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Originally Posted by Cinnamon J. Scudworth
I agree with this, and with the idea that this will probably mean different things to different people. In OOTP terms though, if the extreme opposite is the "pitch around" command, it's unclear to me what the practical incentive is in choosing between "pitch to contact" and just "pitch." I mean, I'm sort of figuring that the pitcher with the control that I trust to "pitch to contact" isn't going to walk a lot of people anyway, right?
To me, "pitch to contact" seems more about the pitcher's underlying skill set, and not about a conscious command that a manager would give him from the dugout. But there are certainly others on this board with more real-life baseball experience than me.
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Exactly. Basically, the pitch to contact idea should be the idea that a pitching coach or manager or even catcher says to the pitcher, "Hey, let's go right at these guys."
If you think about it, you shouldn't need to tell your best pitcher or pitchers to do this because they're talented enough. Do we really think that Justin Verlander has to be told to pitch to contact with a big lead? It's that young guy who has a tendency to nibble or a guy with poor control who you have to coax into being aggressive.