Athletic competition has always been a major component of a nations cultural heritage. In America professional athletics are a significat piece of our cultural evolution. In American history baseball has had the greatest impact on the American personality. Whether it was Cy Young, Joe Jackson, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Yogi Berra, Bob Gibson, Alex Rodriguez, or Kirby Puckett. Americans have had a love for the game and its heroes. Of all the athletes who have played the game our passions are most often stirred by those who exceptional when it comes to hitting a baseball. Aaron, Ruth, and Bonds are names that will forever be part of our history and psyche.
Most fans understand that hitting a baseball could be the most difficult feat in all of sports. Athletes that have excelled at this not only have earned fantastic incomes but have often obtained legendary status. In recent history, every team has specialized coaches and even psychologists to help players improve their hitting. They use modern technology to help break down and analyze every every pitch a player has seen. They have specialized conditioning programs to help them maintain a level of strength, and fitness that allows them to perform at high levels over their entire careers. Yet, with all this technology and knowledge are hitters today better than hitters of past generations?
Most programs being sold today to improve a player's ability at hitting a baseball consistently and with power focus on the mechanics of the swing. Little attention is given on the mental part of this endeavor. The time that is spent on the mental aspect is superficial and doesn't fully understanding the complex role the human mind playes in athletic performance. Many former players become hitting instructors regardless of whether they know how to teach hitting techniques that result in improved performance. The entire hitting process is rather complex and even the best coaches don't fully understand it. Having been a player for 40 years, but never an accomplished batter, I became curious how much I could have trained my mind and body to have reached higher levels. Could I have overcome any physical limitations I may have been born with to become a major league player? I believe I could have. I decided to put my training in Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Advanced Behavioral Modeling, Time-Line Therapy, and hypnosis and as well as my years of teaching and coaching children to use to develop a holistic approach to hitting a baseball.
I wanted to develop an improved training program for hitting so I had to create a model by discovering what common traits the greatest hitters in history had or have. I had to learn what their beliefs and values were as well as what internal strategies they used when hitting. Lastly, I had to model their swings. I wanted to develop a successful training model so I had to learn from the best of the best. The selection process had to be rigid because the larger my pool of "experts" the more watered down the model becomes. To have the best mental training program for hitting a baseball I had to research the best.
Who are the best hitters ever to play the game? That question has been debated for generations. Every fan has their favorites and legitimate arguments for whether Ruth or Williams, Mantle or Mays, or any other players were the best ever. I was not interested in determining the best player, only the best hitter. The first phase of the research was to determine who the best hitters of all-time are.
When a player steps to the plate his role is to generate a run for his team. There three ways a hitter can generate runs or help to generate runs for his team. First, a player needs to be able to reach base by a hit, walk, or hit by pitch. The second way is by advancing someone who is already on base. A hitter can advance runners with sacrifice flies, sacrifice hits, base hits, extra base hits, hitting behind runners, walks, and hit by pitches. The third way is by getting yourself into scoring position. Players get themselves into scoring position by getting extra base hits or by stealing bases. Bill James, a baseball sabermetrician, has developed a formula for determining how many runs a player creates for his team. He has three different versions. The most accurate version includes statistics such as sacrifice flies, sacrifice hits, hit by pitches, stolen bases, caught stealing, and grounded into double plays. The latter formula is fine for players who played after 1953. The second formula uses stolen base data which is great for players who played after 1950 in the National League and after 1913 for players in the American League. Even without all that data we can use either version 2 or 3 of the formula depending on the era the player played in. The use of this formula is important because it does factor in the ability of players to advance runners with outs as well as hits and walks, and it also includes that ability of players to get them into scoring position with a stolen base. Besides this runs created formula there were other statistics I felt were important to consider. They are used within the runs created formula but I wanted to isolate those more common statistics. It does mean double counting, but I was double counting for all players. Batting average, slugging percentage, and on base percentage are three of the most common statistics that were also used. The final statistic I wanted to consider was strikeouts. A player who rarely strikes out has the uncanny ability of putting the bat on the ball and that is truly the art of hitting.
In selecting my experts I understood that every baseball era was unique. For example, I needed to find a way to compare the dead ball era to other eras. The only fair way to compare players between eras was to compare the statistics of the players to the average player during their career. There have been many changes in baseball over the past century that have impacted hitting. The list would includes night baseball, artificial turf, domed stadiums, plane travel, longer seasons, and the lower pitching mound. Most observers agree that modern day athletes are bigger, stronger, faster, quicker, and generally healthier than athletes of past generations. If these athletes of the past lived in the modern era there is no reason to assume they wouldn't have compared as favorably today given all the modern training regimens. Shoeless Joe Jackson provides a justifiable reason that comparing players to their contemporaries was critical. People who saw him play talked about how complete a player he was. His power and speed were second to none during his day. Playing in the dead ball era would make it difficult to determine how much power he had unless we compared him to his peers. When we do that his statistics give us some indication of the power he had.
