Every human being has two modes of thinking: Linear or Exponential.
Linear thinking is better in the moment, when you’re talking to another individual, or doing any other activity in which you need to be present.
Exponential is better for deeper thought and strategy, when the expectation is less on immediate response, and more about the best individual response.
Linear measures reactionary knowledge. Exponential measures depth of knowledge.
We all have a “Chi” mode of thinking, with our individual tendencies falling somewhere on the spectrum between Linear and Exponential. Some people are more naturally Linear minded, and others are more naturally Exponentially minded. Everyone has the capability to do both, and often the challenge is how quickly we can shift from one extreme to the other.
In the game of baseball, that shift from one extreme way of thinking to the other is the biggest challenge in the battle between pitcher and hitter.
At the plate, a batter needs to be linear minded, with a chance to go exponential. The batter needs to simplify their thought process, while being able to react to the possibility of multiple types of pitches being thrown inside a spectrum of a strike zone.
On the mound, a pitcher needs to be exponentially minded, with the ability to get linear. They need to control the entire flow of an at-bat with their assortment of pitches and possible locations, while always shifting to focus on the specific pitch in front of them.
Today, I’m going to dive into the hitting side, and the challenge of going from a simple thought process to reacting to an exponential spectrum in a microscopic amount of time.
I’ll also highlight a flaw I’ve noticed with the approach from the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Henry Davis and Linear Thought at the Plate
The Pirates have had issues at the plate this year. This hasn’t been limited to the Major League level, but it has extended throughout the minors to some of their most skilled hitting prospects. At the top level, one of the more notable struggles has come from 2021 first overall pick Henry Davis.
Davis was sent down to Triple-A during the month of May, after starting the season with a .162/.280/.206 line in 83 plate appearances in the majors. He struck out 34.9% of the time, and only had three extra base hits.
MLB.com’s Alex Stumpf recently detailed some adjustments that Davis made upon returning to Triple-A. Davis had the opportunity to work with his younger brother at Louisville, which is the alma mater of Davis. The catcher worked on a fastball machine at the highest possible velocity, with the goal of adjusting his swing to the point where he can’t think about anything in the box.
“If I’m thinking about anything in that moment, I’m not going to have success,” Davis told Stumpf. “It’s very similar to how the big league game is. People talk about how the speed of the game speeds up, but the second I did that without thinking about anything, it went back to what I’ve done my whole life, my whole career.”
This is Davis getting into linear thinking mode. I think this is going to be a good approach for him in the long-term.
By clearing his mind, Davis can just react to whatever pitch is thrown his way. From this point, he still needs to make sure his approach is sound. He still looks like a player trying to hit a home run with every swing. That approach has worked for Davis in college and in the minors, but it’s not as easy to overpower Major League pitchers on a consistent basis.
In my four hitting types, Davis seems to operate in The Matrix universe, often “knuckling up” to try and counter a pitcher’s power with his own.
I think it’s an important step for Davis to adjust his swing to minimize thought at the plate. This will allow him to react on instinct. I do think he needs to do less in those reactions to try and control the outcome, trusting that home runs will come with a consistent approach to making better controlled swings.
The Emergence of Nick Gonzales
One of few hitters who has excelled this year has been Nick Gonzales. After batting .358/.431/.608 in 137 plate appearances in Triple-A, Gonzales has hit .306/.339/.500 in 119 plate appearances so far in the big leagues. This follows a rookie campaign last year where he hit .209/.268/.348.
Alex Stumpf had a story looking at the off-season changes made by Gonzales. According to Stumpf, the changes began with a meeting with hitting coach Andy Haines last year that revealed how much the swing from Gonzales had changed since college.
What I found most interesting about the story from Stumpf were the comments from General Manager Ben Cherington and manager Derek Shelton. Upon sending Gonzales to Triple-A, they anticipated disappointment. Instead, Gonzales was ready to know what he needed to do in Triple-A, which surprised both Cherington and Shelton.
I don’t give credit to Haines for fixing Gonzales, though I’m sure he played a role. Back in February, Jason Mackey of the Post-Gazette wrote a great story about the off-season development that Gonzales performed on his own to get to his new stance.
Gonzales built his own baseball barn at his home, with a weight room attached. This allowed him to return to his methods of figuring out his swing on his own, through many hours of practicing swings. Having his own baseball facility in his back yard is a huge advantage, and a true Major League commitment to improvement from the 2020 first rounder.
I don’t give Haines credit for the transformation of Gonzales, as the story from Mackey quotes Gonzales as saying he prefers figuring things out on his own, then relaying that information to the coaches. I do think Haines might have shown him where he was going wrong, but the story from Mackey details how much of an individual effort this was.
