# Why do pitchers suck at hitting once they reach minor/major league? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [June 29, 2009, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pitchers-suck-at-hitting-once-they-reach-minor-major-league/501309 "2009-06-29T02:43:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Who\_me\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/958977/32.png) [@Who\_me\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Who_me_1)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2009, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pitchers-suck-at-hitting-once-they-reach-minor-major-league/501309/61 "2009-07-02T16:28:44Z")
> [@fiddlesticks](#): > > High schooler Bryce “The Lebron James of Baseball” Harper ([SI story](http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1156215/index.htm)) hits mammoth home runs and throws 96 mph fastballs. Again this is a Gretzky-like case where he is simply a freak of nature who can do anything he wants against kids his own age. Once he gets into pro baseball, he’ll be a position player. If someday in the future when he’s in MLB and he gets brought into a blowout game to pitch the ninth after the bullpen runs dry and he gets lit up, did he suddenly start to suck at pitching or is he just out of practice at pitching? Obviously, its the latter… That’s not really unusual. Cal Ripken Jr. was a high school pitcher with a 90+ fastball. Due to his ability to hit the baseball, he was drafted as an infielder. ---
**Author:** ![HoboStew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f17d59/32.png) [@HoboStew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoboStew)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2009, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pitchers-suck-at-hitting-once-they-reach-minor-major-league/501309/62 "2009-07-02T17:09:11Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > Here’s the numbers from 07-09 The discussion is not “which league scores more runs or hits better” its “do I want to watch pitchers flail away instead of a professional hitter.” There are any number of reasons for the stats you posted, the primary one in my mind being I think the NL has better hitters than the AL at the moment. As of now, 7 of the top 10 home run leaders are NL players. Anyways, its an old debate that I am pretty sure no one has ever convinced anyone to switch sides so I’m happy to agree with RickJay and say its a good thing we have 2 leagues so everyone is happy. Or everyone is angry. Whichever 😃 [QUOTE=Jas09] Really, at its core, my aversion is an aesthetic one - baseball has some lovely symmetry (9 innings, 9 players, 3 strikes, 3 outs, etc…) that I feel is marred by having one extra player just batting. [/QUOTE] The DH is definitely a hacky solution. If watching pitchers bat wasn’t so painful I would definitely support this argument. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2009, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pitchers-suck-at-hitting-once-they-reach-minor-major-league/501309/63 "2009-07-02T17:13:47Z")
> [@fiddlesticks](#): > > High schooler Bryce “The Lebron James of Baseball” Harper ([SI story](http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1156215/index.htm)) hits mammoth home runs and throws 96 mph fastballs. Again this is a Gretzky-like case where he is simply a freak of nature who can do anything he wants against kids his own age. Once he gets into pro baseball, he’ll be a position player. If someday in the future when he’s in MLB and he gets brought into a blowout game to pitch the ninth after the bullpen runs dry and he gets lit up, did he suddenly start to suck at pitching or is he just out of practice at pitching? Obviously, its the latter… But you won’t know. That’s the trouble, and beauty, of it. Wayne Gretzky’s not a good comparison to Bryce Harper, actually, because what we see in Harper now is purely his raw physical talent (something Gretzky didn’t possess; Gretzky is a unique case.) He’s impressive as all hell, but he’s still a very, very long way from anything approaching a major league ballplayer. All the strength and speed in the world does you no good if you can’t pick up the difference between a slider and a fastball and learn to lay off stuff out of the zone. To use a very famous comparison, Billy Beane was an amazingly gifted athlete who flopped in the big leagues because he just didn’t have the ability to make contact with professional stuff. Somewhere up the continuum was Bo Jackson, a phenomenal athlete who just did not have the minute skills to truly excel at baseball. These guys just killed high school competition, but along the way to the big leagues tiny little cracks in their game, that a fellow high school junion cannot exploit, showed up. Harper is certainly a very gifted athletic specimen but right now (as is pointed out in the article) he’s just beating up on kids. When he hits Double A he might find himself very surprised indeed to take a swing that once sent the ball 570 feet and at that level misses the ball by six inches. Or if he makes it as a pitcher, he might get slaughtered because he can’t master the breaking ball. It doesn’t matter if you throw the ball 100 miles an hour if you don’t have exceptional command, or control of a breaking ball or an off speed pitch, or something that will prevent major leagues from teeing off on a four-seamer they know is coming. So if Harper makes the big leagues as one or the other, concentrating one one discipline in exclusion of the other (and I assure you he’ll be made a hitter if at all possible) you’ll never really know if his other skill would have survived all those tests. Maybe. Maybe not. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to talk smack about Bryce Harper. He’s a legitimately amazing phenomenon. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2009, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pitchers-suck-at-hitting-once-they-reach-minor-major-league/501309/64 "2009-07-02T19:28:05Z")
