He stood 5 ft 7 inches tall and had an unforgettably French Canadian identify — Pierre LePage — however his ability with a bat was what made an enduring impression. His hand-eye coordination beggared perception, and it was matched together with his barrel management. In three seasons at the University of Connecticut, he batted .336. In his junior 12 months, he took 248 journeys to the plate and struck out solely 3 times.
LePage by no means made it previous Class A in the minor leagues, however a couple of guys in the majors nonetheless bear in mind him fondly. Nick Ahmed, the shortstop of the Arizona Diamondbacks, and Pete Fatse, Boston’s hitting coach, had been LePage’s teammates at UConn, and each, once in a while, suppose again on the present that LePage would placed on when he stepped right into a batting cage.
Instead of tape-measure blasts, LePage would showcase a way more unorthodox ability.
“He could foul the ball straight back during batting practice on command,” Ahmed mentioned. “Just a different level of bat control.”
Like many faculty standouts, LePage couldn’t discover his footing in professional ball. Over the final decade, as groups have chased exit velocity and the lengthy ball, the worth of such high-contact, low-impact hitters has tanked. Luis Arraez of the Miami Marlins has tantalized the baseball world this season by flirting with a .400 batting common, however his singularity solely emphasizes a actuality noticed by practically each different hitter: adapt or be left behind.
Ahmed, who nonetheless marvels at LePage, is one of the batters who tailored. Where he as soon as emphasised contact, he’s now “trying to move to the other end of the spectrum.”
With the gradual elimination of the nettlesome contact hitter, it appears, the sport has additionally misplaced one of its extra esoteric arts. It was as soon as widespread for batters to deliberately combat off pitches at the edge of the strike zone, sending them into the crowd as foul balls to maintain themselves alive and look forward to one thing they might hit extra cleanly. Now, fewer hitters of that stripe earn common at-bats, and others have modified their ways in a sport awash with batted-ball knowledge.
The capability has survived — maybe not on LePage’s stage — however the willingness has evaporated.
“The game is making us change our approaches,” mentioned Wilmer Flores, an infielder for the San Francisco Giants. “My approach was not to strike out and put the ball in play with two strikes. Put it in play wherever it is. Then I would chase bad pitches. This game, if you slug or if you take a borderline pitch, it’s OK. If you walk, it’s a victory. At the end of the year, no one’s going to see ‘He put the ball in play with two strikes and brought the runner home from third base.’”
Twenty years in the past, even throughout the coronary heart of baseball’s steroid age, priorities had been totally different.
“In my era, we were embarrassed if we struck out,” mentioned Mark Grace, a Chicago Cubs star who retired in 2003 after a 16-year profession. With two strikes, hitters would choke up and shield the plate. “Barry Bonds choked up, Barry Larkin choked up,” Grace mentioned.
Many of at the moment’s hitters, against this, really feel uncomfortable with no finger or two on the knob of the bat.
Grace shouldn’t be bemoaning the state of the trendy sport as a lot as appraising the shift in its cost-benefit evaluation. Around the time he retired, groups started to worth on-base share greater than batting common. More just lately, expertise has allowed groups to boil down hitting to its element components. The metric with the tightest correlation to offensive manufacturing is exit velocity. So, even with two strikes, why take a unique swing that’s engineered to make worse contact?
“The idea is to square the ball up,” Ahmed mentioned. “Going up there with a defensive mentality to try to spoil pitches is not productive.”
To make sure, spoiling pitches nonetheless occurs. In reality, foul-ball charges have been remarkably constant since pitch knowledge first turned out there in 1988, and lengthy plate appearances have grow to be much more widespread over time. But some trendy hitters query if any of these foul balls are actually being hit deliberately.
If a hitter nicks a borderline pitch to increase an at-bat, which will say extra about the pitcher than the hitter. “It’s just the nature of the pitch,” Flores mentioned. “It’s hard to square up.” Batters might shorten their strides or react only a bit later in these conditions to maximise their probabilities at contact, however they’re nonetheless trying to hit the ball exhausting, not deflect it out of play.
“From what I know about hitting,” mentioned Christian Walker, a power-hitting first baseman for the Diamondbacks, “it seems impossible that somebody’s doing that on purpose.”
Older hitters beg to vary. The former big-leaguer Jon Jay, now a coach with the Marlins, mentioned he used to work on spoiling pitches in the batting cage. Grace admitted he generally swung for foul territory as a participant, although with restricted effectiveness.
“I put more balls in play trying to foul balls off than I actually fouled balls off,” he mentioned.
Tony Gwynn was the greatest at it, Grace famous, although Ahmed argued that Gwynn had it simpler than at the moment’s hitters. Gwynn “wasn’t facing guys who were throwing 95 to 100 m.p.h. every night,” he mentioned.
The one lively hitter (with the possible exception of Arraez) that a number of big-leaguers say may nonetheless do it’s Joey Votto, a stalwart veteran on a Cincinnati Reds squad crammed with proficient kids.
“I can,” Votto mentioned in a cellphone interview, “but I don’t do it as much.”
Back when the front-hip sinker was “a part of right-handed culture,” Votto, a left-handed batter, mentioned he would purposefully foul off these pitches so he may cowl the relaxation of the plate. No one assaults him that method anymore, so he’s shelved the get together trick. He bets a lot may nonetheless do it — in the event that they needed, big-leaguers may “attempt to hit bases” throughout a sport, he mentioned — however the possible consequence wouldn’t be price the effort. There is perhaps one plate look a collection, he thinks, when it could repay.
If such a feisty, contact-oriented strategy has ebbed, will it ever return? Some, like Ahmed and Flores, who’ve deserted that model of hitting, suppose it won’t.
“It doesn’t get you paid anywhere now,” Flores mentioned.
But baseball has undergone important change this 12 months, with the introduction of the pitch clock and restrictions limiting how groups place their infielders. As a end result, the sport is quicker, stolen bases are up and holes as soon as lined by a shift sit open. For that cause, Votto predicts a return of the pesky, indefatigable contact hitter.
“There will be a demand for guys who can control the bat and bunt and get guys over in the not-too-distant future,” he mentioned.
Fatse agrees. The house run hitter won’t ever exit of model, however lineup is various in its ability units.
“It’s not a lost art,” he mentioned.
There are a lot of guys who can do it. He watched one in faculty.
LePage may foul them off with the greatest of them. Reached by cellphone, the former infielder revealed it was a ability he’d observe. Outside of group exercises, he’d head to a neighborhood batting cage, feeding quarters in the machine after which simulating totally different pitch areas by standing in a range of spots. His solely objective: to foul every pitch again.
“People watching probably thought I was pretty bad,” LePage mentioned.
Far from it. A Thirteenth-round draft decide in 2010, he performed two seasons in the minors, hitting .303 however not offering a lot pop. Then he received harm, was launched and wrapped up his enjoying profession with one season in unbiased ball, the place he as soon as once more teamed with Fatse.
LePage, who works in insurance coverage as of late, has few regrets. But baseball’s homer- and strikeout-happy flip has left him puzzled.
“If you get a slider low and away,” he mentioned, “instead of swinging through it, wouldn’t you want another pitch?”
Then once more, fouling a ball off was simpler for him than it was for almost anybody else.
