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Sometimes I have to wonder about evaluators and the things they come up with. Sure, they are usually senior officials that have been around the block and you have to respect their experience. But is everything they tell us necessarily right? I wonder- who evaluates the evaluators?
Case in point: this past weekend I attended a mechanics clinic. It was a good clinic and lots of fun, even if much of what was presented was stuff I already knew or had done in the same clinic the past few years. Even with all the repetition, if you pay attention you're bound to learn something!
One session included plate work, with live pitching in a batting cage, and the sessions were video taped and critiqued by senior members.
During my cage work, the instructor told me that I was getting set too late and should be getting down in position a little bit sooner.
After the session, the guy that reviewed my tape with me told me that I was getting set too soon!
I wonder which one was right?
Another oddity: during my plate session, the instructor stopped things and made a big deal about moving my head. Yet when viewed on the tape, on the pitch where he said I moved my head you could plainly see that it didn't budge a fraction of an inch!
A couple of pitches later, on a pitch that was low and way outside, you could see my head adjust ever so slightly at the end of the pitch, as it moved to the outer edge of my field of vision.
Then, on the tape, you can hear the instructor say, "That's better"!
I had a couple of other issues with the instructors teaching college mechanics to what was a group of high school umpires. When asked about it after the session, the instructor said that the college mechanic was better and that the high school mechanic "sucked".
And yet, we have had the high school mechanic drilled into us from day one at our association meetings and classes.
So, I wonder: is an evaluator always right? Do they sometimes criticize things just for the sake of being critical and to demonstrate their knowledge, even if their knowledge isn't exactly right? After all, they wouldn't be very good evaluators if the didn't evaluate...something.
[Edited by BretMan on Mar 14th, 2006 at 08:58 AM]
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