On Batting Stance, Plate Discipline, and Pitch Selection, Part 1

I would like to break from the game recaps for a second, for a theoretical discussion of wiffleball. For today, I will only consider the slider, a pitch with decent velocity and good movement away from a batter. The slider is one of the most common pitches in the PMRNHDWBL, and is used extensively by Malinowski, Roe, Hunter, and Morgan. Several other pitchers sprinkle the slider in occasionally.

Perhaps the most important difference between wiffleball as played in the PMRNHDWBL and hardball is that the wiffleball strike zone stands several feet behind the batter, essentially where a catcher would squat in a hardball game. Therefore, to be a called strike, a wiffleball does not actually have to pass through the strike zone even with the batter. For instance, a wiffleball slider could pass the imaginary hardball plate as a ball on the inside, but then continue its movement away from the batter to catch the inside edge of the wiffleball strike zone. A well placed slider on the inside seemingly extends the strike zone towards the batter.

By the same token, a slider on the outside corner may pass directly over the imaginary hardball plate, but then move away from the outside edge of the wiffleball strike zone to become a ball. This discrepancy seemingly slides the outside edge of the strike zone for a slider back towards the batter. Therefore, the true strike zone on a slider actually stretches from about a foot off the inside edge of the "plate" to right down the middle of the "plate."



"But wait," you say. "I can crush a pitch on the outside half of the plate, and I have no chance to hit a pitch that nearly grazes my belly!" Well, you are correct. What I have just described is really the strike zone on a slider if you take the pitch. From now on, I will describe this as the "take zone." there is another, equally important zone that describes the area in which a batter can make good contact with a pitch. It varies from player to player, but it generally extends somewhat outside a batter's hands to about a bat length outside of this point From now on I will refer to this area as the "hit zone."

Mutch of the pitcher-hitter confrontation in wiffle ball can be explained through the relationship between the take zone and the hit zone. In the next installment of this series on wiffleball theory, I will discuss three different batting stances and strategies used by players in the PMRNHDWBL, and how they affect the hit zone/take zone relationship.