I did a statistical analysis of hall of fame players and the top players in each statistical category. Players had to have 4500 at bats because that number would not disqualify you for the hall of fame and 4500 at bats represents 9 years of 500 at bats, enough to do a fair study. Players were compared to the average player of their era. The average player's score was a 100. The better hitter in four of the five categories would have a score greater than 100. Strikeouts were the only category were the better hitter would have a score lower than the average player. Players earned points for being above the league average and lost points if they were below the league average. The points corresponded directly to how far above or below average the player was. I decided to give bonus points if a player was in the top 10 in any category. A player received 100 points for being the best in a category and 10 points if they were 10th best in a category. Lastly I determined a cutoff point to select my experts. I learned that if a hitter had been ranked 10th in the five categories he would have received 280 points, which became my cut off. There were only thirteen players who made the cut and became my experts.
I had to ask myself whether I wanted to go all the way back to the beginning of Major League Baseball or only from the time of integration. I believe that had baseball been open to all races in the first half of the 20th century the statistics of the players prior to integration would have declined. I should be clear they would have declined compared to their peers because a percentage of those who did play would have been replaced by better players from other races moving the average player to a higher plateau and thereby forcing the top players to a slightly lower level. Some have argued that the population base to select athletes from is greater today and others have said that professional football and basketball are far more popular today and siphon talent that at one time would have gone to baseball. My purpose did not necessitate my looking at hard at the statistics to determine which era was better. It was to help me select a model from proven experts using statistics as a guide.
The thirteen players, in order, are Rogers Hornsby, Ted Williams, Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, Joe Jackson, Albert Pujols, Tris Speaker, Tony Gwynn, Lou Gehrig, Ty Cobb, Mickey Mantle, Nap Lajoie, and Stan Musial. These are not necessarily the best overall players but were the best hitters. Yes, there are great hitters left off, but of course that is the case when you are trying to find the best of the best. Of these players six played most or part of their careers after integration.
While nothing would replace meeting with these players one to one for a complete and thorough modeling session I did have videos, books, and articles to turn to in the modeling process. The model is the most complete that has ever been done.
Most fans understand that hitting a baseball could be the most difficult feat in all of sports. Athletes that have excelled at this not only have earned fantastic incomes but have often obtained legendary status. In recent history, every team has specialized coaches and even psychologists to help players improve their hitting. They use modern technology to help break down and analyze every every pitch a player has seen. They have specialized conditioning programs to help them maintain a level of strength, and fitness that allows them to perform at high levels over their entire careers. Yet, with all this technology and knowledge are hitters today better than hitters of past generations?
Most programs being sold today to improve a player's ability at hitting a baseball consistently and with power focus on the mechanics of the swing. Little attention is given on the mental part of this endeavor. The time that is spent on the mental aspect is superficial and doesn't fully understanding the complex role the human mind playes in athletic performance. Many former players become hitting instructors regardless of whether they know how to teach hitting techniques that result in improved performance. The entire hitting process is rather complex and even the best coaches don't fully understand it. Having been a player for 40 years, but never an accomplished batter, I became curious how much I could have trained my mind and body to have reached higher levels. Could I have overcome any physical limitations I may have been born with to become a major league player? I believe I could have. I decided to put my training in Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Advanced Behavioral Modeling, Time-Line Therapy, and hypnosis and as well as my years of teaching and coaching children to use to develop a holistic approach to hitting a baseball.
I wanted to develop an improved training program for hitting so I had to create a model by discovering what common traits the greatest hitters in history had or have. I had to learn what their beliefs and values were as well as what internal strategies they used when hitting. Lastly, I had to model their swings. I wanted to develop a successful training model so I had to learn from the best of the best. The selection process had to be rigid because the larger my pool of "experts" the more watered down the model becomes. To have the best mental training program for hitting a baseball I had to research the best.
Who are the best hitters ever to play the game? That question has been debated for generations. Every fan has their favorites and legitimate arguments for whether Ruth or Williams, Mantle or Mays, or any other players were the best ever. I was not interested in determining the best player, only the best hitter. The first phase of the research was to determine who the best hitters of all-time are.
