Now that it's close enough to baseball season and I am back from my football exodus with a shiny new name... Explain to me this.
Why is the one knee down catching method so prevelant in the last few years? Not just in the big leagues and college, but all the way down to little kids. I get the "reasoning" of raising the mitt low to high to get strikes at the bottom of the zone. But the data makes that argument irrelevant to me. In the major leagues the one knee down method caused 47% of borderline pitches to be called strikes. In a traditional stance 45% of borderline or shadow zone strikes were called. So maybe a strike per game?
Well I watched a lot of the playoffs this year and the knee down just sucks. While they're called wild pitches more often than not, they're were a ton of passed balls compared to what I would expect in MLB.
This "wild pitch" allowed by Will Smith in game 5 is just lazy as 17.
If he's in a proper catching stance that's easy money. Instead he gave up a run on the play as the runner on third scored. There were a total of 3 "wild pitches" in the inning and it nearly cost them the World Series.
So how 17ed up is it to teach high school and younger players this method? A 12 or 13 year old stands no chance to block a ball on the down knee side or to throw anyone out from that position? I saw a rinky dink catching clinic teach this method to 8 year olds not too long ago.
What's wrong with the world? Who dare defend this blasphemy of catching fundamentals? Get off my lawn.
Baseball is coming soon boys. Please let us have a decent run...
Why is the one knee down catching method so prevelant in the last few years? Not just in the big leagues and college, but all the way down to little kids. I get the "reasoning" of raising the mitt low to high to get strikes at the bottom of the zone. But the data makes that argument irrelevant to me. In the major leagues the one knee down method caused 47% of borderline pitches to be called strikes. In a traditional stance 45% of borderline or shadow zone strikes were called. So maybe a strike per game?
Well I watched a lot of the playoffs this year and the knee down just sucks. While they're called wild pitches more often than not, they're were a ton of passed balls compared to what I would expect in MLB.
This "wild pitch" allowed by Will Smith in game 5 is just lazy as 17.
If he's in a proper catching stance that's easy money. Instead he gave up a run on the play as the runner on third scored. There were a total of 3 "wild pitches" in the inning and it nearly cost them the World Series.
So how 17ed up is it to teach high school and younger players this method? A 12 or 13 year old stands no chance to block a ball on the down knee side or to throw anyone out from that position? I saw a rinky dink catching clinic teach this method to 8 year olds not too long ago.
What's wrong with the world? Who dare defend this blasphemy of catching fundamentals? Get off my lawn.
Baseball is coming soon boys. Please let us have a decent run...
