The beautiful thing about baseball is that there are so many elements to appreciate and enjoy. Hitting, pitching, fielding, baserunning; Gloves, bats, uniforms, cleats; Pickoffs, bunts, rundowns, hidden ball tricks; Stadiums, dugouts, sunflower seeds, walk-up songs. These are just a few of the aspects of baseball that make it great.

However, the essence of the game always comes down to the pitcher/hitter battle. For something as important as this, it is still underappreciated. A take of a 1-1 pitch in the third inning with no one on and two outs gets quickly forgotten, but can be transcendent. Maybe that turns into a 2-1 count, then the hitter walks, and while the next hitter might end the inning, that extra batter might mean that the All-American leadoff hitter comes up with the bases loaded in the 9th instead of the ninth hitter.
While it’s difficult to deconstruct the impact of every single pitch of a game, it is still imperative for every pitcher and every hitter to fight for every pitch because you just never know how it will impact the game.

With this in mind, there is seemingly not enough focus by hitters, the recipient of a pitcher’s pitch, to control the at-bat. Most hitting talk focuses on the technique: “The swing is the thing.” Yet a great swing is only as good as the pitches that are swung at. A great swing at a bad pitch out of the zone doesn’t work. A great swing that is not on-time doesn’t work.

Anecdotally, hitters have selective memories. One double off a curveball makes them think they pound curveballs. But do they? Usually not. The pitcher throws the first batter a two-strike changeup, and the team thinks the pitcher will keep doing that. Quite often not. But a damaging mindset by hitters is that the first pitch a hitter sees in the first at-bat is a great pitch to hit.

While it is true that sometimes guys are rewarded for their aggressiveness on this pitch, there are at least 13 great reasons this mindset not only doesn’t work in the quest to be a good hitter, but it also is more hurtful to the team than realized.

It should be really simple: Hitters should not swing at the first pitch of their first at-bat of the day. The analytics agree and it’s clear from watching the game. There are at least 13 reasons to simply stand there and take the first pitch of their first at-bat. Let’s get to it:

1) Comfort in the box
Each batter’s box feels different, the stride landing is different, the feel of the dirt is different. Hitters need to get a feel for their feet in the box before giving their best swing.

2) Comfort with the backdrop
Each field has a different backdrop behind the pitcher, and it influences the perspective and feel for seeing the ball. It takes some time to sort out all that information.

3) Comfort with the pitcher’s motion
While you can accrue information on the pitcher’s motion from on-deck, it still feels different once you are in the box.

4) The heart is beating fast
Hitters spend all day (or longer) preparing for and thinking about their at-bats. Upon getting in the box the first time, the heart beats and there are all kinds of nervous energy and anxiety. It’s pretty well agreed that optimal hitting comes from a sense of comfort and calmness, and that first pitch of the day doesn’t have that.

5) Feeling the speed of the pitch to get timing (speeds feel different in the box)
You can’t really get a feel for the speed of a pitcher’s pitches (particularly the fastball), until you’re right up on it and moving your body with the pitch. Watching from on-deck is just not precise enough. Hitting is about timing, and the more information you have, the more you can make the fine-tuning adjustments necessary to barrel up the ball.

6) Helping your team by making the pitcher throw more pitches
If every hitter in the lineup takes the first pitch of their first at-bat, that is 18 guaranteed pitches the pitcher has to throw in the game. The more pitches the starter has to throw, the closer he is to getting out of the game – particularly in this age of pitch count concern.

7) Don’t give clues to the opposing team about your hitting tendencies
Pitchers and catchers and pitching coaches are searching for clues on a hitter’s swing and what they’re looking for and timed up for. By giving them a clue in the first pitch, they are able to have a significant advantage right away on how to get the hitter out. Many coaches are paid experts on calling pitches to get hitters out, and they will exploit every advantage given.

8) Seeing more pitches helps the hitter get more and more prepared to hit their pitch
Would you shoot better if you launched a three-pointer the first time you stepped off the bench? Or if you were able to get in the flow of the game and get a feel for the court, the ball, the speed of the defense?

9) Seeing more pitches sets you up for later in the game
Ted Williams believed you shouldn’t swing at a pitch you haven’t seen that day yet. You don’t want to be up in the fifth inning with the bases loaded and out of nowhere, the pitcher shows a two-strike curveball. Accruing information, making the pitcher expose his arsenal, and getting a sense of their pitches and timings helps not only your chances to hit well throughout the game, but helps your teammates learn as well.

10) The numbers don’t support it
In a study of one season of college baseball, hitters swung at the first pitch of their first at-bat 132 times. There were 10 hits and also 10 hard-hit balls. So hitters went 10-for-132 when swinging at the first pitch of their first at-bat (.075 success rate). The rest were swings and misses and fouls – including on pitches that weren’t even strikes. The argument that swings and misses and fouls help their hitter learn and adjust by gaining information is not without merit, but information can be accrued other ways, and all the other negatives override this method.

11) Hits per strike is way better later in the count
Overall in hitting, when hitters swing at strikes with less than two strikes, they hit .099, yet hit .123 with when they swing at strikes with two strikes. While the batting average when the ball is put in play with an 0-0 count is .356, it’s still pretty good with two strikes (.326).

12) There aren’t that many good pitches worthy of hitting on the first pitch of the first at-bat anyway
The assumption that hitters just groove a hittable fastball on the first pitch of a hitter’s first at-bat is flawed. In a study of a college season, out of the nine first pitches of first at-bats, there were six strikes. Four were fastballs, but only two were in a good location to hit. Two were curveballs, but the variability of the speed, spin and location, make them tough to hit. So basically, only two of the nine were worthy of being swung at, yet even then, all the other variables previously mentioned led to them being incredibly difficult to hit, and actually set back the hitter’s and team’s chances of performing well and winning.

13) It is a team game. Hitting is not only about hits
Offense should be the goal. Hitting is a part of it, but not the only thing. Players significantly help their team with walks and hit-by-pitches and moving runners and giving the runner a chance to steal and creating more chances for passed balls. You can even make the case that a hit on the first pitch of the first at-bat of the day is less impactful on the game than if all three hitters in the first inning have 10-pitch at-bats that result in outs. In short, taking the first pitch of the first at-bat makes you a great teammate.

Additional Notes:
Hitters do get hits on first pitch of their first at-bat!
Yes-hitters do get hits on the first pitch of their first at-bat. But it happens so infrequently despite one’s memory thinking it happens all the time.
How to handle relief pitchers
The data is also remarkably similar to swinging at the first pitch against a relief pitcher – even if it is later in the game.
The game after the first pitch
After that first pitch, hitters should be in all-go mode and not have passivity. Don’t think that taking the first pitch of the day should have any influence or negative effect on other pitches. This includes the first pitch of later at-bats against the same pitcher.
Strikeouts
If a hitter is afraid of striking out, swinging at the first pitch (this goes for any at-bat), is the worst possible game plan. Because of the low success rate of getting hits, including the fouls and swings and misses, this actually results in more strikeouts. Pitchers don’t throw enough strikes, so there is often an expansion of the zone, which gets hitters behind the count more often that not.