Balls and Strikes

Your intelligence is amazing, sir. Also, I've had many tell me you are great with balls and strikes.

 

Umpires opinion on receiving

With the discussion on receiving, what are the umpires thoughts on catchers that

- stab at every pitch vs letting the ball come to the mit

- funnel every pitch back into the strike zone

The reason I ask is that I sure see a lot of catchers doing one or the other above motions. Always liked what Coach Guzzo use to say - would like the catcher to receive in a manner that the ball disappears into the mit and you don't notice the mit.

 

I really hate to be the bad guy, but with a catcher like the one you discribed here, the Pitcher is going to have a bad day. The Coach will get upset, and I will look like a bad umpire. Until he gets his catcher squared away.

 

Dont

try to make a ball look like a strike , keep strikes - strikes. Stick the baseball and do not fade with the pitch. And please do not stab at the baseball. There is no doubt that a good catcher can really help his pitchers and a bad one can really hurt them. But its the not the catchers job to fool the umpire or turn balls into strikes. Its the catchers job to not turn strikes into balls and to receive the baseball in a manner that allows the umpire to call those borderline pitches strikes.

IMO there is nothing worse than a catcher who pulls pitches back into the strike zone that are balls. And a catcher who turns good pitches into bad ones. Umpires appreciate a good catcher. Just like all players and coaches appreciate a good umpire.

 

If the goal is to get better as a pitcher or a hitter, how does this approach help either improve. The strike zone is the strike zone and as far as I can tell there is no room for interpretation.

 

I usually agree with all you umpire and coach types, but this time, I'm not buying what you are selling. The ump gets to see the pitch from the time it leaves the pitcher's hand to the time it hits the mitt. Why does it matter what the catcher does with it? It either crossed the plate with the proper elevation or it ddn't. Why is the catcher involved in this equation?

 

I hope you bought this earlier post of mine!!

Stretchlon
Stars Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Rocky Mount
Posts: 948


There is a set strike zone area above home plate

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The pitch is a strike if it passes thru any part of the strike zone PERIOD. Of course it is better to have good catchers so that strikes don't end up looking like balls.

 

Seeing the strike zone

Until there are laser beams outlining the strike zone, there will be judgement involved since you view basically all pitches at an angle and the ball typically is moving vertically and/or laterally through the zone. Since there is judgement involved, the ability of the pitcher to stay around the zone and of the catcher to put it in best position will influence that judgement.

That is unless you have four eyes that work independently on each limit - always wondered why some of the MIB (men in blue) were called four eyes.

 

I totally understand how and what PunchedOut is saying. If people believe that the strike zone is the same from LL through the Major Leage, I've got a pond to sell you.

"Hittable" is the key word and that interpretation changes at each level. I'm all for an umpre forcing a team to get their bats off their shoulder. I can't stand an umpire that appears to be squeezing the plate....Make 'em swing!!!!. That's what they're up there for--not to walk.

The game is always about adjustments. If you can't adjust, you won't be starting very much. A batter should be adjusting from one bat to the next--and that includes an umpire's calling of ball and strikes.

 

Breaking news

The Dalai Lama (U-R-OUT), Hickory's highest ranking umpire is suffering from exhaustion and has canceled his international trips for the next three weeks, according to his Web site.

The best umpire in the state has canceled his travel plans.

"His Holiness the Dalai Lama has been experiencing some discomfort in the past couple of days," his partner PunchedOut stated.

The statement added that doctors put his condition down to exhaustion for trying to do the bases and the plate to cover for his lazy partner and have advised him to cancel his engagements pending the results of medical tests.

It said planned gigs in Mexico-Impact Baseball and the Dominican Republic-Dynamic Baseball were now shelved and that rookies from Rocky Mount would have to cover those events.

The 53-year-old Stud last week inaugurated a Baseball Complex in the south of France and met with French first lady Sallie Wamsley-Saxon.

"The Dalai Lama is fine, he's just exhausted. He has had a hectic schedule for the last year, with games scheduled almost every day," Tempa Tshering, a representative of the Dalai Lama in Delhi, India, told WHIG-TV.

He added that the Dalai Lama was "just postponing" the trips he had scheduled for the next three weeks, and will take some time off in Augusta, Georgia -- the home of the best left hander in the minors.

The Dalai Lama's press secretary, Tenzing Takla, told WHIG the ump "has a little bit of discomfort in his stomach. He is going for a check up now to make sure it has nothing to do with the hamburger eating contest he won the other night in Kannapolis."

U-R-OUT fled to India from Hickory in 1999 after Stretchy's troops crushed an attempted uprising after he called an entire tournament all by himself.

He has spent most of his life campaigning for the rights of Soccer mom's, angering Braves, which accuses him of trying to ruin TBR preps.