The talk of strategy in baseball is amusing. Baseball is just a series of set plays. When you are playing outfield, you analyze all probabilities. You just think of where the ball can be hit and what you will do in each case. You invent nothing. Managers decisions are the same. Anyone who played at all knows what the situation require. That is why so many dumb people can manage a baseball team successfully. Pitching changes are simple. Righty vs lefty .who has a weakness to curve ball, who can’t hit high speed, all these are on computer printouts. Managing does not require any arcane knowledge. The GM is the most important person on the team organization chart. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2009, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pitchers-suck-at-hitting-once-they-reach-minor-major-league/501309/65 "2009-07-02T19:50:05Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > The GM is the most important person on the team organization chart. Other posts in this thread withstanding, this is like the 10th thing you’ve said in the last month I’ve agreed with. Please stop - it’s making me uncomfortable. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2009, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pitchers-suck-at-hitting-once-they-reach-minor-major-league/501309/66 "2009-07-02T20:17:34Z")
> [@HoboStew](#): > > The discussion is not “which league scores more runs or hits better” its “do I want to watch pitchers flail away instead of a professional hitter.” I guess. But my argument is leaning more and more to - what’s the difference? Using the stats I used earlier, here’s the composite numbers for the two leagues since 1998: ```auto Year R/G H HR SB BA OBP SLG OPS AL 4.936 9.299 1.101 0.611 0.270 0.338 0.430 0.767 NL 4.657 8.966 1.053 0.587 0.263 0.333 0.419 0.752 Difference 0.279 0.333 0.047 0.024 0.007 0.004 0.011 0.015 ``` You can argue the NL having better hitters right now - but over 10 years, and the numbers are about the same? (Interesting number up there - SBs. Definitely would have thought more SBs/G in the NL.) > [@](#): > > Anyways, its an old debate that I am pretty sure no one has ever convinced anyone to switch sides so I’m happy to agree with RickJay and say its a good thing we have 2 leagues so everyone is happy. Or everyone is angry. Whichever 😃 I can definitely agree on that one. I’m primarily an AL fan, because I was raised a KC fan. I guess that also has hardened my ability to watch things that may appear painful. ---
**Author:** ![HoboStew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f17d59/32.png) [@HoboStew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoboStew)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2009, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pitchers-suck-at-hitting-once-they-reach-minor-major-league/501309/67 "2009-07-02T21:13:51Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > I guess. But my argument is leaning more and more to - what’s the difference? I think what we are seeing here is that as bad as pitchers are at hitting, they are still only 1/9th of the offense. For example, lets say you have 9 .300 hitters in your lineup. Assuming 500 abs in a season per player, that amounts to 1350 hits. Now take out one of those .300 hitters and replace him with a .100 hitter, the # comes down to 1250 hits. That amounts to a difference of 0.617 hits per game, relatively close to your 0.279 # (higher yes, but that makes sense since nobody has lineups that good). Just goes to show that baseball is truly a team game and one person can’t make a huge difference, no matter how much they suck. ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2009, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pitchers-suck-at-hitting-once-they-reach-minor-major-league/501309/68 "2009-07-03T02:58:01Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > So I think at that level, _everybody_ gets to pitch until they get to the point where they can start separating out those who can actually pitch _well_. However, I never played Little League, so this is purely anecdotal. Nah. By the time my sister was in second grade, her 15-girl softball team had two regular pitchers and a backup. I think what you’re hearing is that the kids who get in the booth are kids who are really into baseball, and these days kids at that age are only **really** into baseball if they’re quite good at playing it. Which means they’re pitchers for the reasons discussed above. (And yes, the three pitchers on my sister’s team were the most reliable sluggers as well.) –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2009, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pitchers-suck-at-hitting-once-they-reach-minor-major-league/501309/69 "2009-07-03T03:21:24Z")
> [@HoboStew](#): > > “do I want to watch pitchers flail away instead of a professional hitter.” We’re arguing in circles now, but the thing I love about baseball is that at every level – building your team, stocking your farm system, deciding on your 25- and 40-man rosters, filing out your line-up card and making substitutions – you’re forced to take the bad with the good. Yes, Adam Dunn hits for power and forces pitchers to throw him hittable pitches because he’s got a great eye. But your grandfather in a Rascal would make a more mobile outfielder. So when you’ve got a two-run lead in the seventh, do you pull Dunn for a defensive substitution so as to have a chance of catching the tying run’s pop fly? Or do you leave him in, knowing you’ll need his power again in the 9th (and 11th?) once your shitty bullpen has blown yet another late lead? I like the duel between the pitcher and the guy in the batter’s box too, because it’s yet another iteration of this, but the central drama of the game for me is that you have to balance the benefit of every player and every pitch against the downside risk. If you eliminate that risk because you’d rather just watch good hitters hit, well, it’s not for me. –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2009, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pitchers-suck-at-hitting-once-they-reach-minor-major-league/501309/70 "2009-07-03T14:31:56Z")
> [@HoboStew](#): > > I think what we are seeing here is that as bad as pitchers are at hitting, they are still only 1/9th of the offense. For example, lets say you have 9 .300 hitters in your lineup. Assuming 500 abs in a season per player, that amounts to 1350 hits. Now take out one of those .300 hitters and replace him with a .100 hitter, the # comes down to 1250 hits. That amounts to a difference of 0.617 hits per game, relatively close to your 0.279 # (higher yes, but that makes sense since nobody has lineups that good). Just goes to show that baseball is truly a team game and one person can’t make a huge difference, no matter how much they suck. Not true. The hitter in front of the pitcher will get nothing to hit. They know an automatic out is coming up next, so why allow him to hurt you. So ,they pitch around at least 1 more batter when the pitcher hits. Sometimes ,if you have 2 outs, you may give the 7 hitter nothing too. The pitcher hitting creates a bigger hole than just one spot. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-pitchers-suck-at-hitting-once-they-reach-minor-major-league/501309.md?page=3)