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YOUR BALANCE
Bored baseball logic (short and long versions)
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Bored baseball logic (short and long versions)


May 22, 2019, 10:56 AM

While reading the boreds yesterday I saw some interesting takes on the game of baseball and our Tiger team to be more specific. Just a few things I noticed:

(Short version)
Everybody thinks they know the reasons and answers for failures in baseball but those same people rarely have any evidence, with the exception of one game or one at-bat to support their theories. Clemson’s problems start and stop with the pitching staff and not with an offense that performed well despite having to replace a lot from last season with young unproven guys. In general people just think they understand how easy it is to hit and catch a ground ball so those areas get lots of blame when they aren’t perfect.

(Long version)
#1 thought posted to the bored: “You can’t try to be a hero and hit a home run every at bat, especially with a runner on 3rd.”

My thoughts about this comment:

The most obvious thing staring those people in the face is that BC scored 5 runs in the first 10 innings and every single one of them was driven in by a home run. It took them 11 innings to “just put it in play to score the run”. It worked well for them yesterday.

My next thought is that many of the comments, some using his name and others not, were directed at Byrd. Byrd is very consistent with his approach. He swings hard every time he swings. This has resulted in a batting average near .320 (highest in yesterday’s lineup), 15 home runs (tied for most on the team), and being named 1st team All-ACC (our only 1st team selection). It did not work yesterday, but it seemed to work very well last week when he hit 4 home runs in 4 games and won ACC player of the week. We needed him to come through one time yesterday and he didn’t do that, but it was not because he did anything different than what has worked well for him all season.

Finally, a ground ball double play killed what seemed to be setting up as a good inning. “Just putting it in play” didn’t work very well in that instance.

#2 thought posted to the bored: This team has a terrible hitting philosophy.

My thoughts:

This team is averaging just over 6 and a half runs per game for the season. That is not a terrible offense that does not know what they are doing.

Even working around several injuries this team has had “winning” offensive performances in a lot of games that were actual losses over the span of the season.

Every baseball team in America leaves runners in scoring position. Usually when there is a lot in a game then you lose the game. This doesn’t mean the “hitting philosophy” is bad. It means the team didn’t execute that day.

#3 thought posted to the bored (and most reasonable): We can’t keep pitching guys that give up runs.

My thoughts:

At first glance that seems like an obvious statement. The problem is that we don’t have a pitcher that doesn’t give up runs. If you take it literally then nobody has a pitcher that doesn’t give up runs, but our pitchers (with the exception of a couple) seem to give up more than most.

Pitching has been the downfall of this season. The guys that were really good early have either had minor injuries or have gotten worn out toward the end of the season.

Pitching needs to be the biggest change to get Clemson back to where we all want to be moving forward. A very strong argument could be made that pitching has been our weakness for the last several seasons and it has shown up at different times during the years. This year it showed up earlier than normal (most likely due to the youth being relied on), where in the past couple of seasons it has shown up in postseason play.

There are always a few but there have not been very many 3-2 and 2-1 losses for the Tigers in recent seasons. I feel that scoring 5+ runs in a game should result in a win much more often than not. I believe there was a stat included in game summaries on Tigernet for much of the season highlighting the outstanding record that Clemson has when scoring 5+ runs. Unfortunately that highlight went away mid-season because the record collapsed when the pitching did.

If we can grow up some of the young guys and convince a stud or 2 to commit and not take the draft money, Clemson can go back to competing for championships. The pitching issues must get fixed.

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Re: Bored baseball logic (short and long versions)


May 22, 2019, 11:22 AM

Not sure who gave the TD but a comment on why you disagree with my post to generate some conversation would be an appreciated addition.

