Reddit mentions of The Complete Guide to Pitching

I'll give this a shot.

Pitching: I grew up playing backyard baseball (the computer game) so I thought that the aim of pitching was to throw three strikes and sit the batter down, because I was pretty much able to do this every single time against the computer players. Wrong! I became an actual baseball fan a couple of years ago and have since learned that pitching is basically a game of cat and mouse between pitcher and hitter. Most hitters don't have fast enough reaction times that they can "sit back" on a pitch and wait for it to come to them before they decide whether to swing at it or not; they basically have to make an educated guess based on many factors (pitcher's tendencies, pitch count, the way the defense is shifted, etc.) about what kind of pitch is coming and where. Different pitches have different trajectories and speeds. Curveballs tend to curve downward and are usually much slower than fastballs. Fastballs tend to go in more of a straight line although there are different varieties of fastball that have differing amounts of "run" to them, meaning they have a tendency to move horizontally a bit as well as straight forward. Knuckleballs have little to no rotation, which causes the erratic movement of the pitch. There is a lot more to talk about concerning pitching but I think if you really want to learn about it you should check out some books like this for example.



Nats Players: Bryce is the youngest player on the roster and has the highest ceiling of any of our players. He has the potential to be a super star due to his diverse set of skills. You may have heard the expression "5 tool player" before. The 5 tools of baseball it's referring to are: Hitting for average, Hitting for power, Fielding, Throwing, and Baserunning. Bryce is unusual in that he excels in all 5 of these categories, whereas many pros only excel at 3 or 4 but have significant weaknesses in the other categories. Last year our best batter was Jason Werth, and he's coming out of the gate strong this year as well, going 4 for 5 at the plate last night. In my opinion, the best hitters on our team are (in order): Werth, Bryce, Span, Desmond, Rendon, and Zimmerman. LaRoche had a great year in 2012 but slumped pretty badly in 2013. In terms of up and coming players, Bryce is still young and years away from his prime. Rendon just got called up last year and has filled in at 2nd base since Espinosa had hitting issues last year. Strasburg is still pretty young too, and he's arguably our best pitcher.



Attending games in DC: I haven't actually been to more than a dozen games at Nats park but here are some suggestions I have. Divisional rivalry games are usually really fun, so go see games against the Braves (our most significant rival, at the moment) and the Phillies (used to be our most significant rival but have since fallen on tough times). There are certain teams or marquee players that you'll probably want to see if you can as well. If the Tigers come to play, I'd go see them especially if Verlander or Scherzer is pitching. The Orioles are kind of rivals just because of proximity, so it'd be good to see a game against them as well. I'm a (relatively) poor student at the moment so I just go for nosebleed tickets whenever I go, but seats along the third or first base line are usually pretty desirable and consequently more expensive. I was fortunate enough to get seats behind home plate once through my father's work, and my brother and I caught two foul balls that game. So if you feel like splurging a bit you might consider that area. On the whole it's a really nice park and there aren't too many bad seats, though I recommend avoiding the right field upper decks because you may not be able to see plays in right field from your seats.

Hope this helps!

edited two words