By: Eva Luo
Fouling a ball used to be a strategy in baseball. Changes in baseball have made it unpopular, but the tactic may return.
Pierre LePage, who played for the University of Connecticut, never made it to professional baseball, but is remembered by several players in the major leagues for his skill. LePage’s former teammate Nick Amhed, the Arizona Diamondbacks shortstop, remembers him for his control of the bat. “He could foul the ball straight back during batting practice on command,” Ahmed said. “Just a different level of bat control.”
However, along with the role of a contact hitter, the art of hitting foul on purpose has faded.
It used to be common for players to intentionally hit a foul ball to keep themselves alive in the game, so they could execute a cleaner hit. The skill has survived, but the willingness to do it hasn’t. The game has made players change their approaches. Ahmed, who admires LePage, is one of the batters who changed the way they hit to suit modern times. Some players have abandoned this style, while others think it will make a rebound.
The practice of spoiling pitches still happens, with a consistent rate of 33% to 40% since 1988. Long plate appearances (a plate appearance is a batter’s turn at the bat) have become even more common over time. Some modern hitters are doubting if people really hit foul balls intentionally. “From what I know about hitting,” said Christian Walker, a power-hitting first baseman for the Diamondbacks, “it seems impossible that somebody’s doing that on purpose.”
Older players disagree, with a former big-leaguer, Jon Jay, a Marlin’s coach, said he used to work on ruining pitches. Mark Grace, a Chicago Cubs star, also said he sometimes would swing for foul territory, though with limited effectiveness. Grace thought that Tony Gwynn was best at it, but Ahmed argued that Gwynn had an easier time than today’s players.
There is one active hitter that multiple players think could still do so: Joey Votto. Back when right-handed people were favored, Votto, a left-handed batter, said he would purposefully foul off those pitches so he could cover the rest of the plate. Nowadays, no one attacks him in games left-handed, so he doesn’t use it. Votto bets big-leaguers could do it if they wanted, but it may not be worth the effort.
Changes in the sport, including the pitch clock, which gives the pitcher only 15 seconds before pitching, and restrictions on how the teams position the players, have made the game faster. This is Votto’s reason for predicting that the contact hitter will make a comeback. He said, “There will be a demand for guys who can control the bat and bunt and get guys over in the not-too-distant future.”
Pete Fatse, LePage’s former teammate, says “It’s not a lost art.” He stated that plenty of guys could do it, and LePage was one of them. LePage, now working in insurance, has no regrets, but is a bit confused why hitters want to be able to hit every pitch, even the bad ones, successfully. He said, “If you get a slider low and away, instead of swinging through it, wouldn’t you want another pitch?”
Source:
http://research.sabr.org/journals/study-of-the-count-yields-fascinating-data#:~:text=The%20percentage%20of%20pitches%20fouled,all%20counts%20on%20the%20batter.
https://www.mlb.com/glossary/standard-stats/plate-appearance