"Hit Tool"
by John Sickels on May 31, 2010 4:00 PM EDT
Email
Print
As I read scouting reports in preparation for the draft, one phrase that keeps cropping up this year is "hit tool."
I could be wrong about this, but I don't recall the exact phrase "hit tool" popping up much before the last year or two, not phrased in quite that way. I usually see hitting as more of a skill than an organic tool. Physical strength is a tool. Running speed is a tool. Arm strength is a tool. No one would argue with that. A skill is when you learn to use a tool properly.
There are many different components to hitting, of course...swing mechanics, bat speed, feel for the strike zone, pitch recognition. How many of these components can be taught or learned (skills), and how many are organic to the physical body (tools)? Are there blurry lines between the two? Can a player be taught to hit?
What say you?
11 comments
|
0 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
I always thought it was a organic thing that either you can or can't do
Even when Tony Gwynn got old and fat he could still rake, Julio Franco could still hit when he was 48 even though all of his other skills were gone.
Players who should be in the Hall of Fame: Pat TIllman, Dwight White, Donnie Shell, L.C. Greenwood, Ray Guy, Steve Tasker, Greg Llyod, Andy Russel, Cris Carter, Kevin Greene and Jerry Kramer
"It's a great day to be a mountaineer, where ever you may be" Tony Caridi
Canal Street Chronicles resident Steelers Fan
i thought the five tools for a hitter were
hit for average
power
speed
defence
arm
So I always assumed the hit tool was ability to hit for average.
Yea...
I always thought it was basically the same as contact ability. I never really understood the obsession with the five tools, though, especially in this day and age.
by oplaid on May 31, 2010 5:36 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
This be it
The breakdown of the 5 tools for a hitter spawns this sort of talk, John, not your more academic (and correct) distinction between tools and skills.
It’s mostly all fantasy based, of course (I sure know that the words polish and 5-tool make me drool like self-styled divas for Manhattans in my keeper), but who can blame a team for wanting something more like Longoria or Kemp than, well, Carlos Gomez or Everth Cabrera?
by Johnny Tuttle on May 31, 2010 8:55 PM EDT up reply actions
I think it was just a refinement of earlier terminology that took
“Hit tool” is basically the same as “contact tool” or “ability to hit for contact/average”, it’s just more self-explanatory. And then somebody started using it and everybody else was like, “that makes sense, I’ll use that too”.
Is “hitting” a tool in the strictest sense? Not really, but it’s so vitally important to the success of a baseball player that it’s pretty convenient to describe it as such. You can make a good argument that the most important of the tools is actually the one that isn’t really a tool at all!
I guess it’s possible to debate about the intricacies of it . . .but then we’re getting into micro-analysis that seems unproductive to me, at least until we get better ways to analyze the things that make up a successful swing (swing mechanics being even less useful for predicting future success than pitching mechanics at this point).
Hit tool is pretty overrated
Considering that it’s just about hitting for average, and we all know now that empty .300 hitters aren’t very good.
It ought to be replaced with “Plate Discipline” instead, and generally be about pitch recognition, patience, and contact ability, all in one package.
I think we’ve already moved toward that some and it’s just being called the same thing as it was before, though.
True
I’ll confess I’ve always read it that way, whether or not that’d been the intention. When I think of Gwynn and Boggs and Molitor and Ichiro (my standards for the “hit tool”, especially the first two), I find it hard to separate hitting for avg from patience, getting your pitch, and drawing walks. Even an Ichiro, with relatively modest walk totals and a slightly weaker OBP, flicks balls foul with apparent ease; it’s not Dunn’s lumbering to first, but it’s patience.
by Johnny Tuttle on May 31, 2010 8:58 PM EDT up reply actions
Hmmm...
I think of hitting a baseball like shooting a basketball. On the surface, it seems like it would be teachable, and something that anybody could do… and certainly, there are aspects of both that are teachable (proper swing mechanics/proper shooting form.) Yet if it were truly something you could teach, then players like Gwynn, Molitor, Ichiro, etc. wouldn’t be so rare. Likewise for shooting: if it were truly teachable, you’d have a lot more Jason Kaponos and Steve Kerrs than you do.
Hit tool
We’re probably hearing the term a lot this year because so many of the top position prospects have so few other tools to speak of. Guys like Grandal, Cox, and Colon all have pretty much average player upsides. But, they all sure can hit.
Just using the term is sort of like defensively saying “Hey, hitting is a tool too!”
Vlad
is a good example of a guy who exhibits a phenomenal hit tool (I agree with it being roughly congruent to contact ability) without showing the same elite level of plate discipline. Don Mattingly had a great hit tool. Rod Carew. I’d say beyond simply making contact, I’d include ability to hit to all fields. Bat control more than just contact? Barrel awareness? In terms of this being a tool, just ask yourself: how many hitters can do what Vlad does? He had a hit the other day on and inside pitch that everyone watching the game swears would have hit him on the knee if he’d missed it. Somehow he kept it fair. That’s a hit tool to me.
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Recommended FanPosts
Recent FanPosts
