A theoretical baseball question

SossMan · #1 10-11-2005, 02:03 PM

What would the range of batting averages be if every batter in MLB knew what pitch the pitcher was trying to throw?

Assumptions:
- The pitcher doesn't know that the batter knows
- The batter knows that the pitcher is going for an inside fastball...this doesn't mean that the pitch will actually be inside...the pitcher may miss out over the plate, high, etc...
- Manager's don't know that the batter's know (for either team)

What would the 'average' BA be for the entire MLB?

What average would lead the league?

How many homeruns would lead the league for a given season?

*question originally derived from this thread **warning NSFOOT

samjjones · #2 10-11-2005, 02:06 PM

It would be pretty high...around .400 or higher. MLB hitters can all hit fastballs when they know they are coming. They would simply wait for them. Look at the MLB average when the count is 2-0, which means fastball like 80% of the time. It is up there.

touchfaith · #3 10-11-2005, 02:07 PM

Batting practice.

Cancer Merchant · #4 10-11-2005, 02:09 PM

Theoretically, you'd know there's a sports forum.

tdarko · #5 10-11-2005, 02:15 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Batting practice.

[/ QUOTE ]
you know this is incorrect right?

SossMan · #6 10-11-2005, 02:20 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Batting practice.

[/ QUOTE ]
you know this is incorrect right?

[/ QUOTE ]

I was hoping that you would chime in.....what do you think?

M2d · #7 10-11-2005, 02:21 PM

hell if I know, but this reminds me of a summer league game I was in after high school. my team was scrimmaging a friend's team and my friend was up to bat. my friend was up, my cousin was pitching and I was umpiring behind the mound. in league that year, my friend went off with about 9 bombs in 16 games.
I told my cousin to groove one, then called out "hey, Kawika, fastball coming". I don't think it's landed yet.

threeonefour · #8 10-11-2005, 02:21 PM

don't a lot of players get signals from their own teammate if he is on base and can see the catcher's signal? i remember a few years ago tony gwynn was accused of often getting tipped off by a teammate. of course tony was only being tipped of a small percentage of the time.

but if you had access to video you could probably calculate tony's ave with and without tips and that would give you a pretty good estimate in regards to how it would affect a player.

intuitively, i would guess that in the OP's scenerio it would raise a players batting average as much as .075 though it might be more appropriate to express the change as a percentage gain. its likely it would help good batters more than bad batters.

tdarko · #9 10-11-2005, 02:32 PM

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what do you think?

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well it wouldn't be batting practice since BP is designed to allow the hitter to find his stroke and BP is only medium paced fastballs.

in spring training before you get to the actual games against other teams you go through what is called "pitchers BP" where the pitcher tells the hitter what is coming, it is designed to get the hitter repititions and his timing down since hitters always show up to camp behind the pace of where the pitchers are and it gives pitchers time on the bump.

now you are calling the pitch but not the location so you aren't given everything it takes to hit a pitch so it isn't as easy as you think, in camp the hitters don't do that well with this, they actually do terrible but it's early and their timing is way off. before answering this you would have to tell me who the pitcher is, can he locate a plus back-knee slider (which is basically an unhittable pitch b/c you either hook it foul and if you keep it fair you snap your bat), so the pitcher means a lot in this scenario.

avg big league pitcher vs. avg big league hitter i would say he would hit over .300. avg big league pitcher vs. barry bonds or albert pujols is another story.

bobman0330 · #10 10-11-2005, 02:42 PM

[ QUOTE ]
intuitively, i would guess that in the OP's scenerio it would raise a players batting average as much as .075 though it might be more appropriate to express the change as a percentage gain. its likely it would help good batters more than bad batters

[/ QUOTE ]

That's an interesting question. It would negate a good hitter's advantage in terms of recognizing pitches and adjusting to them. I think the big beneficiaries would be power hitters with high strikeout numbers (Andruw Jones, Adam Dunn, etc.).