why are pitchers such bad hitters?

Question

The spend a career creating set ups for the batters, you would think they could spot good pitches.

Answer 1

Here's a bit or irony for you...In Little League and High School baseball, your best hitters are usually the guys who pitch.

Once they hit the minors they no longer focus on hitting. In fact, many leagues have the DH and then when the pitchers hit the majors only the National League has pitchers bat, so you can see why they stink at it.

Answer 2

Reaching the major leagues is an evolutionary and selective process. The ones who succeed as pitchers got there based upon a excelled skill set which has nothing to do with hitting.

Not that they cannot hit, but they don't really need to, in order to get the call.

Note that the one truly outstanding example of a great pitcher/great hitter got moved off the mound in order to exploit the better half of his abilities. If Ruth hadn't been such a great hitter, he'd have stayed on as a pitcher, and done just fine in that role. So today; if a team came across an analogous player, they'd have him bat and learn a defensive position on the flat parts of the diamond.

There is no reason why a team couldn't try to develop a pitcher/hitter, it just is not the done thing. Brooks Kieschnick is the only one we've had in living memory.

Answer 3

Like you said, they spend a career creating set up for batters, so they rarely practice hitting.
You can be really good at spotting good pitches, but if you never practiced hitting them, you cant.
Like a manager, who never played or doesnt play baseball anymore, can spot good pitches and when to hit, as well as what to pitch and how. But since he never practices, he cant do it as effectively as his pitchers and hitters.
Without practice, good observation means little if you are the athlete.

Answer 4

They do not spend as much time praticing batting becasue 1 the need to pratice pitching and 2. they could get hurt. But not all pitchers are bad hitters.

Answer 5

That is because they always practice pitching and throwing exercises. When they do tend 2 swing a bat (mostly younger pitchers do that), they tend 2 get hurt. Ask Kerry Wood. He knows all about that. So not only do they not practice hitting, teams tend not to let there pitchers hit because they could get injured.

Answer 6

Not all pitchers are bad hitters.
Jorge Sosa, Orlando Herdanez, Oliver Perez, Tom Glavine,and Pedro Martinez are not bad hitters.
Well Im a met fan so I know what Met pitchers are good hitters but not all Pitchers are bad hitters.

Answer 7

Pitchers never work on hitting. They focus on pitching and rarely go in the cages.

Answer 8

no
they spend most of their time working on pitching and almost never practice hitting
the pitching part is far more important

Answer 9

Apparently Carlos Zambrano, Micha Owens, and Mike Hampton didn't get the memo...

Answer 10

they spend more time pitching then hitting