A Quote by Sandy Alderson

It's an ongoing process of reinterpreting the strike zone in accordance to the rulebook. The umpires, I think, are doing an excellent job of bringing the outside pitch in closer to the plate. But I still think we have a lot of work to do with the low end of the strike zone.
I'm the kind of guy who, if I look inside and they throw me a fastball outside, and it's a strike, I'm going to swing. Everything in the strike zone, I'm going to swing. Doesn't matter if it's a fastball, changeup, breaking ball. If it's in the strike zone and it's something you like, you've got to swing.
I don't think you can set up a computer to do a strike zone on a guy who's 6-foot-5 and then a guy who's 5-8. Where does it draw the line? One guy stands tall, and another squats down, and it changes the lines. Nah. I still love the umpires; they do a great job. I don't have a problem with any of that.
There's only a certain percentage of the strike zone that you can do extra-base hit, barrel damage with the ball. Just because it's in the strike zone doesn't mean you have to take a cut at it.
We try to exert a Ted Williams kind of discipline. In his book The Science of Hitting, Ted explains that he carved the strike zone into 77 cells, each the size of a baseball. Swinging only at balls in his "best" cell, he knew, would allow him to bat .400; reaching for balls in his "worst" spot, the low outside corner of the strike zone, would reduce him to .230. In other words, waiting for the fat pitch would mean a trip to the Hall of Fame; swinging indiscriminately would mean a ticket to the minors.
Typically, being under the strike zone with the sinker isn't a big issue. I need to be a little bit higher with the strike zone earlier in the count. If you miss under with one here and there when you're ahead, it's really not an issue.
Number one, from a tackling standpoint, we teach strike zone hits, and we want to hit absolutely as hard as we can in that strike zone, and that's absolutely what we call a batter in the batters box from the chest all the way down to the knees.
Don't try to strike everybody out ... stay back and just focus on the catcher's mitt, just throw the ball low in the strike zone.
I think umpires have too much power, without any system of checks and balances and the more money a player makes, the more the umpire tries to show off that power to him. Unfortunately, since I signed my contract my strike zone has suddenly become a lot larger.
Sometimes we're going to take marginal pitches on the edges and get called out on strike, but we want to get a pitch that we can drive and a pitch we can do damage on. I think when you do that, you don't necessarily chase as much out of the zone.
I'd like to continue to reduce the amount of balls I swing at outside the strike zone. I've been told I have a really low number, one of the lowest percentages in the game, but there's no reason it shouldn't be the lowest.
Early in my career, I wasn't good in the strike zone early. I was good in the strike zone late, which is not a good thing.
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If they are going to nibble and try to go below the zone or off the plate a little bit, I want to try and get a pitch in the zone that I can do damage on.
As all of us with any involvement in sports knows, no two umpires or no two referees have the same strike zone or call the same kind of a basketball game
As all of us with any involvement in sports knows, no two umpires or no two referees have the same strike zone or call the same kind of a basketball game.
Adventure should be 80 percent 'I think this is manageable,' but it's good to have that last 20 percent where you're right outside your comfort zone. Still safe, but outside your comfort zone.
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