Zone hitting strategy

[dougdfc]

How do you guys play with Zone hitting? I'm trying to get comfy with it, but I'm not sure if my current strategy of "Keeping the buckshot centered until 2 strikes" is very viable. some people online are stupidly good at painting corners. And after I get to an 0-2 count I'm just really, really bad at moving the PCI. I either go way too far and get weak contact, or I go in the wrong direction anyway

[Mbunn1993]

I know you're asking for zone hitting advice, but as someone who struggled with moving his PCI too far down or not moving it up in time, I have mightly inproved my hitting both online and offline with directional, all stemming from the directional guide here. I threw out the whole "skilled players use zone" BS and went with what got results

If you don't find your zone hitting improving, I suggest reading this guide. Most detailed hitting guide I've ever read. I'm taking more pitches, walks, and producing more runs then ever.

Directional Hitting Guide

[dougdfc]

Quote: Originally Posted by Mbunn1993

I know you're asking for zone hitting advice, but as someone who struggled with moving his PCI too far down or not moving it up in time, I have mightly inproved my hitting both online and offline with directional, all stemming from the directional guide here. I threw out the whole "skilled players use zone" BS and went with what got results If you don't find your zone hitting improving, I suggest reading this guide. Most detailed hitting guide I've ever read. I'm taking more pitches, walks, and producing more runs then ever. Directional Hitting Guide

heh, Oddly enough I'm moving from directional because I was tired of all the popups and hard grounders to short

[bcruise]

I've mentioned it in other threads but I'll go through it again - this is my general approach to zone hitting on HOF:

Early counts (0-0, 1-0, 0-1, 1-1): I pick a spot with the PCI and sit on it (depending on the patterns I've seen from the pitcher), and prepare to swing early to pull with most hitters. If I perceive the ball to be heading outside of the PCI, even if it's in the strike zone, I won't swing. Note the word "perceive" here - I am definitely not perfect at this (wouldn't be much fun if I was), and I'm pretty susceptible to stuff that breaks below the PCI. It's basically like guessing fastball and getting the change. But when I get that fastball where I want it, I can do some major damage.

Ahead Counts (2-0, 3-0, 2-1, 3-1): Not much different from early counts, except that I'll look more toward the center of the zone more often and mix in a power swing with certain hitters (usually those with a large PCI which cancels out the power swing penalty).

Behind Counts: (0-2, 1-2, 2-2? (not "behind" per se, but still two strikes)) Protect mode. That means attempting to move the PCI to follow the ball, make contact and put the ball in play. Nothing to say about this one other than practice - it's the only way you get better at identifying balls and strikes. The "Discipline" batting practice mode is well-suited to training the two strike hitting approach. I do not use contact swings here or on full counts - I use them very situationally such as trying to drive home a runner from 3rd with less than 2 out.

Full count: Basically the same as behind, but with a slight bias towards taking something that looks like it's heading to a corner. I still don't want to strike out looking, though.

[olig23]

I went over to Directional for a little while last week. But it just felt wrong. So back to zone.

My approach is similar to that of bcruise. Except something tells me that he's better at this than I am.

I hit way too may fly balls. I definitely have issues pulling down on the stick. Also, I struggle top pickup high fastballs in time I think.

But I think if you can stick to some variation of what BCruise says you will see improvements. Ultimately, I just find Zone has more satisfying and realistic ABs personally.

My only frustration is when I am sitting early in the count, and looking for something low in the zone, then a guy hangs a high curveball and the commenators chastise my guy... It's annoying I miss those. But I still find it works better, for me, than Directional.

[bcruise]

Here's a vid of me taking the above approach and putting it into practice in a BP Good-at-bat session. This round was kind of unusual in that I had 2 homers and also 2 walks.

[Geronimo22]

I use the same approach as Brcuise. The first part is the most important. Don't swing unless you know can get your PCI on the pitch, even if it's a strike. Wait on your pitch early.

[dougdfc]

It actually worked! It's tougher against craftier players though since they're not afraid to throw into your hot zones