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Re: Bored baseball logic (short and long versions)


May 22, 2019, 11:44 AM

Lot of info there so kudos to you for taking the time. I would only respond to item #2 on hitting philosophy. I don’t think you can use runs runs per game as a barometer. The issue seems to be related to philosophy when you have two strikes on you. There were a lot of strike out looking in critical situations late in games with RISP and two outs. You have to defend the plate in that situation - you can’t be trying to draw a walk or look for a pitch to do some damage with. Swing the bat and maybe something good happens. Sometimes they were taking the first two strikes in at bats in these situations and were really at a disadvantage in the count for the rest of the at bat. Maybe the coaches just give them too much credit for being able to put the ball in play with two strikes. Whatever it is it did seem to be a purposeful approach that has a low chance for sustained success. Now I’m sure they will go out and score 15 runs tomorrow and bat .666 with RISP.

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Re: Bored baseball logic (short and long versions)


May 22, 2019, 12:27 PM

I have seen exactly what you are talking about but I don't consider that to be hitting philosophy.

Taking strike 3 or taking the first 2 and not seeing anymore good pitches falls under lack of execution.

The players are definitely taught to go to the plate and hit the good ones, especially with men in scoring position.

Monte preaches to get the job done early in the count with runners in scoring position.

If the players don't execute the plan, it's on the players and may be why we have seen so much shuffling of the lineup this season.

P.S. let's round that to .667

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Re: Bored baseball logic (short and long versions)


May 22, 2019, 11:45 AM [ in reply to Re: Bored baseball logic (short and long versions) ]

I don’t think anyone with baseball knowledge would argue with your assessment of the team. Small ball vs long ball has been argued for years and both are good ... if the talent is there. My concerns are that the Tigers don’t always play smart baseball. All to often I see our pitchers get ahead in the count and serve up a middle of the plate fastball! Good hitters love to see that. Does that explain why BC scored their runs on homers? The first inning yesterday was ruined by poor base running. The hit and run could have worked but it should not have resulted in a DP! You do that kind of play to prevent the DP not cause one! I’ve said many times that the best way to play baseball is make the opponent think and force him to make perfect plays. The Tigers are much to predictable .. imo. For some reason this team never developed a personality of its own this year. Injuries played a part of this. I would have liked to seen a stable lineup established early in the year. The role of the players changed to much for a continuity to be developed. Making every call the right call in coaching a baseball team is very tough. Impossible really. The Tigers will improve as a result of this season,

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Re: Bored baseball logic (short and long versions)


May 22, 2019, 12:33 PM

We differ in the opinion that fastballs down the middle are a mental error. I see it as a physical error. Either way it can't happen, especially against college hitters.

Injuries combined with young players who tended to be very hot and cold prevented this team from getting a set lineup early in the year and trying to let them gain continuity.

I followed the play by play of the game yesterday but wasn't able to watch it live. I'm not sure if the early double play was a result of terrible baserunning or one of those things that can happen when you hit the ball in the air on a hit and run. Either way, I am not suggesting that it was a bad call by the coach.

My reference to that play was the people that say if only we would bunt or get runners moving, then everything will work out. It doesn't matter what the coach calls, the players have to execute the play whether that means better basedrunning or making sure that a hit and run finds the ground.

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Re: Bored baseball logic (short and long versions)


May 22, 2019, 11:44 AM

Great assessment. Most of the “complaints” on here are out of frustration I would imagine.

I haven’t looked but I would be curious to know if that 6 run/game average has extreme peaks and valleys, or if it’s pretty consistent across the schedule.

No doubt the pitching has to improve. There are some young, talented players on this squad that will be fun to watch grow. Mix in a solid pitching rotation and who knows.

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Re: Bored baseball logic (short and long versions)


May 22, 2019, 11:45 AM

I agree with pretty much everything in your post. I know that this is a young team, and injuries have definitely had an impact, especially with pitching. It just seems as if this team is stagnant. It felt this way at the end of last season. Throughout this season, I’ve always given the benefit of the doubt to Coach Lee and the rest of the staff. But there’s no excuse for some of the losses, especially mid-week losses. They get in their own heads and beat themselves.

