Strike zone

[buckweat]

Originally Posted by Rich Fronheiser

Higher level pitchers can throw darts at the knee

Rich,

I know this is a tad off subject, but when you say Higher level pitchers can throw darts at the knee, what are you really saying?

I’m not saying the higher level the P, that they aren’t more accurate!

I’ve been down this road with many an ump, player and coach from the LL(generic) to the ML, and even with a couple guy’s in the HOF, and the ability of P’s, even HOF P’s to actually hit spots has never been in doubt.

But what’s very much open to conjecture is, what a “spot” is, and what percentage of the time it can actually be hit.

So far, the only people I’ve found who believe hitting a “spot” is actually hitting the glove without it moving, and really believe it happens a high percentage of times, are very young and inexperienced.

More experienced people seem to consider “spots” as being approximately the size of a C’s mitt, or roughly a circle 15” in diameter.

I thought it was ridiculously huge until it was explained to me that a C’s mitt is about 15” across. If a ball hit dead center of the mitt, it would be perfect, but if the C had to move the mitt just 7-8” to get the ball, that’s still pretty darn good. So, 7-8” left/right/up/down would mean the pocket is pretty close to the outside edge of the original glove position, and that would make the circle roughly 15” across.

Accepting that as a “spot”, most of the more experienced people I’ve talked to seem to think a really accurate P like a Maddux, will still only be able to hit his “spot” at best maybe 70% of the time on a good day, which would make a pretty darn good college P maybe 50% accurate.

Is that what you consider “throwing darts”, are you finding something higher or lower as a good number, or is your meaning of “dart” something else entirely?