I heard from a D1 college player the other day that his team was told by the coach that the reason they weren’t scoring more runs. It was due to a lack of ground balls and too many strikeouts.
Well, he was half right. Strikeouts never help. However…more ground balls? You mean the ground balls that are desirable as a pitcher are also more desirable as a hitter?
You have to be kidding me.
One of the great things about baseball is the way it can be broken down via statistics. Though none of the quantifiers used to define success are perfect, I like OPS or on base percentage plus slugging percentage. Players must get on base to score and the more bases you accumulate in an average at bat, the better.
And it comes down to this, a player focusing on hitting grounders will not accumulate more bases than one who looks to drive the ball. Assuming, of course, relatively equal ability in on base percentage.
What makes Albert Pujols great is NOT just his batting average or on base percentage. It is those things in combination with his slugging.
Old Yankee Mickey Rivers was a very good player with a good on base percentage. But there will never be a discussion of him as an all time great because he was just a good singles hitter. Part of what made Rickey Henderson an HOFer was his ability to drive the ball.
So why do some people still love the ground ball? Mike Epstein, ex player and great independent hitting instructor explains it well. To paraphrase him, larger ballparks, in vogue in the late 60’s and 70’s were bigger and had astroturf on them which was, at that time, little more than carpet on concrete. Think Astrodome or Phillies’ Veterans Stadium or Old Busch Stadium with astroturf.
I never played on such a field but walked on them several time. You could hit a simple grounder and have it roll all the way to the fence. Choppers would bounce higher and grounders had more velocity. You could be successful with grounders. The Cardinals of the late 70’s, early 80’s were very successful with speed and defense and singles hitters. Jack Clark was their power hitter averaging, I think, around 25 to 30 homers a year.
Most fields now, whether artificial or not, are not carpet on concrete. Ground balls don’t work as well.
Teach kids to hit well AND drive the ball. The ground ball era is dead and buried.
Tags: 1, base, baseball, Cardinals, Clark, D1, Division, Epstein, ground balls, grounders, Henderson, Jack, Louis, Mickey, Mike, on, One, OPS, percentage, Pujols, Rickey, Rivers, Saint, slugging, St., strikeouts, Yankees
