567s and The Great Debate: Should Hitters Hit Flyballs or Groundballs ?

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There are so many mis-teaches in hitting, and coaching players to hit predominantly ground balls is one of them. This is micro-management at its worst. Teaching players to simply make sure they put the ball in play exhibits a lack of trust in their ability, or in our ability to understand hitting and teach it the proper way. Nor should we ONLY practice hitting flyballs. And it isn't ok to strike out a billion times.

Let's get this straight.

College baseball statistical programs log all extra base hits as line drives. In programs like Statcrew and Dakstats, fly balls are outs. All hits are categorized in college as only line drives or ground balls. This is absolutely asinine. This epitomizes much of the statistical confusion at lower levels.

MLB gets it right. Their stat programs note that HRs can be both fly balls and line drives. MLBs excellence in statistical analysis, data and measurement are second to none.  MLB has a financial capacity to have highly sensitive visual analysis by computers as well as real, live human beings track every pitch and evaluate each contact.

Every ball hit comes off the bat at a different angle. At Lee University, we call these angles "ball flights," and we grade and value each ball flight separately, giving our hitters great perspective on what they hit, and what we want them to hit.

We encourage our hitters to hit 5's, 6's, and 7's. When you hit a barrel in practice, we track it as a 567. To hit a ball at these ball flights requires certain approaches, timing and contact points to be made.

A "1" flight is a ball hit sharply into the ground, first bouncing near home plate. A "9" is the equal, but opposite angle, hit straight up into the air.

A "4" flight is a hard contact that bounces in the back infield dirt. A "5" is perfectly squared up and cuts straight through the air. A "6" has backspin and "extra-base energy" (lots of doubles and triples here). Most HR's are "7" flight, though our strongest players can crush an "8" flight and have it sail out of the yard. 567's win. They require aggressiveness in approach and swing.

Our weaker hitters, who have exit velocities typically between 80 and 90, have ball flight identities of 456. They can crush a "7" and not have the same success. Sitting there hitting "7" flights all day is a bad idea when you don't possess the bat speed or strength to create distance on the baseball.

Truly, the line in assessing the difference between a line drive and fly ball is blurred, and subjective. We consider a "7" flight to be a fly ball, but to be the type of fly ball that our strongest hitters want to hit. A "6" flight is the line between a high-line drive and a low-fly ball, but let's call it what it is. Even a "4" flight is hitting the ball in the air!

Here's where coaches get hitters jacked up: when you take the improperly sorted college flyball/groundball ratio data and impart those batting averages and out percentages onto your hitters, you communicate to your hitters that hitting ground balls is beneficial to them personally, and to the team. "Ground balls good. Fly balls bad."


As you can see from the table below, the batting average (approximately the 14th most important hitting statistic) on GBs is higher than that on FBs in the big leagues since 2002, but the ISO power (SLG% - AVG: a terrific sabermetric for evaluating a hitter's juice) is SIGNIFICANTLY greater on FBs than GBs.

Type	AVG	ISO	wOBA
GB	.239	.020	.220
LD	.685	.190	.684
FB	.207	.378	.335

Our final misstep in the coaching puzzle is the type of linear hand path/lacking separation/pushing the barrel forward to ensure we make contact swing that coaches dis-empower their hitters with.

Hit the ball on the ground is a misnomer. I don't care if you run a 6.5 60. Hitting 456s or 567's will result in having an ability to drive in runners from first, create a higher slugging percentage, higher OPS, more runs created, and make a greater impact on the game.

For more statistical data on LDs, GBs, FBs, go here.

We chart hitters on-field batting practices to ensure they have accountability and visual reference for what types of balls they are hitting on a consistent basis. We have a goal for each hitter to hit 40% of their batted balls within their identity (either 456 or 567).

At times, we demand our hitters make in-game adjustments. Windy day? Let's focus on 456's. Hitting is all about adjustment making, as is coaching.

Teaching our hitters that hitting the right type of balls in the air is advantageous is an adjustment that many programs can make.

Major League HItters Make Impressive Adjustments

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I’m constantly impressed by what big league hitters do at the plate. Perhaps the most impressive skill big leaguers have is their ability to execute approaches to a scouting report, and to adjust to an opponents’ scouting report on them. 

Colleges have lots of information on opposing pitchers, hitters and defenses. Companies like “Inside Edge” and “College Spray Charts” give teams crystal clear information on what hitters’ and pitchers’ tendencies are. At the professional level, these players play every single day, so the information is even more consistent and accurate. In the show, there are cameras, algorithms, Statcast, QuesTec and numerous sabermetrical data, video and endless analysis, available at the touch of a button, for any hitter, pitcher or coach at any time.

Baseball players are creatures of routine, and thus, creatures of habit. These habits are evident in the data. General managers hire advanced scouts and mathematicians to dissect the information and create pitching sequences, offensive approaches and defensive shifts to stymie the opposition.

With all of this information and advanced planning going against hitters, they still hit, and many of them hit very well.

