White Sox: Pitch to Contact

[nokomismod]

Liriano wasn't a marginal talent, he has swing and miss stuff. why did they tell him to pitch to contact? Was Andy trying to get an 08-09 Nick Blackburn out of him?

Liriano is a mediocre talent that has shown the occasional stretches of being very good. And for those stretches he has been and will continue to be well compensated. He was maddening to watch and I cannot blame the Twins for finally parting ways. Yes, when the opposing teams were not patient or he was on one of those rare stretches where he was "pitching to contact" early in the count, he could finish guys off.

[Willihammer]

Liriano's best season was 2010, a season where he walked 7.2% of the batters he faced compared to 12.7/13.0% in 2011/2012. In 2010, Liriano threw 64% of his pitches for strikes. In 2011/2012, he threw 57/59% of his pitches for strikes.

 

Liriano has swing and miss stuff. Swing and miss stuff only works if the batter actually swings at the pitches thrown. Liriano's success revolved around his ability to locate his fastball and set up the slider for a swing and miss. If he's not locating his fastball and guys are sitting on the pitch, it all goes to hell because nobody can consistently get a good slider over the plate. The very point of the pitch is to bait people into thinking it's a fastball and swinging as the pitch drops out of the zone. Unsurprisingly, his Zone% (number of pitches thrown in the strike zone) tells a similar story, going from 48% in 2010 and dropping to 43.5/42.3% in 2011/2012.

 

As an aside, it should be noted that much of Liriano's success revolves around him throwing harder, which he did in 2010 and has done in 2012, though he's struggling again in 2012 because he's throwing too many balls, which batters lay off and end up taking the walk instead of inducing weak contact or striking out. Whether you call it "pitch to contact", "pound the zone", or whatever you like, it's a simple philosophy in baseball and few pitchers are truly elite without that trait.

 

Strikes are good, esp. early in the count, and walks are bad. I and the rest of the baseball world agree. Contact is good, that is where I disagree with PTC. The Twins, the poster child for the PTC theory, lead baseball in contact. I am not so quick to assume this is 100% the result of below average talent, and not a philosophy that has been employed for years. Indeed, 3 of the top 10 SP's in contact rate, going back to 2002 (min 400 IP) are or were notable Twins Blackburn, Slowey, and Silva. These are "organizational" guys.

 

No, he was trying to get more than 4-5 innings per start out of the guy

 

I'm curious if you or anyone has evidence that contact reduces pitch count? According to the previous table (small sample), Twins were 1st for two years running in P/IP, yet only middle of the pack in P/IP (while allowing the greatest number of bases).

 

A strikeout averages 4.8 pitches, with a standard deviation of only .15. Compare to the Twins league leading 3.73 p/PA over the last 2 years, adjust for a BABIP of .303 (3rd worst), and you have on average, 4.87 pitches required to get the first out via contact only. Factor in double plays, and you're talking roughly 4.5-4.6 pitches per out. Clearly the savings in pitches and increase in innings pitched, if there is a correlation at all there (there is evidence that the correlation is actually an inverse one: http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2012/7/26/3145695/jordan-zimmermann-and-pitching-to-contact) - clearly it doesn't outweigh the bases and runs you will give up in the process.

 

So instead of preaching PTC, blaming guys who struggle to throw strikes on their lack of appreciation of the PTC approach, the Twins might be better served focusing on the mechanical issues like, in Liriano's case, his balance. To get them to throw strikes, and get ahead, but with the aim at putting guys away via strikeout.

[ashbury]

I view PTC as something that happens early in the count more than later. The point isn't to avoid all walks, it's to avoid pitching behind in the count to most of your batters. Give them something to hit. If they hit it, don't worry, just try again with the next guy.

 

That implies to me a great reluctance to throw your best pitch with a lot of movement, on 0-0, or whenever behind in the count. If you're known as a PTC pitcher, doesn't that give the batter some advantage in reducing the possibilities of what's coming? (Conversely, there's something to be said for saving that breaking ball in the dirt for your strikeout pitch, with 2 strikes but less than a full count.)

