Posted by: Joe () on Wed Jul 4 06:03:31 2001

Joe,
>
> Your analysis is overly simplistic.
>
> Consider that we are interested in the sucess rate of hitting as defined in terms of hitting a fair ball that is either a traditional hit or genrates an out or leads to a an error.
>
> Lets call the success a combination of a real hit as currently defined and "virtual hits" where it is a fair ball that leads to an out or an error by a fielder.
>
> Your contention is that this overall hitting success is a high percentage of at bats.
>
> My argument is that at bats no longer is the proper divisor -- rather one needs to consider the success number in terms of total number of swings that are attempts to strike the ball including called strikes.
>
> For instance, consider the case of a player who throws has 12 pitches throw to him for an at bat:
> 3 are balls
> 2 are called strikes
> 6 are foul balls that are unplayable
> 1 may be fair and in play for a hit or an out or foul and caught to end the at bat
>
> I ignore the pathalogical cases where the batter is hit by a pitch, intensionally walked, left at the plate because of another play on the field, erased from the records due to the game being called because of rain, or ejected by the Umpire for arguing a call.
>
> that player by your method of computing an average has had at least 7 attempts for 1 "hit"
>
> If the called strikes are replaced by swinging non contact strikes then the player has had at least 9 tries to generate one hit
>
> He could in fact have begun the swing on all of the 12 pitches but sucessfully held up on the three called as balls.
>
> While 12 is not a typical number (though I've personally witnessed more than 15 pitches to a single batter), a combination of 3 fouls and 2 swinging strikes is quite common -- that yields a corrected average of 1 "hit" in 5 attempts or 0.200 corrected average
>
> Of course, there is the occasional real or virtual "hit" on a single pitch favored by the Nomar Garcia Paras, etc., that would give you a corrected average for that at bat of 1.00
>
> So, if you plan to reevaluate the difficulty of hitting I suggest collecting some fairly extensive statistics of (total number of real hits + "virtual hits") divided by (total number of called strikes + pitches swung on for either fouls or fair balls) and see if it comes out higher or lower than traditional batting averages. My guess is that you will find the traditional average exagerates the success. Hitting is considerably harder than you have suggested.
>
> I've played softball and watched baseball for several decades and I still think its pretty amazing to see someone consitently hit over .300 (especially when you have to face a Pedro Martinez or a Roger Clemmens from time to time).
>
> Ted

Ted,

WoW! What a great post!! Greats points. I don't think i could have ignored my smarmy attitude and just got to the real discussion. Your a better man than I am Gunga Din.

But while you make some great points and you allllmoooost got it right, you didn't.We are not talking about averages. We are talking about "putting the bat on the ball" and if it difficult as the averages indicate. I use averages only because they are used to conclude that it is. My point is that the averages are not the point.

Injecting the comment about "balls hit fair would up the average" was a mistake because it was a distraction from my point. I gave the impression that I thought the average has some ligetmate role to play. I do not.

The real point is that its about getting the bat on the ball and trying to determine how difficult is is or isn't. You widened the scope to include swings that miss. Great point. But, in this widened scope why wouldn't you also count a hard hit foul ball just outside the foul line? It was deffinately hit wasn't it? For that matter, why wouldn't you count a caught pop foul behind first base as a hit ball. You count a caught pop up that is in fair play against the batter's average, wouldn't you? And you count a fair pop fly hit to the same place but nobody catches because they were playing deeper for the batter's average. How would you count Pop foul that isn't caught when the batter has 2 stikes?

By definition, balls hit foul are "hit." The fact that you exclude these hits shows that you are not considering only the difficulty of "hitting the ball" but are talking about "getting a hit."

Further, why would you count called strikes? What does it prove about a batters ability to hit the ball if he dosen't even try to hit it? Remember, we are only talking about getting the bat on the ball. Why would you conclude that if a batter dosen't swing that he couldn't hit the ball.

What you are doing is applying the complicated rules of the game to a
rather shimple question. How hard is it to hit a pitched ball? Thats all.

I agree that that some of your calcuations are valid. But you widened the scope of my argument(correctly)to include missed swings but exculed (incorrectly) "foul balls" which are hit balls."

I guess we then get into a question of "degreee of hits" (hits in the contact sense) which then makes this a big mathematical discussion.

Thanks for your thoughtfull and well written replay.


Joe A.