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	<title>Comments on: The Blue Jays Hitters Need to Adjust to Adjustments</title>
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	<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/05/25/the-blue-jays-hitters-need-to-adjust-to-adjustments/</link>
	<description>Comprehensive coverage of the Toronto Blue Jays</description>
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		<title>By: HalfLife</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/05/25/the-blue-jays-hitters-need-to-adjust-to-adjustments/#comment-4255</link>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[HalfLife]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 30 May 2016 15:34:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=3027#comment-4255</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Sorry for the half comment above...What I mean is that you can&#039;t just look at pitch breakdown regardless of counts. E.g. if you&#039;re making lousy contact and don&#039;t get your fastball in a hittable location early in the count (as is happening to Martin) then you&#039;re going to see a lot more breaking balls because that&#039;s what pitchers throw in the 2-strike counts where you always find yourself. It&#039;s not really that pitchers have changed anything in terms of their approach, it&#039;s just that the at-bats end up being ripe for chase pitches a lot more often. 

Same with the horrible numbers against breaking balls...it&#039;s not just the pitch itself, it&#039;s that they&#039;re seeing ones that bounce when they have to defend the plate with 2 strikes because they&#039;re not hitting as well and ending up in those counts for whatever reason. It&#039;s not so simple as to say the key was to simply throw more breaking balls because that&#039;s what they have trouble hitting. The key might very well have been getting to 2-strike counts when it makes sense to throw those breaking balls for a bunch of reasons (don&#039;t have to worry about falling behind, hitter is in swing mode) -- which is a much harder thing to do, and a much more complicated thing to figure out why is happening this year.]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Sorry for the half comment above&#8230;What I mean is that you can&#8217;t just look at pitch breakdown regardless of counts. E.g. if you&#8217;re making lousy contact and don&#8217;t get your fastball in a hittable location early in the count (as is happening to Martin) then you&#8217;re going to see a lot more breaking balls because that&#8217;s what pitchers throw in the 2-strike counts where you always find yourself. It&#8217;s not really that pitchers have changed anything in terms of their approach, it&#8217;s just that the at-bats end up being ripe for chase pitches a lot more often. </p>
<p>Same with the horrible numbers against breaking balls&#8230;it&#8217;s not just the pitch itself, it&#8217;s that they&#8217;re seeing ones that bounce when they have to defend the plate with 2 strikes because they&#8217;re not hitting as well and ending up in those counts for whatever reason. It&#8217;s not so simple as to say the key was to simply throw more breaking balls because that&#8217;s what they have trouble hitting. The key might very well have been getting to 2-strike counts when it makes sense to throw those breaking balls for a bunch of reasons (don&#8217;t have to worry about falling behind, hitter is in swing mode) &#8212; which is a much harder thing to do, and a much more complicated thing to figure out why is happening this year.</p>
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		<title>By: HalfLife</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/05/25/the-blue-jays-hitters-need-to-adjust-to-adjustments/#comment-4254</link>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[HalfLife]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 30 May 2016 15:25:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=3027#comment-4254</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Does this include splits?]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Does this include splits?</p>
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		<title>By: Arjonn</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/05/25/the-blue-jays-hitters-need-to-adjust-to-adjustments/#comment-3932</link>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arjonn]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 25 May 2016 22:26:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=3027#comment-3932</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I get what you&#039;re saying and I don&#039;t completely rule it out as a factor, but if I sat FB last year when I saw, on average, about 12 per game out of 23 total pitches, how much need is there to change my approach because I&#039;m only seeing 11 this year? And how much drop in performance can I reasonably attribute to seeing that 1 different pitch per game? 

I don&#039;t know what, but my gut says there&#039;s a good deal more going on.]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I get what you&#8217;re saying and I don&#8217;t completely rule it out as a factor, but if I sat FB last year when I saw, on average, about 12 per game out of 23 total pitches, how much need is there to change my approach because I&#8217;m only seeing 11 this year? And how much drop in performance can I reasonably attribute to seeing that 1 different pitch per game? </p>
<p>I don&#8217;t know what, but my gut says there&#8217;s a good deal more going on.</p>
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		<title>By: Joshua Howsam</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/05/25/the-blue-jays-hitters-need-to-adjust-to-adjustments/#comment-3916</link>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joshua Howsam]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 25 May 2016 20:00:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=3027#comment-3916</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I wouldn&#039;t say they&#039;re not causally evaluative. While can&#039;t actually know that one way or the other, the fact is that the attack plan has changed, and it&#039;s the only clear change to date from their big season last year (aside from awful sequencing - they can&#039;t hit with runners in scoring position all of a sudden). 