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Re: Bored baseball logic (short and long versions)


May 22, 2019, 12:36 PM

I could see you saying the '17 and '18 teams were stagnant.

Those teams had very similar style teams with very similar results.

I disagree with this team. There has been a ton of turnover and a ton of young players were asking to play major roles.

If this year's team looks the same as last year's team, then I think that is a very positive sign for the program because this year's freshman and sophomores looked like last year's juniors and seniors.

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Re: Bored baseball logic (short and long versions)


May 22, 2019, 11:50 AM

It’s not rocket science why this team is AVG at best .
Baseball has changed some yeah but the good teams still do the little stuff right.
It’s called baseball fundamentals.

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Regarding #2 hitting


May 22, 2019, 12:12 PM

Clemson batters lead the ACC in strikeouts.

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Re: Regarding #2 hitting


May 22, 2019, 12:47 PM

Clemson is actually 2nd but I get your point.

However, I'm not under the impression that part of the hitting philosophy is to strike out.

I guess you are saying our players try to hit the ball too hard and so it makes us strike out.

Our players need to play better and execute in their at-bats.

At-bats are even more important when there are men in scoring position. We struggle in those situations when we lose.

None of that is a philosophy.

There are much more important hitting statistics than strike outs also.

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My observation is that as a group we seem to struggle


May 22, 2019, 1:23 PM

with pitch selection. Taking good pitches early in the count and swinging at bad pitches late in count, for example.

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Re: My observation is that as a group we seem to struggle


May 22, 2019, 1:57 PM

It could be a pitch recognition problem or a pitch guessing problem.

I played with lots of guys in college that were guess hitters. They picked one of the pitcher's pitches to sit on for each pitch. If they thought they saw it out of his hand they swung for it and if they guessed wrong they usually looked terrible. If they guessed right they usually crushed the ball. Also they routinely took pitches down the middle when they guessed wrong.

There are two ways to do this depending on how good you are.

You can guess for the first two and then try to react to the third pitch. This is usually tough for the hitter because if he is used to guessing the majority of pitches, then he usually struggles with pitch recognition. This is the category that I think a lot of the Clemson hitters fall under. They aren't trusting enough of themselves to stick with their strategy.

The other option is to sell out to guessing and guess for all three strikes. I don't think Clemson has but maybe one or two guys if any who have been doing that this season. This is a high risk and high reward way to do things. It gives the batter an extra chance to try to guess right and do damage. It also causes some really ugly looking strike outs when the batter guesses wrong.

I played with one guy in college in particular who guessed every single pitch. He was a very smart guy (graduated college with a 4.0 gpa) and guessed right way more than wrong. When he guessed wrong he usually looked really stupid. One day we asked him why he had looked terrible (like 4 ks terrible) all day long after having such a good day the day before. He said that he couldn't seem to guess right that day but he wasn't going to change the way he did things because he knew what made him successful. No matter what, he was going to guess every pitch because he knew that he wasn't great at picking up the spin of the ball and reading different pitches. He had a very successful college career but did have elevated strike out numbers. However, his batting average on balls in play was outstanding.

I don't know that the coaches are teaching anybody to do this because usually whatever made them good enough to play at Clemson is what they need to do to keep being successful at Clemson but it seems that this is happening from some of our hitters.

When the guessing game is bad, it looks really bad.

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Re: My observation is that as a group we seem to struggle


May 22, 2019, 8:11 PM

Maybe that’s what happened to Byrd yesterday... he was guessing.

when he came to bat and pulous was struggling to throw strikes. Had runners on first and third w no outs. pitched him ball 1. Again, pitcher was struggling. Byrd then swung at three straight balls. Two of which were way up and out of the zone and and ended up striking out.

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Re: My observation is that as a group we seem to struggle


May 23, 2019, 9:24 AM

A lot of times chasing pitches that way is because players are so anxious to help make something happen.

If Byrd was looking fastball and got it, it's easy to chase out of the zone if you are trying too hard to be the guy who gets something going for your team.

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