Quote:
Originally Posted by VAChief
I have bowled in leagues, and yes there is a difference both physically and mentally. I also played baseball through college and hardball leagues into my late 30's. The comparison between batting practice and bowling practice as it relates to what you face in a game is quite a stretch of the imagination.
|
I was in no way trying to compare the difficulty of throwing strikes in bowling with the difficulty of hitting a baseball. When I brought up the whole batting practice analogy, I said nobody cares how many home runs Eric Hosmer hits in batting practice because a home run in batting practice is meaningless. Not because the pitcher is a coach who is grooving his 70 MPH fastball down the middle of the plate. Nobody cares about batting practice home runs because they do not count.
Perhaps a better analogy would be spring training games. Nobody cares that the Royals won the Cactus League with a 25-7 record. The Royals have proven pretty effectively that winning 78% of your games in spring training doesn't mean you are good enough to win 78% of the games that count. Or 70%. Or 60%. Or even 50%.
To get this tread back on track somewhat: Yes, I know Yasiel Puig hit over .500 in spring training, and he's tearing up the National League now. But a lot of guys rake in spring training and suck when the real games start. Mitch Maier used to be spring training MVP every year.