WHIP: Why This Statistic Is ✅KEY For Pitchers (and how to improve it) (2023)

Introduction

The baseball statistic WHIP (walks and hits / innings pitched) is a very strong indicator of success for pitchers. Learn why WHIP is so critical and HOW you can lower your WHIP and give up fewer runs for your team. ⚾️ Order a Copy of my pitching book 👉 amzn.to/3EzMHBo

🎥Video I mention about strike zone strategy: youtu.be/5JLboc8A-yo
⚾️ Order a Copy of my pitching book 👉 amzn.to/3EzMHBo
📚 My Memoir 👉 amzn.to/2FT8aHf
✅ My Online Pitching Courses 👉 courses.danblewett.com
📺 Free Mental Skills Webinar 👉 danblewett.com/mental-training-webinar-signup/
📫 Sign Up for My Baseball Emails 👉 www.danblewett.com/dan-blewett-newsletter/
🎙My Podcast 👉 danblewett.com/dear-baseball-gods-podcast/
⚾️ Watch my FREE Curveball Course Playlist👉 bit.ly/curveballcourse
👉 📄 PDF Download for the course is here: danblewett.com/curveball
-- -- -- -- -- --
[DISCLAIMER: Some links above are affiliate links to products that I will earn a small commission on if you purchase, at no additional cost to you. I am a member of the Amazon affiliates program and may present links to other affiliate programs.]

Content

What's up pitchers., I'm, coach, Dan Blewett in today's video.

Let's talk about WHIP, the pitching statistic and why it's important and some ways that you can reduce it as a player.

Right.

New, here., I'm, coach, Dan Blewett in the description below.

You'll find my two baseball books, my online courses, other videos that will help you on your baseball, journey.

So.

If you're new here, definitely consider subscribing and stick around, because I've got new videos coming out each week.

All right.

So.

Let's start with the definition of WHIP, so WHIP is walks plus hits, divided by innings pitched.

So.

If you pitched six innings and you walked four and gave up two hits, just kind of backwards, um, your WHIP would be six base runners allowed from walks and hits, divided by six innings, which would be a WHIP of 1.00.

If you pitched three innings and you gave up four walks and two hits, that would be six base, runners allowed by walks and hits, divided by three and things.

Your WHIP would be 2.00 So.

It's simple math, it's a simple statistic.

Um, but it's really one of the, one of the great predictors of success.

So.

When you look through major league baseball stats, the best pitchers, like the top 10 and era and strikeouts, all that stuff, typically, they all usually have WHIPs of around one or a little bit below.

So.

First, let's say, what is,? What is a good WHIP, so a good WHIP.

I would say is anything like 1.2 and below.

If you're like 1.25, 1.3, like you're, doing okay.

Um, but 1.2 and below is good and one or below is exceptional.

It's really, really good.

So.

You don't necessarily want to hold yourself to a one WHIP standard.

That's, pretty tough.

Again.

That's only allowing one base runner printing, excluding hit by pitches.

Um, And, excluding errors and stuff like that, which again are much less of a factor at high levels of baseball where you don't hit as many guys and your fielders don't make them any errors, but you know, the big thing with WHIP, and this is why it's such an important stat.

And.

This is one of the few stats that I really did care about as a, as a youth coach.

Is that it's a very good predictor of how many runs you're going to end up, allowing because, as a pitcher, You can control sort of weak contact.

You can sort of control swings and misses by having nasty, stuff, right? If.

You have a, you throw really hard and you have good command and you have a really good breaking ball, you're going to be able to get weak contact and get swings and misses quite a lot.

And.

It's going to reduce the amount of runs that are going to come.

Home.

But! If you always have multiple base runners on printing, and this is what you learn after you pitch for a long time, when you look around, there's always first and second.

It becomes really hard to keep those guys from scoring, because there's a certain amount of luck that always goes into baseball, which is when they put the ball in play.

You don't have any control over where that ball.

Goes.

You also don't have control over the order of operations.

So to speak of hits.

So, let me give you an example of that.

If I have an inning and I go single, single home run.

How many runs I have I given up.

Three, if I go, home, run single, single, and then I get the rest of the hours of the evening.

How many runs have I given up one? So.

Only with changing the order of operations there, the order of the hits, I could have give up one run or three runs.

Despite giving up the same outcomes for that inning, which is two singles.

And, what am I doing? My hands, two singles and one home run.

Right.

You could say, Oh.

Well, you got to be tougher and you got to pitch well, you know.

When there's runners on base and really buckled down, that's not really a thing.

What.

They found in the major leagues, when they have all this data.

They found that pitchers can't really control and pitch that much better.

When they're runners on base.

Basically, just like the way you pitch is the way you pitch it, all sort of evens out in the end.

So again.

This is why having fewer base runners.

On, the basis is just going to make it easier for you to give up your runs.

So that said, how do we give up? Or? How do we reduce our width? If? This is a prep practical video, where I can actually help you with this.

The number one thing is to reduce walks.