 

Also, assuming it's really true that Joe Mauer takes a lot more first-pitches than the average batter, doesn't that mean Joe expects most pitchers not to be PTC believers?

 

Finally, I wonder what a pitcher like Samuel Deduno would do when embracing PTC. If your only non-crazy pitch is a meatball down the middle, what do you do on 0-0?

[Brock Beauchamp]

If your only non-crazy pitch is a meatball down the middle, what do you do on 0-0?

 

Pitch for the Durham Bulls.

[CDog]

 

Also, assuming it's really true that Joe Mauer takes a lot more first-pitches than the average batter, doesn't that mean Joe expects most pitchers not to be PTC believers?

 

I'm curious how you make that connection. And to avoid any accusations of snippiness, I really just don't think I get where you went with that, I'm not implying it's dumb or wrong or anything.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Also, assuming it's really true that Joe Mauer takes a lot more first-pitches than the average batter, doesn't that mean Joe expects most pitchers not to be PTC believers?

 

No, I think it means that Joe wants to see what a pitcher has in his arsenal before deciding to swing. Nothing wrong with that. Guys take different approaches to get to the same point. Some are Vlad or Kirby, others are Mauer or Williams.

[Brock Beauchamp]

I'm curious if you or anyone has evidence that contact reduces pitch count? According to the previous table (small sample), Twins were 1st for two years running in P/IP, yet only middle of the pack in P/IP (while allowing the greatest number of bases).

 

A strikeout averages 4.8 pitches, with a standard deviation of only .15. Compare to the Twins league leading 3.73 p/PA over the last 2 years, adjust for a BABIP of .303 (3rd worst), and you have on average, 4.87 pitches required to get the first out via contact only. Factor in double plays, and you're talking roughly 4.5-4.6 pitches per out. Clearly the savings in pitches and increase in innings pitched, if there is a correlation at all there (there is evidence that the correlation is actually an inverse one: http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2012/7/26/3145695/jordan-zimmermann-and-pitching-to-contact) - clearly it doesn't outweigh the bases and runs you will give up in the process.

 

So instead of preaching PTC, blaming guys who struggle to throw strikes on their lack of appreciation of the PTC approach, the Twins might be better served focusing on the mechanical issues like, in Liriano's case, his balance. To get them to throw strikes, and get ahead, but with the aim at putting guys away via strikeout.

 

An interesting analysis but it's a little disingenuous to compare the Twins' past two years to the league average. The Twins' staffs in 2011/2012 have been downright awful. Everyone knows that. No matter what you preach to your staff, if they have no talent they will have very limited success.

 

The Twins weren't harping on Liriano when he was throwing strikes in 2010. They may have asked him to get a few more pitches over the plate in hopes that he'd be a 7-8 inning pitcher instead of a 5-6 inning pitcher but almost any team would ask that from the guy. Finding ways to build on success is natural.

 

On the other hand, we only heard about the team preaching PTC to Francisco after he turned into an awful pitcher that couldn't throw strikes and was walking 80% more batters and throwing 5% less strikes (and therefore, 5% more balls). While you say they should have worked on his mechanics, do we have any kind of assurance that they didn't do just that? I think you're getting hung up on the terminology here, not factoring in what the team was actually trying to say and instead of paying so much attention to the word "contact". They were trying to get Liriano to throw more strikes, which makes him a better pitcher because his slider is more lethal with a located fastball preceding it. The Twins weren't trying to get him to stop striking guys out. Strikeouts happen naturally if you get the ball over the plate and have good movement on your pitches.

 

It should also be noted that in the course of his career, Scott Baker has gradually increased his K/9 with the Twins (and posted a 8.2 k/9 to Liriano's 7.5 just last season). The team hasn't done anything to stop this progression. Why? Because Scott has never had issues with his command and therefore, there was nothing to be concerned about. This team isn't against strikeouts, it's against guys who don't throw strikes.

[Nick Nelson]

I am not so quick to assume this is 100% the result of below average talent, and not a philosophy that has been employed for years. Indeed, 3 of the top 10 SP's in contact rate, going back to 2002 (min 400 IP) are or were notable Twins Blackburn, Slowey, and Silva. These are "organizational" guys.

