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Comment by mynegation | Hacker News Reader

Can somebody explain what is going on in the video? I understand that swinging at this kind of ball is some kind of a loss, but what if he saw it is going to hit the ground and did not swing? Would it be a lost round for the pitching team?

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It depends what you mean by 'round.' The batter has a 'strike zone', that is, if the ball is pitched there, it's considered a strike. Generally, this zone is from the knees to the mid-chest.

A batter has two numbers: balls and strikes. When the batter gets 3 strikes, they're out. If they get 4 balls (pitches that aren't in the strike zone), they walk (advance towards first base).

If a batter swings and misses at a pitch that would normally be a ball, it's considered a strike. If he hadn't swung, it would have been considered a ball.

The point of the video is that at the professional level, batters should be able to tell quickly when a pitch will be as 'off' as the one in the video - so why wasn't the batter able to?

> If a batter swings at a pitch that would normally be a ball,

Minor nit: Swinging at a would-be-ball isn't a problem. Missing a would-be-ball is.

I see, thank you! So, not immediate loss probably, but wrong decision that added to the tally of strikes instead of tally of balls. A follow up question: do pitchers intentionally throw this kind of ball, or was it most likely unintentional and the swing was a saving grace?

In this specific case, it was probably further from the strike zone than the pitcher wanted. That said, pitchers throw balls often to see if hitters will swing at them, and some hitters are more apt to swing at bad pitches (and therefore pitchers exploit this).

Pitches at the bottom of the strikezone, or pitches that are low and drop below the strikezone (that would be called balls) are generally hard to hit, so a lot of pitchers throw sinking pitches there hoping to either get a very borderline strike or a swing and miss.

Sometimes they do - it ultimately depends on the current pitch count (balls and strikes), the batter, and the pitcher. There are certain situations when "off-speed" (non-fastball pitches, like the one in the video) are usually better.

In this case, the pitch was probably further off than the pitcher wanted, but the pitch thrown is generally less accurate and moves a lot, making it difficult to hit.

For example, when a better has 2 strikes they need to "protect the plate" - swing at any pitch that could -possibly- be a strike (while if they had 0 or 1 strikes, they may let a pitch go hoping it's a ball).

If you're interested in the amount of strategy that goes into a pitchers strategy, I recommend watching this[1] 30 second video of an MLB announcer predicting a pitchers pitches. (Notice the pitch count in the bottom right - "1-2" reads as "1 ball, 2 strikes"

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Do1l8itr6E

That's a fun video and it definitely hints at the strategy involved, but it's worth noting that in-game announcers routinely get these sorts of guesses wrong. Which is just to say it's not quite as predictable as this video implies in isolation.

Pitchers do both. The pitch shown in the video almost certainly just got away from him, since it was the first pitch of the at-bat and so far off the plate. But a pitcher who is "ahead in the count" -- i.e. one who is in a favorable position regarding balls and strikes -- will often miss the plate intentionally in an attempt to draw a swing without putting themselves at risk. This is called "wasting a pitch."

Did you see the video? That was even worst that wasting a pitch that might end up in the dirt near the plate, but this was a good 3 feet in front and 2 feet wide of the plate. The only reason the catcher got it was the ball had enough spin to bounce back into the catcher and not away.

Which is why I said that, "the pitch shown in the video almost certainly just got away from him."

But, the main reason I'm responding is to say that this pitch definitely isn't worse (for any reasonable definition) than a pitch that misses closer to the plate. There are no runners on base and this is the first pitch in the at bat.

It doesn't matter if the catcher catches it or not. It's a dead ball.

He could have thrown this pitch 15 feet over Phillips's head and into the stands and the outcome is the same.

Yes, pitchers sometimes intentionally throw those kind of balls, in order to do what happened in the video. The one in the video is an extreme example, with most balls of this type crossing the plate very low, but not hitting the ground. It's also sometimes done with no intention of it being playable, but rather to throw off a batter for the next pitch or two.

There are also situations where a pitcher will intentionally walk a batter, such as if the batter is very good, so that they can pitch to the next player, who may not be as good of a hitter. There are a whole other set of rules though on how to intentionally walk someone. An at-bat can get complicated with the various ways a batter and pitcher can go about trying to get into the headspace of the other in order to achieve their successive goals.

In addition to the good answers of others: sometimes, pitchers even intentionally throw four balls, throwing the ball meters wide, sometimes behind the batsman's back (the catcher will know such a throw is coming, and move to catch the ball)

That can happen, for instance, if second base is occupied and two men are out. Giving a batsman a free run changes that into a situation with still two men out, but first and second base occupied. With first and second base occupied, if the next batsman hits the ball, all three players have to run; that make it easier to get the third out needed to end the (half-)innings.

It also can be done if the man at bat is a particularly good hitter, and the next ones at strike are deemed less of a danger. For example, with third base occupied, it's highly likely that a good hitter will hit the ball in such a way that the man at third base can score a point; that risk is lower when facing a not-so-good hitter. Therefore, the pitching team would prefer giving away that free run and have the lesser player take a go.

Yes sometimes they're intentional. If you can trick a batter into swinging at something they're unlikely to hit (or will hit poorly), that's probably the best kind of pitch you can make. Also it can be part of a psychological strategy.

This pitch was probably unintentionally bad, but maybe not by much.

Yes, if he hadn't swung at it it would have been counted as a "ball". If a pitcher throws 4 "balls" in an at bat then the batter gets to move to first base for free (a "walk").

The pitcher tries to mostly aim at or around the strike zone of the batter: from knees to shoulders and over the white plate in the ground from left to right. This pitch was waaaay off the mark yet the batter still swung. It was so far off it actually bounced in the dirt way in front of the plate.

That is just a really really bad pitch and the batter is laughing at himself for actually swinging at the thing. He probably thought the pitch was something else and completely miscalculated.

This pitch was entirely unintentionally and laughably bad.

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