As for a quarter of the year, that&#039;s sort of the point I was making. JD, Bautista, and it seems Tulo, have made the adjustment. EE typically makes in-season tinkers, but is behind so far this year. Martin is the only one with any real worry, because you can see even just watching him, he has NO approach at the plate.]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I wouldn&#8217;t say they&#8217;re not causally evaluative. While can&#8217;t actually know that one way or the other, the fact is that the attack plan has changed, and it&#8217;s the only clear change to date from their big season last year (aside from awful sequencing &#8211; they can&#8217;t hit with runners in scoring position all of a sudden). </p>
<p>As for a quarter of the year, that&#8217;s sort of the point I was making. JD, Bautista, and it seems Tulo, have made the adjustment. EE typically makes in-season tinkers, but is behind so far this year. Martin is the only one with any real worry, because you can see even just watching him, he has NO approach at the plate.</p>
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		<title>By: Joshua Howsam</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/05/25/the-blue-jays-hitters-need-to-adjust-to-adjustments/#comment-3914</link>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joshua Howsam]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 25 May 2016 19:56:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=3027#comment-3914</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I think the greatest value could be that before all of them were seeing fastballs more than half the time, now they&#039;re not. So they went going in there with a better than 50% chance that any pitch was going to be a fastball (goes up/down depending on count, of course), whereas now it&#039;s better odds that it will be a breaking ball.]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I think the greatest value could be that before all of them were seeing fastballs more than half the time, now they&#8217;re not. So they went going in there with a better than 50% chance that any pitch was going to be a fastball (goes up/down depending on count, of course), whereas now it&#8217;s better odds that it will be a breaking ball.</p>
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		<title>By: Jonathan Schmidt</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/05/25/the-blue-jays-hitters-need-to-adjust-to-adjustments/#comment-3908</link>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jonathan Schmidt]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 25 May 2016 16:57:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=3027#comment-3908</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Excellent point! What is hard for me to reckon from the numbers is why any so-called adjustments are being made now rather than, say, halfway through last season when the Jays were feasting on pitching. Opponents know something now that they didn&#039;t know then? Hmmmm. And it hardly requires a quarter of a full baseball season for elite players to come to terms with fewer fastballs. The ratios quoted above seem -- as you suggest -- interesting but not causally evaluative.]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Excellent point! What is hard for me to reckon from the numbers is why any so-called adjustments are being made now rather than, say, halfway through last season when the Jays were feasting on pitching. Opponents know something now that they didn&#8217;t know then? Hmmmm. And it hardly requires a quarter of a full baseball season for elite players to come to terms with fewer fastballs. The ratios quoted above seem &#8212; as you suggest &#8212; interesting but not causally evaluative.</p>
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		<title>By: Arjonn</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/05/25/the-blue-jays-hitters-need-to-adjust-to-adjustments/#comment-3901</link>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arjonn]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 25 May 2016 15:39:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=3027#comment-3901</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I don&#039;t know how much stock to put in this. A 5% decrease in fastballs seems pretty significant, but if I think in terms of a hitter seeing ~20-25 pitches per game, it&#039;s only about 1 fewer, with a corresponding increase of 1 breaking ball. I&#039;m not saying this difference doesn&#039;t matter, just that it doesn&#039;t intuitively seem like nearly enough to explain more than a portion of how much the bats have declined v. last year.]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I don&#8217;t know how much stock to put in this. A 5% decrease in fastballs seems pretty significant, but if I think in terms of a hitter seeing ~20-25 pitches per game, it&#8217;s only about 1 fewer, with a corresponding increase of 1 breaking ball. I&#8217;m not saying this difference doesn&#8217;t matter, just that it doesn&#8217;t intuitively seem like nearly enough to explain more than a portion of how much the bats have declined v. last year.</p>
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		<title>By: Jonathan</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/05/25/the-blue-jays-hitters-need-to-adjust-to-adjustments/#comment-3889</link>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jonathan]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 25 May 2016 12:14:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=3027#comment-3889</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It&#039;s very exciting to think so, but man, it&#039;s getting hard to believe so.

Full disclosure: I am a weak hearted, yellow-bellied, lily livered fan. But I do turn around fast when the team does.]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>It&#8217;s very exciting to think so, but man, it&#8217;s getting hard to believe so.</p>
<p>Full disclosure: I am a weak hearted, yellow-bellied, lily livered fan. But I do turn around fast when the team does.</p>
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