 

Lord knows that if the Twins weren't telling them not to, Blackburn, Silva and Slowey would have all been racking up the strikeouts with that swing-and-miss stuff.

 

You can't actually believe this, can you?

 

Look, coaches and players, when asked about this, have explained the philosophy in detail. Are you so blinded by the word "contact" in the phrase that you simply refuse to believe them?

 

"I'm not out there gunning for strikeouts," Cardinals ace Chris Carpenter told a St. Louis reporter, echoing Blackburn. "I'm out there attacking. I have the confidence in my stuff and in what I'm trying to do that I want them to swing. I'm trying to make them swing.''

 

 

"It's nothing more than trying to pitch in the strike zone, and then when the guy does make contact, hope it doesn't go too far," Blyleven said. "Everyone is basically saying the same thing: don't try to be too fine, pitch to contact, trust your stuff, stay in the zone."

 

"I don't tell my guys to 'pitch to contact,' " Anderson said. "We say, 'Blackie, attack the strike zone in the lower half. And we tell our guys to get outs on two or three pitches, instead of trying to throw five, six, seven pitches. We've always been good at throwing the ball over the plate.''

 

"All of a sudden, the average fan says that's a bad philosophy," Anderson said. "They want strikeouts. Well, guys like Blackburn and Pavano, that's not who they are."

[Willihammer]

Yes, contact is the operative word. As Anderson says above, if you are aiming for an out in the first 2 pitches, then you are trying to have your pitches hit. As opposed to throwing additional pitches with the aim to get a strikeout and take BABIP and luck out of the equation.

 

Lord knows that if the Twins weren't telling them not to, Blackburn, Silva and Slowey would have all been racking up the strikeouts with that swing-and-miss stuff.

 

You can't actually believe this, can you?

 

Look at Silva's career. His three lowest k-rates are as a Twin.

 

Its impossible to say what the strikeout ceiling is for our guys unless they are allowed to aim for them instead of aiming for contact.

[Riverbrian]

Pitching to Contact and Striking out hitters has nothing to do with each other. It's all about Pitch Counts. Keeping your starters in the game longer by reducing the number of pitches thrown if possible. Keeping your defense behind you awake. Keeping the game moving along. If you reduce the number of pitches... You cut down on the free passes naturally and your defense won't drift away on you. .

 

Pitching to contact does not mean... Here you go... Have a cookie.

 

It's a negative term in these parts recently because our pitching hasn't been very good.

 

All Managers want the team back in the dugout ready to hit as quickly as possible.

[Willihammer]

The Twins weren't harping on Liriano when he was throwing strikes in 2010. They may have asked him to get a few more pitches over the plate in hopes that he'd be a 7-8 inning pitcher instead of a 5-6 inning pitcher but almost any team would ask that from the guy. Finding ways to build on success is natural.

 

I suspect if Parker did a comparison of Liriano's mechanics, it would show that LIriano's delivery was more sound in 2010 than in other years. I don't think its an effective coaching strategy to pound into a guy's head "throw strikes" instead of making specific points about where a pitcher's mechanics need to be improved. If Andy was making those points, he failed to get them through to Liriano.

[Willihammer]

Again I ask, where is the evidence that pitching to contact enables longer outings? Looks to me like the league leaders in IP every year tend to be high strikeout, low walk guys.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Look at Silva's career. His three lowest k-rates are as a Twin.

 

You are grasping at straws with that statement. Silva posted a 4.0/4.1 K/9 with Seattle (as opposed to a ~3.6 number with the Twins) and then moved to the NL, where his K rate jumped to over 6. Funny how the NL tends to do that for everybody.

[Willihammer]

The point is, you can't say "our guys can't get strikeouts" when you are encouraging them to get outs in 2 pitches. Its impossible to know what a pitcher is capable of unless you give them a longer leash.

[TheLeviathan]

The point is, you can't say "our guys can't get strikeouts" when you are encouraging them to get outs in 2 pitches. Its impossible to know what a pitcher is capable of unless you give them a longer leash.

