible speeds with incredible speed and location changes, movement, with the fear of being possibly injured for life, the fear of losing the love and respect of your father and or peer group, the countless numbers of instructional tips at game time that are nothing more than mental garbage in the way, the countless numbers of distracting stressors; the at-bat may finally be viewed for what it is, the most difficult sports task of all. We have not even mentioned the vastly different modes that hitters are asked to be in to perform things such as hitting the ball the opposite way, or driving in three runners in the bottom of the sixth inning in a little league game or many other complex acts within the act of hitting a baseball. I would challenge someone, anyone to just list all the possible variables that a hitter must deal with in a given week of at-bats.

Pitching is very similar in many ways with the same type of pressures and mental garbage that hinders the athleticism involved in the art of throwing the ball to the desired location at the desired velocity with the movement needed to fool hitters regularly. Pitchers, more like golfers are in control of their environment far more than hitters. Pitchers know where the ball is going (at least in theory), how fast it will be going, what spin and or movement it will have and at what interval each of these factors will be mixed in. In essence, the pitcher dictates how many sides to the die that will be used in the game of chance, only he gets to pre-determine the number of times that the roll produces a given number. Sort of like a die with a remote control. The hitter is at a gigantic disadvantage from this perspective and from many more perspectives as well.


MAJOR-LEAGUE AT-BATS

To understand more about the pitcher hitter confrontation, let’s look at what happens in at-bats at the major league level. Here is a sample of a report type that most major league teams view on a daily basis. Most people look at reports that are more specific to a game or series but this one is for all 0-2 counts for an entire season.


           
 
This illustration shows the results of 0-2 counts of all major league hitters versus all major league pitchers for the better part of two seasons. There are a lot of numbers in this diagram, but for this example just look at the batting averages which are the numbers in the top of each box inside the strike zone. The middle box almost always yields the highest batting average, the location of what we called the perfect pitch in an earlier example. There was only one box in nine in the strike zone where hitters hit over .300. The zones within the strike zone surrounding the middle box are quite a bit lower but the amazing numbers are the averages outside the strike zone. These batting averages range from .071 to a whopping .142. What this is saying is that when a major league pitcher gets to an 0-2 count, hitters are not having much success, especially when the pitch gets out of that perfect box in the middle

               

The above illustration shows the results of all 2-0 counts with all major league hitters versus all major league pitchers for the same time period. We could spend all day talking about the different things this tells us about the at-bat, but for now just look at the batting averages and the differences. The center box is 101 points higher than the 0-2 count center box, and all but the one box down and away yield averages over .300, starting at .317 all the way up to .387. The differences are staggering, 0-2 counts versus 2-0 counts. The entire crux of understanding the battle of timing that is going on with hitters and pitchers lies in these simple diagrams. The center box in the 2-0 count is 22% higher than the 0-2 box. Isn’t it still the same perfect pitch? Why is that perfect pitch hit so much better in the 2-0 count? The psychological impact of a couple of numbers in the count so dramatically changes things that the two scenarios are almost polar opposites. 

The mental momentum of pitchers in an 0-2 count shifts dramatically in his favor. Hitters become the most defensive or the most reactionary and the pitcher sticks his chest out knowing he has at least two pitches that he can be the most aggressive in trying to hit the toughest spot possible for the hitter.

In the 2-0 count the exact opposite happens with mental momentum. The hitter is the one with the puffed up chest because he now knows that the pitcher is in the hole and will have to throw a strike. Did you catch that? The hitter now “knows” something, whereas before he did not know very much at all. He reacted, he didn’t act. In 2-0 counts, hitters act and in 0-2 counts hitters react. The results of this we have already looked at. The level of at bat is not important. The same thing is going on in at-bats at all levels. Human nature is at work as well as some other forces of nature that we haven’t the time to go into now. The important thing to remember is that when reacting, hitters will routinely lose that battle. When acting, hitters hold their own against their nemesis and when reacting, they hold their bats while they walk back to the dugout. It is literally that simple.


THE BATTLE WILL GET MORE INTENSE

As science becomes a more integral part of the game, charting systems that chart locations, velocities and results and stores the data for countless reports such as the simple ones used above, hitters and pitchers can see some of the intricate details that allow them to know more and more about what each will tend to do and not do.  More importantly, when hitters and pitchers truly understand the battle and all that is going on, the nature of the battle will get more intense. Pitchers have reigned supreme for a long time now due to the simple fact that they know and hitters think and react. As hitters learn to think before they get in the box and react less because they “know” more, the at-bat will get even more fun to watch for those of us that are stuck writing about the battles. This in turn will force the pitcher to make advancements as well and the game gets better as a result.

Pitching and hitting coaches have made major strides getting to the bottom of some of the physical reasons that make players get better. Some coaches and authors have made major strides in some of the mental aspects that help players as well. True growth will take place when both pitchers and hitters are at their best physically, psychologically they have thrown out the garbage that hinders great performances and philosophically they have learned what the true task is so that they can better stay on task. What great battles will take place then?   

Most great mental strategy books and even most average mental strategy books focus on the things that hitters and or pitchers can control and those things that are out of control of the individual. Good books and good mental coaches work on strategies to help athletes discern between the two categories, that which they can control and that which they can’t.  The things that hitters can control is a short list.  They control their thoughts, their feelings, the pitch they swing at, the time they swing at it and the mechanical movement they use.  All result oriented thoughts are pointless or worse, they are very detrimental to performance. 

If hitters want to have a fighting chance against pitchers, they must learn to put his focus on the right things. They must arm themselves with the right skills so that they can fail or succeed at least knowing what their task was. Hitters fail every day not really even know what they have to do to fix the situation. The tendency is to go to an instructor who will tell them that there are some physical answers that will cure them and for a time, they may work. The truth is that slumps, pitchers and hitters, happen for that very reason. Hitters and pitchers attack the wrong problem with the right solutions, at least the right solutions for a problem, just not this problem in this instance. To steal a phrase from First Things First, it doesn’t matter how efficiently you climb the ladder, if your ladder is on the wrong building.  


Return to Survey Results