SURPRISE, Ariz. -- A gray long-sleeve shirt hangs in the locker of every Royals pitcher in the clubhouse at their Spring Training complex. Finally graced with Arizona weather that doesn’t require heavy overcoats and sweatshirts this past weekend, a few pitchers and coaches broke out the shirt that illustrates the theme at the forefront of Kansas City's 2023 season.
On the front are the Royals' guiding values overlaid on a baseball field.
On the back is this phrase: "RAID THE ZONE."
That is the club's pitching motto this year. Pitching coachrian Sweeney, assistant pitching coachach Bovend bullpen coachitch Stetter, along with the Royals’ analysts and research and development department, came up with the idea. Bove came up with the word “raid.”
“'Raid' just came to me. I can’t tell you this cool story,” Bove said. “But I view it as a two-parter -- raiding like filling up the strike zone, throwing strikes, which is not a different concept. But then also, I did some research on this, like the raiders of World War II. Defeating the enemy. It’s like this dominating mentality. We’re the aggressor, we’re on attack, we want to strike guys out.
"That’s where the 'raid the zone' comes in. We want to be in better counts this year. First-pitch strikes, attack the zone. That’s not anything new. But it’s a mindset and mentality that we’re trying to create.”
Throwing strikes is certainly not a new concept. But it’s something the Royals struggled with last year. Their 9.4 percent walk rate and 19.1 percent strikeout rate were both second-worst in baseball. Their first-pitch strike percentage was dead last at 58 percent, and they were in the bottom half in baseball in zone percentage at 41.2 percent.
“We’ve identified pretty clearly what we need to improve on,” general manager J.J. Picollo said. “That really comes down to pitchers trusting that they can be in the strike zone. A lot of it comes down to not trying to be too fine, especially early in counts.”
In 0-0 counts last year, opponents hit .328 against the Royals, which ranked 11th in the Majors. In 1-0 counts, hitters batted .373 against Kansas City -- 28th in the league. To be fair, the Royals’ opponent average in 0-1 counts last year was .365, last in baseball.
The Royals’ findings coincided with what they heard from Sweeney, Bove and Stetter in the interview process. Bench coach Paul Hoover identified what catchers could do to help strike-throwing, and Sweeney and Bove are also working with pitchers on improving pitch quality to drive up strikeouts and lessen hard contact, whether that’s through pitch usage or design.
簡單說就是投手教練Sweeney跟助理投手教練Bove今年要投手群
“Raid the zone"-攻擊好球帶
看起來很簡單啦，但是去年投手的三振跟保送比率都是全聯盟倒數第二，第一球是好球的比例是58，希望投手們今年能有所進步
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