While one could argue that it is vaguely implied in Cecil’s answer, surely one of the biggest reasons that most pitchers can’t hit is because hitting and pitching are two totally different activities. I needn’t describe the actions required of either pursuit. Suffice it to say that in the same way you wouldn’t expect, say, a long-jumper to be a good boxer, there is no reason why we should expect a pitcher to be a good hitter in the first place.
However, while boxers don’t have to long jump, pitchers (at least in the NL) do have to hit, as do all defensive players. Hitting and playing first base are two totally different activities as well, yet MLB first basemen are required to be at least minimally proficient in both in order to keep their jobs. On the other hand, pitchers are not held to any standard on their hitting abilities - uniquely among defensive players, they’re judged solely on their defensive abilities.
Also, most pro ball players played multiple positions in college and/or high school, and sometimes even in the minors (former Astros starting pitcher Brandon Backe moved from outfield to pitcher in the minors, for example). It’s not like pitchers are totally unfamiliar with the act of hitting, as you would expect a boxer to be unfamiliar with long jumping.
I agree with everything in your post. However, it doesn’t change the fact that since hitting and pitching are two totally different activities, there is no reason to even ask the question. And since pitchers are judged on defensive skills and not hitting, isn’t the answer to the question obvious anyway?
Some pitchers are not terrible hitters. (Zack Greinke has just been unfair this year.) But,
Guys who are terrible hitters don’t get to the big leagues–except as pitchers. Some good pitchers started their professional careers at other positions, then switched when it became clear that their bats weren’t good enough.
Even in leagues where pitchers bat, the game leverage of incremental improvements to a pitcher’s batting is a lot less than that of incremental improvements to his pitching. So management always wants him to work on pitching. If they could trade 100 points off a pitcher’s own BA for 10 points off his opponent BA, they would leap at the opportunity.
I remember back in the 2007 WS when Dice-K got a key RBI hit one inning the announcer said “Dice-K was a very good hitter in high school” and the color man said “Every player in the pros was a good hitter in high school”. These guys were the top athletes in their sport growing up and nearly all of them were good hitters until they started specializing as pitchers.
Absolutely. Mike Hampton was a career .246 hitter over 16 years, something that at least in earlier times, would have been acceptable for a shortstop (Pee Wee Reese, lifetime .269 over the same time period).
Ankiel was a pitcher with the St. Louis Cardinals from 2000 until 2004, when he lost his ability to throw strikes consistently. After trying to regain his pitching form in the minor leagues, he switched to the outfield in early 2005. For two and a half years, he honed his skills as a hitter and fielder in the Cardinals’ minor-league system. He returned to the Cardinals on August 9, 2007. As a Cardinal (1999–2009), Ankiel hit 47 home runs as an outfielder and two as a pitcher.
Pitching and hitting are two different tasks that use different muscles in different ways, sure. Each takes a certain amount of skill to do well, and practice practice practice. And practice for one does not really translate to practice for the other. Yes, that is all true.
But at the same time, catching a football and running to elude other players are two different skills, but you still expect a wide receiver in football to be able to do both well. Throwing a football and running with a ball are different, but quarterbacks have to practice both.
So just because there are different skills is not in itself sufficient to explain why pitchers are not typically known for their batting skills. Yes, it is part of the explanation, but does not address the concern. The real concern is why pitchers, of all the ball players, are allowed to be equivalently worse at batting.
And that is the answer Cecil provided - the primary way pitchers serve the team is with good pitching skills, so they are evalutated almost exclusively on those skills and any skill with a bat is pretty much ignored. They are encouraged to spend all their practice time getting better at pitching, rather than split their time getting better at pitching and batting.
Pitching and hitting are the two most difficult skills in baseball. Each requires a lot of practice and work to become proficient. Outfielders work a lot on their hitting and are usually chosen for their batting skills. Infielders need to practice their fielding skills and this takes away from time they can spend practicing batting. But they need lots of practice at both. Pitching is much harder than other infield work and more time is spent working on those skills. Batting suffers as a result.
I’d argue that running isn’t exactly a skill, and the differences in running and catching a football in no way compare to the differences between hitting and pitching. So I don’t think there is really a comparison here.
As for Cecil’s answer, perhaps the question was imprecise. If the actual intent of the question was to ask why pitchers are allowed to be such atrocious hitters, then Cecil nailed it.
Claiming there’s no reason to ask the question is stretching the point quite a bit. Of course there’s a reason - pitchers are baseball players. Unless there’s a DH, hitting is part of their job description. Pitching and fielding are different things, too, but it’s clearly fair to point out which pitchers can’t get off the mound or make a throw to first. They don’t become different people when they go into the dugout at the half inning.
Both true, but I think the point is that the conventional wisdom in baseball is that pitchers are not expected to be competent hitters any longer (if they ever really were), and so, a particular pitcher’s hitting ability will only be a small factor in a team’s evaluation of that pitcher’s skills. So, yes, it’s in the job description, but it’s so far down the list of skills in that description that it’s rarely, if ever, a factor.
If a team has two pitchers with essentially identical pitching skills, but one is a better hitter than the other, hitting just might be a point of consideration (assuming the NL) if the team had to choose between keeping / signing one versus the other.
Fielding is probably in the same general camp, but probably not quite so extreme. If a player is a very good pitcher, but a poor fielder, he’s not going to get passed over in favor of a lesser pitcher who happens to be a cat-like fielder.
Oh, sure. It’s a question with an answer, certainly; I just don’t agree that the question is nonsensical. It’s very strange to suggest that asking why pitchers can’t hit is akin to asking why they aren’t good singers, or something. Especially since the truth is that they’re only terrible hitters in comparison to professional hitters.
Well, I can think of one reason: he spends a lot of time around baseball, thinking about the act of hitting from the pitcher’s point of view; and, being a pitcher, he might be able to get inside the head of the opposing pitcher, to take advantage of his insight into pitching to have a better idea what to expect. The advantage this gives him is probably minuscule at best over other players, but it might be a reason to expect a pitcher to be a better hitter than a boxer or long-jumper would be.
Heh. This reminds me of the old Nintendo RBI game. The pitchers were always the worst hitters with averages of .150 or worse. And they came up to bat regardless if it was a National League or American League team. So if you had bases loaded, 2 outs, and the pitcher was up at bat you had to make a difficult decision. If you had a sub bat for him the pitcher was done. He couldn’t pitch anymore either. If the pitcher hadn’t pitched much his arm was still good and deciding to sub him at bat was a lady-or-the tiger type thing. The sub might wiff out and now you’re down a good pitcher.
I think it’s a relevant question, as hitting is part of baseball. The answer to the question is really easy and **Glazer **nailed it in post 11. Pitchers just don’t practice is as much as other position players. Hitting is not easy.
It’s why centers are typically not as good at free throw shooting. They don’t practice shooting form nearly as much as they practice under the basket. There’s no physical reason why they couldn’t be good, they just don’t work at it as much.
