Have a Plan of Attack on Every Pitch

Off-season baseball training has been about working on your craft. You spend hours in the lab, dissecting your swing, watching video, paying attention to metrics/feels that you're creating in a cage, to ultimately build confidence for when you step into the arena. The hard part is that no matter what you do, it's impossible to recreate the same conditions that will show up when you set foot on the field.

It's literally impossible. You can create all the uncomfortable situations you want, whether it's through speeding up the machine to velocities that push thresholds, or even taking live at bats against pitchers. But you can't recreate the scoreboard, the stakes, and the anxieties that the game creates in real time.

To turn the work the done in practice environments into game success, you have to compete your ass off between the ears! You have to play the game in your head at all times and be relentless towards those that you're competing against.

It's your duty as a player to use your intuition and creative brain to create advantages. Nobody can do it for you - not your coach, not your parent, not your teammate...just you.

The game of baseball is always giving you information. Pay attention to everything. Whether it's through a scouting report, or just watching a pitcher warmup, there's a ton of information that can be gained, even in the middle of an at bat.

Here are two breakdowns of ABs I had against MLB relievers back in 2015. Within these I'm going to let you know what I was thinking on each pitch, the things I was paying attention to, and how I made "educated guesses" that helped me win the at bats.

1. White Sox at Blue Jays - 2015 - Chris Colabello vs. LHP Zach Duke

• Game Situation - White Sox lead 9-7 in the 8th

It is commonplace for Major League hitters to walk over to their dugout and discuss a scouting report on a relief pitcher, any time they come in the game. There were plenty of times where I hated to get information on pitchers because I felt like it might cloud my ability to stay focused on the task at hand. In this instance, having never faced Zach Duke before, I approached the hitting coach, looking to get these pieces of information:

1. Average fastball velocity

This would tell me what my default approach needed to be against the fastball. Harder throwing guys would require me to think "get on top", whereas average/below average guys would make me think "stay behind the ball".

2. What he like to do with 2-strikes

Knowing this would allow me to narrow my focus towards certain parts of the plate in these critical counts.

On Duke, I got - "Fastball/slider guy. Likes to go in hard to righties with 2 strikes. Over 90%."

That was all the information I needed.

He started me with a first pitch slider away (which I had no chance at) ...

Then he froze me with a fastball that was more up/middle, than it was in. (Lefties would rarely come in hard on me with less than 2 strikes)

So there I was 0-2, and all I could think was "Sell out to the inside fastball." I almost never thought like this. And the reason why? If you sell out to an inside pitch, you're exposed to basically everything else. But that was the scouting report on him, so I had my approach.

The 0-2 pitch...

Talk about being way off! Had that ball caught any of the plate, I would have been walking back to the dugout, but luckily, he missed badly enough that I didn't bite.

But after a miss like that, I was even more confident that an inside fastball was coming...

And voila! There it was, and a nice little double to lead off the 8th. When I got to second base, I remember thinking how I wanted to high five the hitting coach immediately, because that hit belonged to him.

2. Mariners at Blue Jays - 2015 - Chris Colabello vs. RHP Fernando Rodney

• Game Situation - Mariners lead 4-1 in the 9th. 1 man on.

I didn't need a scouting report on Fernando Rodney. Upper 90's fastball and a plus/plus changeup. Good luck.

The scary part about Rodney is that he basically had no windup, no leg kick, no nothing. He just picked his foot up and there was the ball. At 96-97-98... Or 78, with the same exact arm action. Needless to say, there was a reason he was one of the best closers in the game for a long time.

This was my first time facing him, so I thought "well, let's go sit heater and see what happens."

First pitch, he yanks a fastball across home plate (that I was completely not ready for because of his funky, quick delivery) - Strike 1.

Next pitch I started early to account for the delivery and... elite change up at 83, that I felt like I swung at when it was half way to home plate. I couldn't see it. He had me fooled.

At this point I was so in between at that point that I wasn't quite sure what to do. The fastball was just on me quick. And I was so far out in front of the change up that I felt like I had to lean that way more than I did fastball.

So that's what I did on 0-2...

Thankfully I was able to battle this pitch off without having a lot of conviction

And after fouling off the heater, I had a lot of conviction about what was coming next. "I have to stay on the change up."

Welp, I was wrong there. He's definitely going back to the changeup.

Now I

was all in.

Way off again...and it almost cost me my life - or at least a hand. I couldn't believe it! They doubled up with the heater, and I got lucky enough that it was a ball... and that I didn't walk my nose into it.

Okay, seriously though. "HE'S DEFINITELY THROWING A CHANGE UP NOW!"

And he did. HR 🚀

There were multiple pitches where had the pitcher executed, I would've been out. But my plan put me in a position to do damage in probable scenarios. This is how ever hitter needs to be thinking.

Most hitters won't have access to high level scouting reports, but there's information to be had just from paying attention to the game!

Watch the pitcher warm up. Ask yourself, "what's the fastball doing? Sinking? Riding?" You can tell by how the catcher is receiving it. "Is there command of secondary stuff? Does it look like it's landing?"

Ask questions to the players that hit in front of you. Try to extract as much information as you can from them when they get back to the dugout. Use that first time through the order as a weapon. You won't believe how many advantages you'll gain over the course of a season.

Then, when it’s your turn, use all of that information to formulate a plan of attack for each pitch. That’s what will put you in the best position to be successful. And know that your plan may change pitch to pitch as you learn more and absorb more information and that’s ok!

Good luck and let me know how it goes!

Stay raking,

CC