Alabama vs Stanford PU
 

In my opinion, the PU is setting up way too high. His head heighth is just about the same as the batters. Also I sure have seen a lot of the plate stances where the PU places his hands on his knees. Looks to me like an easy way to break a bone in a hand if hit. Dave

Looks a bit high but it could also be the angle of the TV camera. How about that obstruction call against Stanford? To take a koncokdown like that and then get called for obstruction. The SS sure did get the short end of the stick on that play. Ouch!

It sure looks like basically the same camera angle we see on every other game and their heighth looks good. I just believe he is setting up too high. Dave

'Jerry Davis'..... ............... (sigh)

If you're refering to the "Gerry Davis" stance, hands should be on the knees with the "crotch" of the thumb resting over the knee, and if possible locked under the upper edge of the shin guard a bit. This puts the fingers on the outer edge of the knee and the thumb on the inner edge, minimizing the exposure- at least so it's not like a finger lying on an anvil waiting for the hammer to hit! This also tends to rotate the forearms inward a bit, so a hit to the arm hits the fleshy underside, not directly to bone.

Well, seen a lot of this stance in the past 10 days and I still do not like it. As others previously pointed out, the umpire can still adjust to the top of the strike zone by adjusting their stance, but from what I've seen, that just isn't happening.

As previously noted, just don't like any set which locks you into a position. I grew up experimenting with the scissors (killed my back as a teenager, is would bury me now :) ) , something similar to ASA's stance when using a balloon and to a stance very similar to what people think is new with GD when I went to in inside CP. In the 70's, found myself sticking with the foot positioning, but moving my hands off my legs and keeping the shoulders back a little more. Adjusted to batter's height by "lifting" with my legs. Only when moving over to softball did I start widening my stance to make it easier on the legs and back to adjust to the batter's height.

But, to each their own.

In my neck of the Woods some of us jokingly call it the 'Jerry Nadeau', so I am not surprised I misspelled the name :D