After the Reds-Royals game, Brandon Phillips was disciplined by Cincinnati Reds manager Dusty Baker for ignoring a take sign on a 3-0 count. Phillips popped up to end the inning. Baker claimed it’s the first and last time it will ever happen to him as a manager. Phillips claimed he was trying to break his team’s offense out of a slump.
Should you disregard your coach’s signals? NO. Should batters swing on a 3-0 pitch? SOMETIMES. There are situations where it makes sense and others when it’s not worth the risk to give batters the green light. Every coach has their own risk tolerance for 3-0 counts. My observation is that power hitters tend to get the green light more so than other batters in the line-up. Do you agree with this observation? And…should power be such a dominant factor in this decision?
I understand there is a greater upside with a guy that has a higher likelihood of hitting a homerun or a gap double for you. On the flip side of the coin, power hitters could have a stronger likelihood of over-swinging or chasing a bad pitch compared to my singles hitter who has that consistent swing and disciplined approach at the plate.
Obviously…every player has a unique profile of characteristics and decisions need to be made on a case-by-case basis. But… in general…are coaches too quick to dismiss the idea of giving a singles hitter the green light on a 3-0 count?
At the end of the day, your strategy should be formulated in a way that gives you the best chance to score runs. If there are men in scoring position and a single will likely score my team 2 runs…why should I not consider giving the green light to one of my contact hitters?
Coach’s Tip
When thinking about giving a green light on a 3-0 pitch, consider the following factors:
- Urgency of the at bat
- Discipline of the batter
- Pitcher’s track record of control
- Recent performance of hitter and pitcher
- On deck batter and other batters due up that inning
You’re absolutely right about the power/not power dynamic. Good hitters with little power should absolutely get the green light with one or two men in scoring position and 0 or 1 outs. Especially if they hit before a ground-ball or strikeout prone hitter.
As someone who’s been given the green light throughout my career, I’m ambivalent about it. So much depends on the hitter’s strengths and weaknesses. 12 years ago I was confident swinging on 3-0 because my BA on balls in play (I think they call that BABIP) was very high. These days things are a bit tougher, since I pop out far more than I did when I was in the zone.
I would only give the green light to a hitter I trust to know what it means to “lock in ” on a pitch. Usually that means we’re talking about the best hitter on the team – a guy like Manny or Pujols. At the amateur level, I’m not sure I’d ever do it, because chances are pretty good that the 3-1 will be just as good as the 3-0.
I am only going to address the amateur situation because that is our specialty and while we can sometimes learn from pros, we have to adapt to the abilities and experience of our kids. Personally I hate the take sign, never use a take sign, never want anyone to even have a “take” in their sign system.
Here’s why… young hitters are too prone to letting a really good pitch go by and then chasing after the next one – no matter where it’s thrown. So when you give a 3-0 take, the count goes to 3-1 and then the chase results in a 3-2 and now the batter is at the mercy of the pitcher and the umpire – the pressure is on and the game has been taken away from him.
So I would not limit the 3-0 green light to the best hitters – in fact it is often the lesser hitters who find themselves in a 3-0 who need to be encouraged to go after the next pitch.
Yes there are other factors like the pitches that got you to 3-0 (close or obvious balls, high or low, in or out, slow or fast), but the key remains the same – would I rather swing at 3-0 or 3-1.
Karl- I like your logic applied to the pro level but I don’t believe it is as relevant for amateur and youth players.
To Richard’s point, it assumes that batters have the plate discipline to take a borderline 3-1 pitch. In my experience, that is not the case for many hitters at those levels. I would love to see more stress placed on teaching young hitters how to attack a 3-1 pitch. There is nothing wrong with letting a strike go by you on a 3-1 count if it is not a pitch you are comfortable hitting.
In general, plate approach is SO critical and coaches do not spend enough energy teaching this aspect of the game.
You guys bring up great counterpoints.
I’m thinking from a pitching perspective- at a high level (pros or high level amateurs), I would expect that the pitcher is going to get the ball over the plate on the 3-0, and is more capable of “making a pitch” on 3-1.
