Strike Pitch - Do you still call it?

[JRutledge]

It depends on the level I am working.

At the HS level I know the catchers are not going to catch the ball perfectly all the time. I have seen freshman players that knew how to catch the ball properly and have worked with senior catchers that did not know how to stick a pitch right down the middle. So if the pitch is right down the middle I likely going to call the pitch a strike. If the pitch is on the corners or right at the edge of the zone, then that is where they need to catch it. Part of calling pitch is how the ball is caught so you can clearly know where the pitch was and how it got there.

I can tell you the more you move up, more is expected of catchers to catch the ball properly. If they do not catch the ball properly at the college level and above, the coaches are not going to blame you, they will blame the catchers for not doing their job. I had a college game last week where a coach told me to "hit my catcher in the back of the head the next time he pops up." I talk about college because you will get some HS coaches that have college experiences as players and coaches that might make an issue out of a HS catcher not catching the ball perfectly. I just worked a game today with an assistant I knew from working as a coach at a local college and he is very knowledgeable. He says things that the average HS coach never says.

Peace

[insatty]

I fall into Rich's line of thinking on this issue. A curve ball that is caught below mid-calf is not a strike, especially if the ball or glove touches the ground. The catcher that sets up inside or outside who must reach is glove across the plate to catch the pitch is more of a nuance. If the catcher is able to reach but still catch it within his frame and freeze his glove so the coaches can see it, it's a strike.

I call alot of strikes in my games and I work up to Division Two. I find that calling strikes tends to make the game go smoother with a minimum of griping. But the umpire's credibility is an important element in the making of a gripe-free environment. We're REQUIRED to call the high strike, so our credibility exists in the coaches' confidence that we'll call it both ways and consistently. But if either catcher makes the pitch look ugly, like letting that outside strike deflect off his mitt and travel behind him, it's a ball every time for both sides.

[nickrego]

Probably the single most important change in my game that got me bumped up from Frosh / JV level to Varsity was learning to take how a pitch is caught into consideration.

Years ago, I called pitches strictly on the flight / path of the pitch. If it touched the zone, no matter how or where it was caught by the catcher, I called it a strike. I used to take a lot of heat from everyone, and was considered to have a poor strike zone.

Then, one of our senior members pulled me aside, and explained to me that even though a pitch might have touched the zone, if the catcher catches it in a way that makes it look like a ball to the rest of the world, I needed to call it a ball. Once I started doing that (took quite a bit of practice), my games went much smoother, my zone felt better, and I started getting compliments from all sides on my pitch calling. And the next year, my entire HS schedule consisted of Varsity games.

That said, let me add; If a strike is what I call a FAT strike, meaning it basically went through the middle of the zone, but say pops out of the catchers glove...Go ahead and call those strikes. What we are talking about are the FRINGE strikes, strikes the catcher has to make extra effort to catch, or a pitch that could go either way. That's when you use how the pitch was caught to make your determination.

One last piece of advice; I would only apply this to 13 YRO and up, on a 90' diamond. Start out conservatively (calling lots of strikes), reducing the number of bad catches you call strikes over time.