Great hitters know that pitchers must pitch inside on them to speed up their timing. Great pitchers know they cannot live in or live away on any big league hitter; they must mix locations and speeds. Hitters know this same information. With so much shared information, and so much talent on the mound, what does the pitcher-hitter battle come down to? Toughness and execution.

Watch a Sports Center highlight of a big league game, and pay attention to where all of the hard hit balls are. Nearly all of them are over the middle of the plate. Mistakes. Big leaguers crush mistakes. The elite of the elite can cover more pitches than others. They handle the ball a few more inches in, away, up or down, and they know which pitch pitches they personally handle well. Miguel Cabrera can hit whatever he wants to hit when he’s going well. He’s an outlier. Bryce Harper and Mike Trout are similarly un-pitchable if they are locked in.

Big league hitters play nearly every day: 28 days a month; and they don’t wake up and drive a nice short commute to work every day. They take several flights each week, across states, across country, through the night. Then they get ready, get prepared, get focused, and rake.

When a pitcher knows your weakness, and a defense knows your spray chart patterns, and you adjust to hit hard the pitches you get, that is impressive. It takes trust, confidence and emotional security to do something different than you are wired to do.

When a dead pull fastball hitter sits on a breaking ball and hits a sacrifice fly to the opposite field, that is impressive. Of course, it’s easy to say that’s what he should do. The game isn’t that simple though. 

Big league hitters have swings that they fine tune, though many are imperfect, and they mostly swing at pitches that work within their swing planes and approaches. When they know they will get something different than what they are good at, and make the change to attack that pitch or that side of the plate, that is good hitting. That is mature hitting. 

Making the Best Lineup

                                                                                        (photo credit: usatoday.com)


Hitters, like all humans, love to be comfortable. Hitters especially like to settle into a specific spot in the lineup, unless it's the eight or nine-hole, that is.

According to the old standard of lineup construction, the fastest guys bat lead off and the two-hole is some average hitter who can bunt and has a linear, push pattern swing so he can manipulate the ball and "advance runners." Times, they are a changin'.

Any coach with both eyes open should have read by now that there is a more intelligent way to build a lineup, one that literally, figuratively, sabermetrically and even in video games...will score more runs per game.

While many may shun sabermetrics as baseball math for those who have never played the game, those who have played the game and aren't afraid of change are realizing that the hitters with the highest OBP and OPS should hit as many times as possible every single game.

If you don't believe me, check out this article or this one from Beyond the Boxscore. And here's a specific example of Jim Leyland building a better lineup.

If you heard about SS Troy Tulowitzki's trade to Toronto, you may need to check out his first box score here. He went off tonight. And by the way...Tulo, a lifetime MLB three-hole hitter, hit in the lead off role for, presumably, the first time in his career. Despite a lifetime OPS of .885, he was 0 for his last 20 ABs in Colorado. Then he went off tonight in the lineup spot! Thank God he was comfortable!

Let's ignore exactly why he may have started with such a flurry (pun intended) in Toronto, and focus on the concept of being comfortable in a lineup position.

So many hitters believe that they are better hitters in four-hole than the two-hole. Many will claim they don't feel comfortable moving to a different lineup position. But comfort doesn't always equal success. The belief that comfort equals success is a problem for those making out the lineup. "Should I move my best player to a different position in the lineup that he hasn't hit in before? What if he doesn't know how to approach that role?"

What's truly problematic is that many talented three-hole and cleanup hitters would assist in their team scoring more runs if they took their 200 ABs from the lead off or two-hole.

Rather than college and high school coaches feeling hand-cuffed by egocentric hitters who believe they have to hit in the lineup positions they are most comfortable in, let's challenge them to get comfortable as part of the process.

Every intrasquad, every competitive BP and every scrimmage against another opponent, move your lineup around. Play with it. Explain to your hitters what your intent is. Explain to them how the team's lineup construction matters, and explain to them what an ideal lineup looks like and how your team can score more runs by utilizing said lineup.

The Toronto Blue Jays are one of the most forward-thinking major league clubs. They aren't afraid to weigh what is statistically superlative against the emotion and feeling of a player being comfortable. And I bet they've communicated how and why to their roster in an effort to improve the results of their statistical boon of a lineup.

In case you haven't looked at that box score, go check it out. Notice that the bottom of the cellar, noticeably ancient-thinking Philadelphia Phillies are hitting the atrocious Ben Revere lead off. Again.

Revere can flat roll. He's a speed demon. Yet he holds only a .711 OPS.

Sure, he's on pace for 38 stolen bases. Let's not pretend that he's the next coming of Vince Coleman.

The Phillies' 2-hole hitter is Freddy Galvis, he of the .670 OPS. PEOPLE! Five of the seven hitters after Galvis in the lineup have a higher OPS!

This lineup construction only further impairs the ability of the Phillies to win a game. As if they needed help this season!

Don't be afraid of the truth. And, remember, beliefs are not truths.