Do you keep a batting/pitching journal? How?

[gilbertl]

I understand that some batters and pitchers keep a journal of things that happened during an at-bat.

Do you guys do this? What kind of things should be recorded?

[scorekeeper]

I understand that some batters and pitchers keep a journal of things that happened during an at-bat.

Do you guys do this? What kind of things should be recorded?

I think you’re missing the point of a journal. It’s a personal thing that should have things in it that with help YOU, not a list of things other people think are important. What things do you believe would add to your baseball “knowledge”?

[CircleChange11]

I understand that some batters and pitchers keep a journal of things that happened during an at-bat.

Do you guys do this? What kind of things should be recorded?

What feedback do you want?

How you performed?

How you felt?

I, honestly, would NOT keep a journal just from the perspective that perception is not always reality. "Man, I was hitting the corners" could very well have been "Wow, did that ump have a big strikezone".

What I would do instead of keeping a journal is start keeping a "video library". With the way cell phones are these days, almost anyway can record a clip of your at bats and/or pitching.

Then you can look at your mechanics and evaluate them, but more importantly you can focus on your quality of swing/pitches and not necessarily the results.

You can also store the vids on photobucket or other site.

I'd prefer vids, because then you can "see" what you were doing and not just recording what you "think" you were doing.

[tg643]

The professionals who keep journals have access to video of every pitch they throw or face. This kind of data may be helpful if the player can pick up trends. After two games of charting an opposing team's pitchers we came to realize the pitching coach never called for back to back off speed pitches. As a hitter how would you like to know the next pitch is a fastball? As a pitcher you would want to know if a hitter tends to swing at low and outside the strike zone curves. But it takes an accumulation of data to get anything valuable.

[scorekeeper]

CircleChange11,

I like the idea of vids, but there has to be some way to see them in context, and that's where a "log/journal/diary" comes in handy.

[CircleChange11]

The professionals who keep journals have access to video of every pitch they throw or face. This kind of data may be helpful if the player can pick up trends.

I'm not saying "don't keep notes".

I'm just wondering what data one would record that couldn't be obtained from watching the video afterwards?

Professionals are also keeping data on pitchers/batters they will face numerous times throughout the season and/or career. At the youth levels, even HS, you might face one guy maybe 8 times in a season.

After two games of charting an opposing team's pitchers we came to realize the pitching coach never called for back to back off speed pitches.

IMO, that describes 99% of HS teams. I would tell our pitchers, "There's no rule against throwing back-to-back changeups. If you always follow a changeup with a fastball, then the changeup only really serves as telling the batter what pitch they're seeing next. I'm confident that we were the only team in our area following a change with another change or a curveball.

I'm also certain that other teams pick up on this as well.

The "trend" that I saw most often were that batters in our area simply did NOT swing at offspeed stuff (if they recognized it), knowing that pitchers were likely NOT going to throw 3 curveballs for strikes in an at bat ... and if they did, well the batters seen it twice and can likely hit it the 3rd time. Sitting "dead red" is very common in our area. It killed one of our lefties in sectionals when the opponent wouldn't swing at his deuce, and he had trouble locating it. At that level of competition the hitters 1-7 could make contact with his 86-88mph FB and for the middle of the order that was their "hitting speed".

Our other lefty, who also threw 85-88 had an outstanding change, good cutter, and good curveball (something 13-0 with a 1.XX ERA), and we would pitch him in such a way that I/we never called the same sequence twice for the middle order hitters.

As a hitter how would you like to know the next pitch is a fastball? As a pitcher you would want to know if a hitter tends to swing at low and outside the strike zone curves. But it takes an accumulation of data to get anything valuable.

Yes, I would like to know ... if, in fact, the next pitch is going to be a fastball. My experience has been that sometimes teams think they have it "figured out", even going so far as having runners on second "signal" the batter (or having the coach tell them before the at bat), and then the hitters is screwed when the predicted pitch doesn;t occur. I've found that some batters don;t want to know much ... especially if the other team knows the runner is signalling location (or might be) and then catcher shifts at the last moment.

I guess that's what I'm asking. After an inning pitched, you come back to the dugout and start writing notes about what each batter did ... being able to remember the pitch sequence, location, and batter reaction to each pitch?

I pretty much charted everything and kept notes during the game. I charted the other team's pitches as well. So if a pitcher threw a curve every time with 2-strikes ... then I could usually pick that up within an inning or two ... but so could almost everyone else that wasn't charting pitches.

So, I'm back to wondering what exact information you are wanting in the journal and how will you use the information?