When a player steps to the plate his role is to generate a run for his team. There three ways a hitter can generate runs or help to generate runs for his team. First, a player needs to be able to reach base by a hit, walk, or hit by pitch. The second way is by advancing someone who is already on base. A hitter can advance runners with sacrifice flies, sacrifice hits, base hits, extra base hits, hitting behind runners, walks, and hit by pitches. The third way is by getting yourself into scoring position. Players get themselves into scoring position by getting extra base hits or by stealing bases. Bill James, a baseball sabermetrician, has developed a formula for determining how many runs a player creates for his team. He has three different versions. The most accurate version includes statistics such as sacrifice flies, sacrifice hits, hit by pitches, stolen bases, caught stealing, and grounded into double plays. The latter formula is fine for players who played after 1953. The second formula uses stolen base data which is great for players who played after 1950 in the National League and after 1913 for players in the American League. Even without all that data we can use either version 2 or 3 of the formula depending on the era the player played in. The use of this formula is important because it does factor in the ability of players to advance runners with outs as well as hits and walks, and it also includes that ability of players to get them into scoring position with a stolen base. Besides this runs created formula there were other statistics I felt were important to consider. They are used within the runs created formula but I wanted to isolate those more common statistics. It does mean double counting, but I was double counting for all players. Batting average, slugging percentage, and on base percentage are three of the most common statistics that were also used. The final statistic I wanted to consider was strikeouts. A player who rarely strikes out has the uncanny ability of putting the bat on the ball and that is truly the art of hitting.
In selecting my experts I understood that every baseball era was unique. For example, I needed to find a way to compare the dead ball era to other eras. The only fair way to compare players between eras was to compare the statistics of the players to the average player during their career. There have been many changes in baseball over the past century that have impacted hitting. The list would includes night baseball, artificial turf, domed stadiums, plane travel, longer seasons, and the lower pitching mound. Most observers agree that modern day athletes are bigger, stronger, faster, quicker, and generally healthier than athletes of past generations. If these athletes of the past lived in the modern era there is no reason to assume they wouldn't have compared as favorably today given all the modern training regimens. Shoeless Joe Jackson provides a justifiable reason that comparing players to their contemporaries was critical. People who saw him play talked about how complete a player he was. His power and speed were second to none during his day. Playing in the dead ball era would make it difficult to determine how much power he had unless we compared him to his peers. When we do that his statistics give us some indication of the power he had.
I did a statistical analysis of hall of fame players and the top players in each statistical category. Players had to have 4500 at bats because that number would not disqualify you for the hall of fame and 4500 at bats represents 9 years of 500 at bats, enough to do a fair study. Players were compared to the average player of their era. The average player's score was a 100. The better hitter in four of the five categories would have a score greater than 100. Strikeouts were the only category were the better hitter would have a score lower than the average player. Players earned points for being above the league average and lost points if they were below the league average. The points corresponded directly to how far above or below average the player was. I decided to give bonus points if a player was in the top 10 in any category. A player received 100 points for being the best in a category and 10 points if they were 10th best in a category. Lastly I determined a cutoff point to select my experts. I learned that if a hitter had been ranked 10th in the five categories he would have received 280 points, which became my cut off. There were only thirteen players who made the cut and became my experts.
I had to ask myself whether I wanted to go all the way back to the beginning of Major League Baseball or only from the time of integration. I believe that had baseball been open to all races in the first half of the 20th century the statistics of the players prior to integration would have declined. I should be clear they would have declined compared to their peers because a percentage of those who did play would have been replaced by better players from other races moving the average player to a higher plateau and thereby forcing the top players to a slightly lower level. Some have argued that the population base to select athletes from is greater today and others have said that professional football and basketball are far more popular today and siphon talent that at one time would have gone to baseball. My purpose did not necessitate my looking at hard at the statistics to determine which era was better. It was to help me select a model from proven experts using statistics as a guide.
The thirteen players, in order, are Rogers Hornsby, Ted Williams, Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, Joe Jackson, Albert Pujols, Tris Speaker, Tony Gwynn, Lou Gehrig, Ty Cobb, Mickey Mantle, Nap Lajoie, and Stan Musial. These are not necessarily the best overall players but were the best hitters. Yes, there are great hitters left off, but of course that is the case when you are trying to find the best of the best. Of these players six played most or part of their careers after integration.
While nothing would replace meeting with these players one to one for a complete and thorough modeling session I did have videos, books, and articles to turn to in the modeling process. The model is the most complete that has ever been done.
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To improve athitting a baseball, just participate in this great research opportunity. If you arecoaching baseball you will want to have all the resources you can.
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