That's, the easiest thing.

And.

So the way you reduce walks is by pitching in the white of the plate more often early in the count.

So.

If you've seen my other videos, I'll link to that below, um, You need to sort of adhere to this sort of theory about like middle half.

Third and corners.

This is what pretty much all pro pitchers.

Do.

They slice the plate up in four different ways.

They'll, throw it down the middle when they need a lot of margin for error, when they need to catch up with a strike.

They'll aim down the middle, so they can miss all different directions and still get a strike when they've got a strike.

Whether it's,- and this is typically what I say, even counts as a good half's.

Count.

They'll go into a half router half.

So.

If it's one, one, two, two, three, two, they'll go inner half or outer half.

Cause.

Now they can, they're, going to differentiate one side or the other.

But not give themselves too little margin for error.

Where they're constantly missing off the plate.

When you're ahead.

A one-on-one, two thirds of the plate.

So, you eliminate the middle third and you pitched either the outer inner third.

And.

Then.

Obviously, if you're Oh two, you might bounce a curve, ball elevate, throwing off the plate that breaks off the plate, something like that.

So, but when you use the middle and the halves more often early, which I see a lot of youth teams.

Do this very poorly, where they throw down the middle first pitch and they go right to the black of the play.

Cause they're, always thinking about., Coroners, coroners, coroners, pro pitchers.

Don't.

Do it that way.

If you watch majorly games,! You really watch where the catcher's set up.

They're, not on the corners as much as you think they are.

And.

This is for good reason, because they know pitchers are gonna, miss a little bit each time.

And.

If the pitcher is good at missing away from the middle, they don't have to sit up on the corner.

They can set up on the third of the half and let their pitcher miss to the corner a little bit.

More.

So as a coach, you should be calling more pitches to the middle and, and the halves early in counts.

This is going to give your kids more chance to have margin for error, where they can miss a little bit more because they're kids.

And still get strikes and reduce the amount of walks that they have.

This is a very critical piece of strategy.

That's missed on most youth on most youth pitchers and their coaches.

So.

That's the biggest piece that I have.

The.

Next big thing is: you need to work on developing a strikeout pitch, and this is getting good feedback from a coach who can really help you develop a breaking ball, whether it's a curve, ball slider, or a change.

Up.

And I do think the change was the first one.

You did learn.

But having that critical secondary pitch, I shouldn't have said breaking ball, because it really just means secondary pitch.

You need to have something that you can reliably get swings and misses with when you're a pitcher, that's what they call an outpitch.

I have a pitch that I can get an outwith when I want to throw it.

So like for Andrew Miller, that lefty from the Cleveland Indians slider was just unhittable.

That was an outpitch right.

His fastball too.

But, most pitchers, especially in the backend of a bullpen, have an outpitch.

Well, there's a nine, nine mile per hour, fast ball, or just a dirty slider or splitter or curve, ball, whatever.

And, most starting pitchers in the big leagues, have at least one good outpitch too, because they need that.

When they're in a jam, they're, going to bail themselves out by throwing that dirty curve ball to get the swing and misses, they're gonna, throw their best swing and miss pitch.

That's their outpitch.

So working hard to develop an outpitch when you're young and not developing too many pitches, which is a common problem.

I see.

Were players like, Oh yeah, throw a fastball.

I, throw a cutter.

I, throw a slider.

I throw a chain of, I, throw, curve balls.

Like all five of those pitches.

Suck, just throw a fastball and one pitch you can focus on so that it doesn't suck.

That's a really big key.

If.

You have good command and you're smart with your strategy, like where you're pitching again to the way the plate a little earlier.

So you're, not walking as many hitters, and you have a really nasty outpitch.

Where.

You can now get a swing and miss and keep a guy off the base paths.

When you want to.

And now, you're not going to have to rely on luck so much because every time they put the ball in play, they have a chance of getting a hit, even if they don't hit it.

That hard bloopers fall in 11 hoppers, squeaked, through, right?, So, outpitch, and, and, and pitching with smarter strategy to get ahead in the count.

More and to reduce your walks.

Those, are two really important pieces? That can help every pitcher on your team.? No matter.

Their current level of ability.

Improve their WHIP and thus give up fewer, runs and help your team win more baseball, games.

All, right.

So.

Hopefully this video today on WHIP was helpful.

I.

Think it's a really important stat.

If your era is really low, but your WHIP is kind of high., You're, probably pitching to a lot of luck.

If.

Your WHIP is really low, but your era is kind of high.

You probably got a lot of bad luck.

So WHIP is a really good indicator of how you're actually doing.

It's one of those good sort of secondary.

Higher level stats for young teams for amateur teams without getting into all these other things like fifth, which aren't really gonna, apply very well, um, for the younger players.

All right.

Leave, a comment: below.

Do you use WHIP as a good indicator.

As a coach? Do, you use WHIP as an indicator of how you're doing as a pitcher?.

Let me know.

We'll talk about it., All, right.

Thanks again for watching.

I'll, see you in the next video.