{"id":104,"date":"2010-04-12T15:11:30","date_gmt":"2010-04-12T20:11:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/?p=104"},"modified":"2010-05-09T04:20:35","modified_gmt":"2010-05-09T09:20:35","slug":"battle-to-the-mistake-by-griffin-phelps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/archives\/104","title":{"rendered":"Battle to the Mistake"},"content":{"rendered":"
April 12, 2010<\/div>\n

Plan the work, work the plan.\u00a0 This is a mantra that I heard over and over again while pitching for the University of Arizona<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 Thanks Coach Lopez<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 It might be one of the best pieces of advice I have ever heard.\u00a0 It transcends the baseball field and carries over in to the real-life sector as well.\u00a0 Regardless, it was the first thing that came to my mind after reading fellow authors Justin Abramson<\/strong> and Dee Clark\u2019s<\/strong> opposing pieces on hitting philosophy.\u00a0 As a coach, I rely heavily on teaching my hitters to plan their work, and work their plan.\u00a0 When it comes to hitting, I want them to plan on hitting the mistake.<\/p>\n

As a former pitcher, I am quite familiar with what quality hitters do with mistake pitches.\u00a0 They shit all over \u2018em.\u00a0 It never mattered if it was the first pitch or the 8th pitch of the at-bat either.\u00a0 It only mattered that the pitch was not where it was supposed to be.\u00a0 As a hitting coach, I now work to instill this idea in all of my hitters.\u00a0 I preach, \u201cBattle to the mistake.\u201d\u00a0 If I were to subscribe to Dee\u2019s philosophy this might mean trying to work a 9 pitch sequence.\u00a0 On the other hand, if I were to subscribe to Justin\u2019s philosophy, this would mean that I should jump at the first fastball I see in the sequence.\u00a0 While I tend to be more conservative in my plate approach (I was schooled by Dee in the ideas of plate approach) I still am very fond of seeing a good pitch early and jumping all over it.\u00a0 Sometimes pitchers will attack the zone early with fastballs to get ahead, and this often times leads to a pitch finding itself traveling over too much of the white, or heart of the plate.\u00a0 Other times, especially in later or more meaningful at-bats, a hitter may not see a mistake pitch until the 4th, 5th, or even 6th pitch of the AB.\u00a0 If the latter is the case, the hitter must be disciplined enough to withstand the pitchers attack until the pitcher makes a mistake.<\/p>\n

No matter when the mistake pitch is thrown, the hitter must have it in his mind to attack the mistake.\u00a0 When dealing with high caliber baseball there is usually just one mistake pitch thrown per AB (if that.)\u00a0 This means that if the hitter neglects to take a chance (swing) at the mistake, he will more than likely end up swinging at a pitcher\u2019s pitch and have difficulty squaring up the baseball, thus leading to a probable out.\u00a0 This is why it is so important to take advantage of the mistake, no matter when it occurs.\u00a0 You can bet the farm that you will not get any second chances that AB.\u00a0 I guess what I am trying to say is that as a hitting philosophy, I believe in hitting the mistake.\u00a0 All pitchers make them, so why not try to hit the one pitch in the sequence that the pitcher wishes he could get back?\u00a0 While the more pitches you see tends to give you a higher percentage chance of seeing a mistake, what happens if the mistake is that 0-1 CB that hangs in the zone?\u00a0 You bang the damn thing.\u00a0 Just ask Pujols, or Longoria, or any other high caliber hitter in Major League Baseball.\u00a0 Taking advantages of mistakes trumps any other hitting approach.\u00a0 So plan your work and work your plan, and battle to the mistake at the dish.\u00a0 This mentality, or philosophy if you will, will give you the highest percentage opportunity for success.\u00a0 I\u2019ll put a Griffin Phelps guarantee on that one.\u00a0 One love, I\u2019m out.
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April 12, 2010 Plan the work, work the plan.\u00a0 This is a mantra that I heard over and over again while pitching for the University of Arizona.\u00a0 Thanks Coach Lopez.\u00a0 It might be one of the best pieces of advice I have ever heard.\u00a0 It transcends the baseball field and carries over in to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12,7,17,8],"tags":[189,190,191,192,188],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":185,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions\/185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}