CHICAGO — Around the beginning of July, Josh Bell had a conversation with David Freese and John Jaso. Bell, a 25-year-old switch-hitter, was midway through his first full season in the major leagues, and through June, he had a .315 on-base percentage and a .231 batting average.
The power was there — 15 home runs — but he struck out nearly twice as often as he walked.
Freese and Jaso presented Bell with an idea: Don’t “sit on,” or try to guess, the location of the next pitch. Instead, prepare for each pitch, regardless of the count, as though the pitcher is going to leave it in the sweet spot, referred to in hitter’s parlance as middle-middle.
“The idea behind that philosophy is keeping it really simple and not missing your opportunities,” Jaso said. “I know I’ve sat on the inside part of the plate and then all of a sudden he throws the ball away. I think it’s a ball. It’s on the outer third [of the plate], and it looks like it’s in the other batter’s box.”
Bell, already a bright spot in a down year for a Pirates team that will likely miss the playoffs for the second consecutive year, took off. In his next 51 games beginning July 1, Bell had a .380 slugging percentage, seven home runs, a .907 on-base plus slugging percentage and 23 walks compared to 30 strikeouts.
“Instead of trying to change up zones,” Bell said, “you’re just focusing on one.”
A standard heat map, both those made available to players in scouting reports and the ones you can find on MLB.com, is a square divided into nine smaller squares like a tic-tac-toe board. Middle-middle, the square at the center, is where pitches don’t want to be. Batters salivate over pitches that end up there.
Source: FanGraphs
Source: FanGraphs
“A guy that’s as talented as Josh, I think if you simplify and stay just middle-middle, he crushes mistakes,” Freese said. “He’s got good hands. He gets hits on bad balls every now and then, but his job is to get on base and mash. The idea of sitting middle-middle allows you to hit those [inner and outer] thirds because it’s a shorter distance to get to.”
Ever see a batter take a called strike three right over the plate, and they turn and walk back to the dugout almost before the pitch hits the catcher’s glove? Usually they were looking for something else, either sitting on an off-speed pitch or looking for a different location. In the same way as batters are taught to prepare for a fastball and adjust to breaking pitches, looking for a pitch in the sweet spot and adjusting from there helps them capitalize on as many opportunities as possible.
“We’ve been doing this for so long that if you have a hot area down the middle, we’re just going to react on balls that are still strikes and typically put good swings on it,” Freese said.
If it sounds simple, that’s because it is. In an era where hitters have access to layers upon layers of split stats, video and records of previous pitches sequences available on their iPads, sometimes less is more.
“I think we all tend to overcomplicate things at this level because it seems like we have to,” Jaso said. “If we’re not thinking further ahead, it seems like we’re behind everybody else or something like that, but it’s not. It’s the exact opposite. You want to think less to be ahead of everyone else.
“I think sometimes when people sit on curveball or sit location, and they guess right, they’re more inclined to go after that pitch,” Jaso continued. “So if a pitcher throws a curveball, it’s like, ‘Oh my god it’s a curveball,’ they swing at it and it’s bouncing in the dirt.”
Bell could tell the difference when he stopped trying to guess.
“Over the course of the last couple weeks I feel like my pitch recognition’s a lot better because I’m focusing on the same point in the strike zone instead of trying to focus on that down-and-away box,” he said.
Once in a generation or so, a player comes along with good enough pitch recognition, bat control and understanding of how a pitcher will attack them to sit on certain locations or pitch types and have success with it. Tony Gwynn could do it. Miguel Cabrera can do it. Attempting to replicate such freaks is a fool’s errand.
“You leave Texas Flood to Stevie Ray Vaughan, you know what I mean?” Jaso said. “Or Voodoo Child to Jimi Hendrix. They’re born with that.”
Bill Brink: bbrink@post-gazette.com and Twitter @BrinkPG.
First Published: August 31, 2017, 6:00 p.m.
