Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
June 29, 2005
Common Sense

A nice profile of Leo Mazzone in The State. Here's something I've never understood:

Although rarely copied by other organizations, Mazzone’s principles for pitching are rather simple. He believes the first-pitch, low-and-away fastball is the best pitch in baseball, and he believes pitchers should throw as often as possible from the mound with few days off.

“It’s commonsense, really,” is one of Mazzone’s favorite lines, and when you sit in the Braves’ dugout with him before a game, you have to understand there is nothing complicated about what he is going to tell you.

It's amazing to me that after more than a decade of success, every team doesn't have their pitchers throwing from the mound two or three times between starts.


Posted by David Pinto at 07:28 AM | Pitchers | TrackBack (0)
Comments

You can't deny that there is something special about Mazzone. It's just hard to believe that it's as simple as he makes it out to be!

Posted by: Jason at June 29, 2005 09:44 AM

Mazzone's genius lies in something very simple...paying attention. He noticed what anybody who glances at the overhead camera on a baseball broadcast can see: most umpires call the outside corner a lot more loosely than the inside corner.

So many other pitching coaches mutter tough-sounding stuff about working inside. Mazzone's knows that's a loser's game. It's so much easier to get a cheap strike call on the outside corner - or three to six inches off the corner, to be more exact. That's why the low-and-away fastball IS the best pitch (see Glavine, Tom).

This very effective philosophy shows up in the Braves' HBP numbers. Atlanta is last in HBP this year. They were last in 2004, third-last in 2003 and second-last in 2002. Not only does this avoid dozens of extra baserunners over the course of a season, it also shows that Atlanta's pitchers know where the cheap strikes are.

Mazzone has told them.

Posted by: Casey Abell at June 29, 2005 11:14 AM

I'm not sure Roger Clemens or Pedro Martinez would agree that the inside corner is a mug's game. You need to control the inside corner or you'll get clobbered when you work outside.

Posted by: Crank at June 29, 2005 01:56 PM

I'm not so sure the low-outside strike is so cheap -- looks like a lot of umps aren't calling it (subjective opinion there :-) -- I'm curious though if the low-outside pitch is (if not called a strike), more often hit as a groundball out. Do pitchers show any significant G/F ratio changes pre/with/post Mazzone?

Posted by: Dominic at June 29, 2005 04:30 PM

There was an article on ESPN.com a day or two ago about the Twins staff and they mentioned similar things. First pitch strikes and throwing between starts. The similiar success says maybe it is that simple.

Posted by: Matthew at June 29, 2005 08:14 PM
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