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Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Another career baseball guy who doesn’t have a clue about things…
This, by Buster Olney of ESPN.com, is totally and completely wrong. The sad part is that managers and pitching coaches believe the same thing:
Chase Utley versus the Yankees’ adjustments: The Phillies’ second baseman is not missing any fastballs; he is hammering everything thrown in the inner half of the strike zone. And with the benefit of a day off, the Yankees presumably will adjust significantly how they pitch to him. First and foremost, they probably will look for ways to make him uncomfortable in the box, perhaps busting fastballs down and in (although Utley famously would rather get hit by pitches than give ground in the batter’s box). Secondly, Utley probably will see a steady diet of breaking balls, and if Andy Pettitte or any other Yankees pitcher winds up walking him—and instead winds up having to face the slumping Ryan Howard—that’s an alternative he’ll likely be comfortable with.
Here is the link to the complete article:
http://insider.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?entryID=4621610&name=olney_buster
The part about the adjusting and that he will now see a steady diet of breaking balls, is nonsense. Our (the sabermetric) position of course is that nothing about Utley has changed since 3 weeks ago. Teams have presumably been pitching him optimally for 6 or 7 years. And the notion that a “steady diet of breaking balls” can ever be correct to any player, let alone a player who previously had not been pitched that way, is ludicrous. And despite what I generally think of manager and team acumen, I will almost guarantee that you will not see any noticeable difference in the way Utley is pitched, correctly so of course.
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