Mackey noted in his story that Gonzales fell into the trap of thinking too much inside the box last year.
“At the end of the day, that’s something I need to understand — if I’m thinking too much,” Gonzales told Mackey. “That’s never been the hitter I’ve been, to think a bunch in the box. I’ve always been someone who addresses all his work beforehand, then I go out, perform and worry about the ball.”
I think that linear thinking approach from Gonzales is just as sound as it is from Davis. I also think Gonzales has a better approach at the plate to react to pitches he can make contact with (and Gonzales can make contact with more pitches than most hitters), rather than trying to almost force a specific outcome.
Exponential to Linear to Exponential
There’s a theory about the universe we all live inside called the “Big Crunch”. Opposite of the “Big Bang”, this theory says that the fate of the universe is that it collapses in upon itself into nothing.
There’s another theory that the universe is always in a state of expanding with a Big Bang and retracting with a Big Crunch, almost like a gargantuan heart beat that none of us microscopic humans could ever really perceive.
I believe the same heart beat exists in our thinking flows. In the case of a hitter, you need to have exponential knowledge before you step into the batter’s box. A hitter needs to know which types of pitches a pitcher throws, where the pitcher likes to throw each of those pitches, and the location of the pitches. The hitter also needs to know where his own strengths lie, against certain pitches and in specific zones. The options are like a game of chess in that the possible moves of each at-bat could extend into the billions.
The more exponential knowledge you have as a hitter stepping up to the plate, the better you’ll do at the plate.
At the plate, a hitter needs to reduce to a linear mindset. With so many possible combinations of pitches, it would be a fool’s errand to try and predict the next pitch and location. The better approach is doing what Davis and Gonzales have done, getting to a point of mindlessly reacting.
From there, the hitter quickly dips into their exponential mode, but in a mindless way that relies on their knowledge. If it’s an inside fastball, they rely on muscle memory to react to that specific pitch. If it’s a low and away breaking pitch, they rely on their own reservation to lay off that pitch for a better offering. All of these decisions are made in microseconds, and rely a great deal of experience reacting to Major League approaches.
This is why hitting is so difficult, and why Gonzales is looking so special as a guy who can make plus contact. Gonzales swings more than anyone else on the MLB roster, at 57.9%, with his only downside being that he chases and misses outside of the zone too often. That could be improved upon in the future with more experience.
The Pirates and Eliminating Pitches
On Thursday, a video was posted to Twitter by Nathan Hursh, which explains the Andy Haines hitting philosophy perfectly. Former Pirates pitcher Wil Crowe explained how he went to Haines while he was struggling, asking for the profile that Haines would put together on Crowe for his hitters. The outcome is described in the video below.
I saw this video on tik tok and I think it sheds a light on the Andy Haines philosophy when it comes to hitting pic.twitter.com/9AtvSe8JrF
— Nathan Hursh (@Nathan_Hursh) June 13, 2024
Haines spotted that Crowe was often missing low and away with his fastball to right-handed hitters. His strategy in facing Crowe would have been to tell his hitters to eliminate the fastball, knowing that Crowe is unlikely to throw it in the zone.
I don’t think this is a good approach. Eliminating an entire pitch might give hitters an advantage by mindlessly laying off an offering that is more likely to be a ball. However, it’s not like Crowe would never throw a good fastball to right-handed hitters.
Crowe praised Haines for being a smart person, and the advice from Haines isn’t totally wrong. In 2023, Crowe threw 37 fastballs to right-handers in the majors. Only nine of those were in the zone, with three being borderline on the edge. Crowe was missing high, and low and away. Hitters only swung 24.3% of the time, leading to a .379 wOBA.
In 2022, Crowe was inside the zone more often with the fastball, leading to a 40.7% swing rate against his four-seam, with a .202 wOBA.
Opposing hitters were still swinging at the fastball from Crowe, leading to very good results. The strategy from Haines would completely eliminate the opportunity for that .379 wOBA against the fastball last season. It also leaves a hitter open to being embarrassed if Crowe were to revert to his 2022 mode of throwing the pitch for strikes.
How many pitchers eventually catch on that Pirates hitters are eliminating entire pitches? How much confidence would that give them to throw that pitch for strikes the rest of the game, knowing it would go unchallenged?
Better question: How many times have we seen Pirates hitters watch a strike right down the middle this year? How many times was that on a pitch they were told to ignore, due to the unlikely chance the pitcher would throw it for strikes?
Haines might be a smart person who is good at identifying trends in a sea of data. What he tells hitters to do with that data is more important than his knowledge.
