The Importance of Familiarity in the Batter's Box

Hitting is a form of art which takes hundreds of thousands of repetitions to perfect. There are countless features of a batter’s swing that have to be accounted for before he actually makes contact with the ball: his load, the bend in his knees, his bat angle, his stride, his precision of timing, recognizing the type of pitch, the pitch location, the number of outs, the count, the positioning of the defenders. And each of these characteristics must be repeated tens of thousands of times before they can even start to be refined. While every single part of the batter’s swing is important, there is a subtle and significant idiosyncrasy which often goes unnoticed: a hitter’s pre-pitch routine.

Before a batter steps into the batter’s box, one might adjust his helmet, readjust his batting gloves, or tap the edge of the plate with his bat - the possibilities are endless; it is not just the fashion in which these things are done, however, but the constant routine in which they are established.

Perhaps Ken Harrelson (Sports Illustrated, 6 September 1976) described a hitter’s predicament best when he said, “Baseball is the only sport I know that when you’re on offense, the other team controls the ball.” Because of this, the batter has to be reactive, and when the ball coming straight at you is traveling at 90 miles per hour and arrives in just 400 milliseconds, it is imperative that the swing is extremely quick. Muscles move faster when they are less tense, and thus, if the hitter wants to move the bat at the necessary speed to make contact with the ball, he must be relaxed at the plate.

Even the best hitters only succeed 3 times out of 10, and the more relaxed they are, the bigger the chance they have to hit the ball; therefore, anything they can to do to become more relaxed will potentially raise their batting average and make them a better hitter. Overall, this means that the more comfortable a hitter feels at the plate, the better he will be. Take Joe Mauer for instance (Sports Illustrated, 29 June 2009, Tom Verducci) -
“Mauer is so calm he seems to change the physics of the game…. ‘Pitches seem to slow down a little bit,’ Mauer says. ‘When I'm up at the plate, it doesn't feel like anything is rushed. You see the ball coming in, and everything is nice and easy, and you put a good swing on it.’”
- Mauer went on to bat .365 and win the AL Catcher Silver Slugger and MVP awards in 2009.

When a player is not relaxed, he experiences huge amounts of tension and pressure that leads to a slow and restricted swing. Instead of snapping through the hitting zone, the bat drags, and the hitter makes weak, if any contact with the ball. Also, unlike Joe Mauer, a tense hitter sees the ball as moving faster than reality. This increases the hitter’s needed reaction time, slows the body’s movement and results in a slower swing and a lower batting average.

So how does one achieve the Joe-Mauer-esque level of serenity in the batter’s box? Although there are many aspects that affect this mental and physical state of tranquility and power, an important attribute is the batter’s pre-pitch routine. Just as a high number of repetitions increase the consistency of one’s swing, it also increases the comfort one has while doing that motion. The more often a hitter swings his bat, the more natural and fluid that motion becomes, and because hitting is an unconscious and responsive action, the less the batter has to think about what he is doing, and the simpler and more fluid his swing becomes.

This same connection between repetition, and comfort and serenity can be applied to the pre-pitch routine. The more often one repeats and reiterates the same motion, the more natural that movement is; it matures into an action so infused and innate, that eventually it becomes an unconscious motion of familiarity, which turns that potentially stressful at bat against Tim Lincecum into just one miniscule at bat out of thousands. That rehearsed motion translates into a comfortable mentality for the hitter and that comfortable mentality translates into a calm, simplified approach to the swing, which leads to a higher batting average and a more productive hitter.