Can hitters build a data driven approach to situational hitting?
How to use Hitting Approach data to build an approach to situational hitting
Situational hitting has been nearly impossible to build reliable data around. It’s subjective and depends on team philosophy, hitter’s strengths and weaknesses, score, runners, infield positioning, outs, inning, even pitcher’s stuff. Paper and pencil are tedious and fail to tell the whole story. Radar technology can help, but is super expensive and generally hard to learn. As coaches, we know that successful situational hitting wins ballgames. And we also know that if we want to improve upon anything in life, we must measure and track it. But with so many variables, and with radar tech too expensive for must of us, how is it possible to measure the true success of situational hitting?
A successful approach to situational hitting depends on the following:
1. Identify the objective. What do I, as the hitter need to do in this situation to help the team win? If it’s drive in the run from third base with the infield back and less than two outs, the hitter knows that he needs to hit a ball on the ground in the middle of the field to drive in the run.
2. Identify (consciously or subconsciously) which pitches, zones, and part of the ball that are usable for the plan. Can you, as the hitter, hit an 88 MPH fastball up in the zone on the ground? As the hitter, you would need to hit the top of the ball.
3. Make a good decision to swing at the usable pitch and get your swing off with intent.
4. Strike the part of the ball that will produce the wanted result.
Consistent execution is a result of the above process(duh) and each part of this process can be measured, producing data, and helping the coach and hitter build an approach that will enable more success.
How can Hitting Approach Can Help Measure Situational Hitting?
Hitting approach tracks pitch location, pitch type, and the result of each pitch. Secondary data such as outs, score, count, and runners on base are taken into account with each pitch also. Following the game, hitters are sent post game reports areas so hitters can provide information on what their plan was, whether or not they made a good decision on each pitch to swing, and whether or not they were successful in executing their objective situationally.
As data builds throughout the season, coaches can go to the Hitting Approach Cloud and see their hitters' data via scatter plots, heat maps, and success/fail data. More importantly, coaches can filter out any situation they want—including runners on base, outs, count, pitch type, fly-ball/ground-ball/line-drive, hard hit, and correlating spray chart. Want to know what your hitters do with a men on 1st and 3rd with 1 out and two strike count? Hitting Approach can tell you in seconds.
Now coaches and players finally have the data they need to measure how their success situationally hitting and adjust their approach accordingly. Situational hitting can be data driven. If you can measure, you can compete. And competition drives the self-discipline needed to improve.
