Viewpoint - Take Me Out to the Ballgame
May 31, 2004
Written by MadAlan

(Read archived articles here)

I love baseball, have all my life. Some players played on the same team for years, maintaining titles and often winning championships. We played so many games of baseball and if you include softball I have played every spring and summer for more than 40 years in a row. I have been paid money to play when in my early forties. That amazes me. Being paid to play baseball. In baseball I was fortunate to be a pitcher and I still retain that pitchers mentality.

I understand why a pitcher does what he does, why certain players believe in certain pitchers. Yet, if all of America knows an outside pitch is going to be followed by a low inside pitch in a certain situation - why is it the hitter has no clue, swings and strikes out? Homework?

When I met Bill Freehan we had lunch together and I asked him how many hits would he have lost if the third base man moved one more step towards the bag. He laughed and said 1,500. For the past 15 years John Olerud has been slipping the opposite field looping hits at certain strategic situations, whereby if the leftfielder moved 3-5 feet towards the infield – just think what could happen. Olerud has had batting averages of .363 and .354, with more than 2100 career hits and has shaped a lifetime batting average of .296. Smart pitchers get him out and it’s not the fastball either. It is location attached to fielding skills.

Often the infield and outfield players will dictate pitch location. Consider what goes in the pitcher game plan for today’s game; he will have weak defense at third and right field. The second baseman has a sore leg and is limited going left after a ball. The player in left is decent but slow. What type pitcher would you put on the mound today, a crafty off-speed pitcher, the fastballing righty, or the hard throwing lefty, or just go with the rotation? Pitch outside to a hitter increases his potency to the opposite field by more than 50%.

When the batter moves high in the box he will catch breaking balls at or just before the break. This is the wrong strategy against a fastball or a fastball pitcher. This is what has been happening to Jamie Moyer at present. On the ‘important pitch,’ the hitter could move his back shoulder inside to semi-block the umpire. Frankly, this is dangerous for all “junk-pitchers.”

20 players to trade right now while the price is still high:

1) Jon Garland
2) Carlos Silva
3) Tim Worrell
4) Jake Peavy
5) Lew Ford
6) Juan Uribe
7) Ronnie Belliard
8) Billy Wagner
9) Johnny Estrada
10) Jack Wilson
11) Scott Schoeneweis
12) Brian Jordan
13) Brian Lawrence
14) Rodrigo Lopez
15) Marco Scutaro
16) Nick Green
17) Matt Lawton
18) Paul Wilson
19) Royce Clayton
20) Placido Polanco

Eleven players that heat up after the All-Star break:

1) Jeff Conine
2) Alex Rodriguez
3) Hideki Matsui
4) Edgar Renteria
5) Bret Boone
6) Bobby Abreu
7) Lance Berkman
8) Chipper Jones
9) Andruw Jones
10) Edgar Martinez
11) Javier Vazquez

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Thank you everyone.

MadAlan

MadAlan can be reached at madalan_3@hotmail.com