In late 2022, I spoke at length with then-Altoona hitting coach Jon Nunnally. The Pirates fired Nunnally after last season, following news that Ke’Bryan Hayes opted to seek help from Nunnally over the in-house option of Haines.
What stood out to me from that talk was that Nunnally was advising hitters to eliminate areas of the plate, and to swing in a way to make contact with more pitches inside their zones.
Laying off entire pitches is a bad plan, because a pitcher can still throw that pitch for strikes. The strike you didn’t expect from the pitch you were laying off might be the only good pitch a hitter gets in an at-bat. This approach actually benefits the pitcher, by putting too much weight on their bad offerings from a single pitch, and ultimately improving the success rate of the rare good pitches. Hitters are taking the favorable results mindlessly, while avoiding the reason a pitcher is scared to throw the pitch in the zone: The chance it could get crushed.
The approach from Nunnally was more sound. It was customized to the hitter’s tendencies of contact and ball movement after contact. The hitter wasn’t adjusting their approach in such an extreme way to the specific pitcher, but positioning themselves to hit any pitch that came through their zone. Even if it was unlikely that a pitcher could throw one of his pitches for a strike.
In terms of linear thinking at the plate, it probably helps to eliminate one offering, and only react to a certain type of pitch. However, this is a cheat toward the linear-to-exponential mode that good hitting requires. The linear thinking approach for a hitter shouldn’t be waiting with a clear mind for a specific pitch type to hit, eliminating a big part of the potential exponential approach. It should be waiting with a clear mind for any pitch thrown in their zone.
I like that Pirates hitters are adjusting to approaches that allow them to react without thinking at the plate. It is a concern that so many reached the majors and struggled before getting to this point.
I question the specific exponential planning prior to the at-bats of eliminating pitches, which I think reduces the ability to expand from linear to exponential thinking mode at the plate. The focus from Haines is flawed because it treats the pitcher as a predictable constant. I preferred the approach from Nunnally, because it tried to establish the same thing for the hitter.
The Art of Hitting requires a hitter to react to the pitcher. When hitters start trying to predict how the pitcher will perform down to the individual pitches on any given night, they set themselves up for boom or bust potential. And we’ve seen a lot of that from the Pirates offense this year.
Roster Moves
**The Pirates traded LHP Jose Hernandez to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Thursday for cash. Hernandez was recently designated for assignment, after pitching only twice since May 23rd. He spent most of that time sitting in the majors. The Pirates added Hernandez as a Rule 5 pick last year from the Dodgers, and gave him 50.2 innings during a season where he had to be in the majors. His usage this year was more like a Rule 5 pick, and it will be interesting to see how he does with his original organization.
**RHP Ben Heller was outrighted to Triple-A Indianapolis, after being designated for assignment earlier in the week. Heller struggled in two MLB relief appearances this year. He’s got an impressive sweeper and good velocity, but looks like an emergency depth option in his age 32 season. Using Heller over Hernandez was an interesting choice by the Pirates.
**The Pirates added RHP Dennis Santana to the active roster, after claiming him off waivers at the start of the week.
Pirates Prospect Watch
Braxton Ashcraft made his Triple-A debut on Thursday, going six innings with one run allowed. The right-hander is currently the best rotation depth option for the Pirates, although I’m not sure I would subject him to MLB rotation innings in his first full season returning from Tommy John.
If the Pirates need a short-term starter, they should turn to Ashcraft. If they want him in the majors all year, I think it would be better using him in a long-relief role, with the opportunity to open a few games.
Read more about Ashcraft in today’s Pirates Prospect Watch.
Pirates Prospect Watch: Braxton Ashcraft Looked Great in Triple-A Debut
Fuquay Vinyl Playlist
I haven’t been doing the Song of the Day since returning to writing First Pitch daily. When I turned this into a weekly column, I was doing a playlist. Often, I go to my Liked Songs, pick one out that I’m feeling, and see what the algorithm gives me next. It’s a cool way to create a custom album. It also allows me to get into a good energy vibe during meditation.
Here was this week’s “album”, led by “Fake Plastic Trees” by Radiohead, which led my meditation session following Thursday’s Pirates loss. The song had no relation to the game.
I was glad Mac Miller made the playlist. I haven’t listened to him much, prior to this year, but “The Spins” has been one of my favorites, while also turning me on to Empire of the Sun. “Aquamarine” by Danger Mouse and Black Thought is an all-time hip hop song, released in the last few years. I also really like that Justin Townes Earle song. If you’re looking for new music, enjoy the following mix to end your week.