 

It's also impossible to get strikeouts without throwing the ball in the zone (the preferred place for hitters to see a pitch to make contact) - you are really making this ridiculously difficult for no reason. You're right that the Twins target guys that are contact heavy, but that doesn't mean the philosophy is wrong.

 

Pitchers have a fear of batters making contact (a legitimate fear obviously) but when you let that drive your approach to the point that you don't trust your ability to throw strikes without getting pounded - you won't be effective. Read what Chris Carpenter said. All the Twins are doing is trying to take the mystique away from contact happening so they don't have pitchers so debilitated with fear about it that they are constantly walking guys.

 

This is, and was, Liriano's problem. It isn't shocking that the next pitching coach said the same damn thing.

[Riverbrian]

"Don't try to strike everybody out. Strikeouts are boring! Besides that, they're fascist. Throw some ground balls - it's more democratic."

[Willihammer]

 

This is, and was, Liriano's problem. It isn't shocking that the next pitching coach said the same damn thing.

 

I'm not trying to be difficult but it is frustrating when this assumption is made over and over, that pitchers do not appreciate the damage walks lead to, until their pitching coach explains it to them.

 

Liriano's struggle isn't a validation of PTC. Liriano struggles because his mechanics are unsound. Andy, and now evidently Cooper, have failed to correct his mechanics, for whatever reason they haven't gotten through to him or been creative enough in their methods.

 

The driving defense of pitching to contact is that it leads to more IP's. Where is the evidence? The leaders of IP every years are the ones who keep both walks and balls put in play to a minimum.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Liriano's struggle isn't a validation of PTC. Liriano struggles because his mechanics are unsound. Andy, and now evidently Cooper, have failed to correct his mechanics, for whatever reason they haven't gotten through to him or been creative enough in their methods.

 

I'm wondering when you're going to stop blaming multiple pitching coaches and start blaming Francisco Liriano.

[TheLeviathan]

I'm not trying to be difficult but it is frustrating when this assumption is made over and over, that pitchers do not appreciate the damage walks lead to, until their pitching coach explains it to them.

 

If your assumption is that professional athletes don't sometimes need to be re-taught the little things or receive this thing called "coaching" to remind them of what to do I think we can eliminate many other things about baseball. How about no more fielding practice - if people know they have to catch it, why tell them or run through drills? They've been doing that since they were six. Ditto hitting practice. Throwing. Stretching by trainers. I can keep going if you'd like.

 

Sometimes coaching is telling someone something they already know but chose not to do for some stupid reason of their own. In Liriano's case - because he's a bit of a spaz.

[Willihammer]

How about no more fielding practice - if people know they have to catch it, why tell them or run through drills? They've been doing that since they were six. Ditto hitting practice. Throwing.

 

A better comparison would be, if your fielder can't make the throw to first base, to coach him more specifically than merely repeating, "make the throw to first base," and instead explain where in his throw he is going wrong, and find a way to correct it.

[Willihammer]

 

I'm wondering when you're going to stop blaming multiple pitching coaches and start blaming Francisco Liriano.

Are you saying he is uncoachable?

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

I'm wondering when you're going to stop blaming multiple pitching coaches and start blaming Francisco Liriano.

Are you saying he is uncoachable?

 

I'm saying that when multiple coaches tell a player to do something and that player doesn't do what they ask, it's on the player. I'm sure that Liriano has been coached on plenty of things over the years and has been exposed to hours of film from his various seasons. If he doesn't turn it around, that's on him. A coach can't go out to the mound and throw the ball for him.

[Brock Beauchamp]

How about no more fielding practice - if people know they have to catch it, why tell them or run through drills? They've been doing that since they were six. Ditto hitting practice. Throwing.

 

A better comparison would be, if your fielder can't make the throw to first base, to coach him more specifically than merely repeating, "make the throw to first base," and instead explain where in his throw he is going wrong, and find a way to correct it.

 

Do you honestly believe that hasn't been tried? These teams have all the footage they could want and a desire to make themselves better. The pitching coaches aren't just slapping Liriano on the ass and telling him "Go get 'em, tiger". Liriano has surely had every aspect of his game dissected by both the Minnesota and Chicago coaching staffs.