Whereas at a level where skills are less-refined, there’s a much better chance that the 3-0 or 3-1 will end up missing badly, and you’ll have a free run. At a youth level, I think putting the onus on the pitcher to hit the strike zone twice in a row yields more favorable odds of a positive outcome than asking your young hitters to exercise good judgement on pitch selection.
I think there are two points we definitely can agree on:
1) The real priority is to teach young hitters plate discipline so that they know how to handle these types of situations.
2) The old-school approach taken by guys like Dusty is losing traction in today’s game.
I have never personally been a big fan of the absolute. “If x then ALWAYS y” just doesn’t sit well with me usually. This instance is no exception. I have never understood this hard and fast “rule” which seems to exist with some managers that 3-0 you take no matter what. It of course is often a good idea, but as you point out, situational elements dictate what I personally would do. Depends on the number of outs, how late in the game it is, who’s batting, who’s on deck, etc. etc.
RISP and trailing for example, I’d be far more likely to give a batter the green light, particularly if it’s a power or contact hitter at the plate….unless the bases are loaded…unless my best hitter were on deck…and so on.
If it’s a double play situation, I’d want to give my hitter the opportunity to do some damage and shoot something past the drawn-in infield; the batter is almost certainly going to get a pitch (and a good one at that) to hit. That opportunity is often wasted by putting on the take sign. I’m pretty old-school in many regards, but this is one area where I’d be more inclined to roll the dice.
Joe Posnanski of Sports Illustrated wrote a great article analyzing different counts.
For every possible count, Joe looks at the percentage of the time that count is the action pitch (pitch where something happened) and what batters hit on that pitch (the basic batting average/on-base percentage/slugging percentage).
Very relevant to the discussion at hand. One nugget from Joe’s article: In a major league season, the 3-0 pitch is put in play about 10 times per team per season.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/joe_posnanski/04/22/pitch.counts/index.html
Swinging 3-0 should only occur in rare situations.
Pretend you have man on 3rd base and 2 outs. You are a .350 hitter. The guy behind you is a .250 hitter. If you walk, you still have a man on 3rd base, but now your chances of driving in a run are .250 instead of .350 — a decline of 29%.
Most of the time, however, it is benefitial to take the pitch. OPS is the important metric these days — not batting average. I hit truly is as good as a walk (almost always). So why swing at a 3-0 count when your odds or just as good 3-1? Give the pitcher a chance to give a free base. Consider:
– a fat pitch is just as likely 3-1 and 3-0, so there is nothing lost by taking a strike.
– if a pitcher is at 3-0, he is struggling. The hitter behind you has a better liklihood of a BB or HBP as well.
– Assuming a pitch count of 100, each pitch is a 1% contribution to the pitching running out of gas.
– An extra pitch can lead to a wild pitch, passed ball or balk
But most importantly, there is a 50% of a walk with a 0%chance of hurting the batter’s chances the following pitch if a strike is called.
With the excepting of the scenario above, swinging 3-0 is just selfish, may help the batter, but almost never helps the team.
The interesting thing about all the comments above (including my own and reaction to it), is that we are failing to take into account the one truly unknown factor – the umpire. There is an assumption above that umpiring will call it correctly. In truth in the amateur levels where I live (and everyone who visits webball.com lives) – if the batters may not always have the discipline on 3-0 or 3-1, well neither do the umpires. You can not let the count get to 3-2 because you cannot risk a bad call on the next pitch. So that backs you up to having to be aggressive on 3-1. But it’s also been my experience that the expectation of a 3-0 take will have the pitcher throw one down main street or as close as he can get… the 3-0 pitch is often as hittable as the 0-0 pitch.
Regarding umpires, I have noticed a tendency in amateur games for umps to be very liberal with their 3-0 strike calls. Some of them assume it to be automatic because it’s a 3-0 count instead of staying consistent with their zone.
This is extremely frustrating for batters and of course decreases the likelihood of walk.
Yes baseballthink, that’s sort of my concern too – the automatic 3-0 strike call. But the other problem is the implication that anyone should take a 3-0 to look for a 4-pitch walk. I know the cliche that “a walk is as good as hit” but not when the runners are only on 2nd and 3rd and 1st is open – in that RISP situation the walk does nothing.
Our debate has motivated WebBall.com to hold an official poll on this topic.
Access this link to chime in:
http://www.webball.com/cms/page1812.cfm
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