Why Swing Decisions and Contact Ability Will Be Increasingly Valued For much of the past decade, offensive player valuation across Major League Baseball has increasingly accepted an "all-or-nothing" ideology in which elevated strikeout rates are tolerated in exchange for power production. As long as a hitter could generate damage on contact, swing-and-miss and aggressive chase tendencies were often viewed as acceptable tradeoffs rather than inefficiencies. The gradual adop

Its impact on roster construction, player valuation, game strategy, and more The catcher is one of the most resource-intensive positions in baseball. It combines the highest physical workload with one of the steepest offensive penalties, and its defensive value is tied to skills that are difficult to quantify and replace. Under current roster rules, teams typically carry two catchers on a 26-man active roster, accounting for roughly 7.7% of roster spots leaguewide. What if t

What makes a great pitching coach (Written in May 2025) Great bullpens are valuable, but they aren’t nearly everything. The job of a pitching coach is to help translate practice results into game results. Cool pitch shapes don’t matter if they can’t get outs. I think of the Nationals "I don't care how hard you throw ball four" sign back a few year ago. The name of the game is getting outs not to throw hard or get a lot of movement. They typically correlate but the pitch shap

(Written in March 2025) Clay Holmes in his transition to starter has become one of the many MLB pitchers to begin throwing what's known as a kick change. Why does it work? A kick change is not a new pitch; it's simply become more recognizable, allowing us to better quantify what it is, why it works, and how to teach it to athletes in a practical way. This pitch is particularly effective for supinators who struggle to pronate on a traditional changeup. It tends to move mor