 

At some point, you need to start blaming the guy who is throwing the baseball. A coaching staff can only do so much.

[Willihammer]

I do wonder how even our own Parker can consistently find specific weak points in a player's swing or delivery that the coaching staffs seem to miss. No, I wouldn't assume Andy/Vavra/Cooper had already spoken to a player about it. Certainly they do a good job hiding those points in their comments to the media, instead saying things like

 

"We say, 'Blackie, attack the strike zone in the lower half. And we tell our guys to get outs on two or three pitches, instead of trying to throw five, six, seven pitches. We've always been good at throwing the ball over the plate.''

 

Boy, I bet that was really helpful.

[TheLeviathan]

[A better comparison would be, if your fielder can't make the throw to first base, to coach him more specifically than merely repeating, "make the throw to first base," and instead explain where in his throw he is going wrong, and find a way to correct it.

 

You're in some kind of weird limbo in which I'm not sure what exactly the role of coaches are? Where is this magical threshold at which time coaches never remind any player of fundamental skill or approach? Do you truly believe that coaching is nothing but mechanical breakdowns? (Something which, as Brock points out, a player can just as easily diagnose as well)

 

Good lord, there isn't a profession in the world in which this doesn't happen. People know that documentation can be important in their job if they work in health services, government, or education - that doesn't stop them from not doing it and needing a reminder to get back on track. Yes, Liriano is failing to do something fundamental that he should know from the time he was twelve. That doesn't mean he doesn't need to be told it again. Hell, there are people all over taht parade around as motivational speakers telling us the key to happiness is to "smile" or "think positively" or any other obnoxious token phrase. Sometimes - you need to hear what you already know and sometimes you're too much of a spaz to process it and execute it.

[Willihammer]

If you're going to label someone as mentally spazoid, you should have something to back it up with besides just, he struggles to throw strikes. That sounds like a non sequitor to me.

[TheLeviathan]

If you're going to label someone as mentally spazoid, you should have something to back it up with besides just, he struggles to throw strikes. That sounds like a non sequitor to me.

 

Well at least we've moved on to focusing on the real problem - Liriano and are done with this other nonsense.. Call his problem what you want, but Cooper is generally considered one of the best pitching coaches in the big leagues. He's telling Frankie the same thing we were - throw strikes and get ahead in the count. That he isn't doing that is on him.

[Willihammer]

He's telling Frankie the same thing we were - throw strikes and get ahead in the count. That he isn't doing that is on him.

 

An accute lesson, no doubt.

 

Certainly its not that he may be opening his front side to early. His body definitely isn't outpacing his arm. He's not finishing too high or losing his balance somewhere along the way. Surely there's no exercises or practices that might improve his delivery, or mental tricks that might help.

 

Nope, he's just not throwing strikes and he should know better by now. That's on him, I agree 100%.

 

Preposterous.

[TheLeviathan]

Certainly its not that he may be opening his front side to early. His body definitely isn't outpacing his arm. He's not finishing too high or losing his balance somewhere along the way. Surely there's no exercises or practices that might improve his delivery, or mental tricks that might help.

 

One "mental trick" is to keep telling him to throw strikes. You have no idea whether the other things are or are not being done, but we do know that they are telling him the same thing we did. Which means, from their interactions, they also worry that he's trying to be too fine rather than trust his stuff and throw strikes. Which, again, the point of this thread was to point out how overblown the "pitch to contact" criticisms were.

[Sinking Liner]

He's telling Frankie the same thing we were - throw strikes and get ahead in the count. That he isn't doing that is on him.

 

An accute lesson, no doubt.

 

Certainly its not that he may be opening his front side to early. His body definitely isn't outpacing his arm. He's not finishing too high or losing his balance somewhere along the way. Surely there's no exercises or practices that might improve his delivery, or mental tricks that might help.

 

Nope, he's just not throwing strikes and he should know better by now. That's on him, I agree 100%.

 

Preposterous.

 

So you're thinking, that for all this time, Anderson, and now Cooper, just asked Liriano to please just do his best to throw strikes, and never had a word to say to him about his mechanics. That seems unbelievable. And preposterous.