Quality At-Bats

This is the best "offensive" thing I ever learned to coach in baseball, and I believe it is absolutely essential for players to learn if they plan to play high school or college baseball as a position player.  I learned this from an article by Justin Dehmer (Martendsdale-St. Mary's High in Iowa) in Collegiate Baseball.  The concept is QAB.

Dehmer says, "players need to shift their perspective from getting hits (which is out of their control) to hitting the ball hard or doing something productive for the team (things they can control)."

There are 9 things that a player can do to get credit for a QAB:

1.  Hard hit ball
2.  Walk
3.  Hit by Pitch
4.  Move runner(s) with no outs
5.  Score runner from 3rd with fewer than 2 outs
6.  Base hit
7.  Six pitch at-bat not ending in a strikeout
8.  Nine pitch at-bat even ending in a strikeout
9.  Catcher's interference

Thus, it is quite possible for a plyaer who went 0-4 in a game to be 4-4 in a QAB system.  Players view their performances much differently through the QAB system and it doesn't lead to as much stress and frustration which, as we know, are performance crushers. 

Charts and spreadsheets to keep track of QAB can apparently be found at www.1pitchwarrior.com. 

I love stuff like this.