
Ted Williams's Strike Zone - dedalus
http://tedwilliams.com/_data/hzone.htm
======
melling
Warren Buffett has a picture of this in his office. He often uses it to
explain how he invests.

[https://omaha.com/money/buffett/warren-buffett-waits-for-
a-f...](https://omaha.com/money/buffett/warren-buffett-waits-for-a-fat-pitch-
before-taking-a-swing-and-making-an-
acquisition/article_40026e55-60c2-54b6-95c5-bbee134d1696.html)

[https://seekingalpha.com/article/4157066-science-of-
investin...](https://seekingalpha.com/article/4157066-science-of-investing-
invest-within-your-circle-of-competence-to-crush-just-like-buffett)

~~~
eanzenberg
“Science of investing.” Warren Buffett is rich because he bought companies and
removed redundancies / restructured management, therefore making companies
more profitable at the cost of decreased diversity of ownership of businesses.
It’s a similar tack as globalism, where “stuff” gets slightly cheaper while
jobs are shipped away.

~~~
karaterobot
If he did restructure the companies he bought, he would definitely not be
alone in that. I'd always heard (though I haven't looked it up) that he tried
not to fiddle with the management of companies, since good management was one
of the reasons he'd bought them. In any case, no other investor who sweeps out
existing management and removes redundancy is the most successful investor in
history, so Buffett must at least be doing something else.

------
tonystubblebine
I'd been using a baseball metaphor for my own change in strategy recently.

I don't think I'm meant to hit home runs. I don't mean just that the luck
hasn't struck. It's more that I don't feel particularly connected to the
mainstream and where they are headed, am sort of unreasonable about how I
think the world should work in a way that makes me the opposite of a heat
seeking missile, don't love scalable acts like creating a business that can
scale on top of cookie-cutter jobs or on top of advertising or virality.

And sure, maybe I'll get lucky, and I'll get to that. But I decided to stop
going up to the plate trying to hit a home run.

When I had venture capital, I thought I was Barry Bonds. But now that I don't,
I realized I'm Tony Gwynn.

I go up to the plate trying to hit a single. If I have a runner on base, I try
to move them over.

For my intention, a single is a business that will generate $10k in profit,
has the potential to continue for several years, and can be completely run by
other people, leaving me with time to go up to the plate again.

What I found last year is that I have enough time/energy to attempt about six
singles and that I connected on three of them. And it feels similar this year.

You can score a lot of runners just by hitting singles and I think there's a
better chance that will happen for me than when I was trying to hit home runs.

The driving force for me though was wanting different optimizations. It's
depressing to strike out year after year. And so hitting singles has a lot
more positive reinforcement. And then two, I wanted to make more money, which
has happened because these singles pay off immediately.

Last, there is always the possibility of an inside the park homerun. Maybe
I'll hit a line drive to the outfield, the fielder will kick the ball, lose
track of it, chase it down, overthrow third, and I'll come running home.

~~~
a_t48
Ichiro made a career out of singles even though he was more than capable of
knocking it out. You're in good company.

~~~
tonystubblebine
Exactly. One thing I like about both Gwynn and Ichiro is that they were
technicians. A single is analyzable in a way that you can nearly feel like you
can understand it.

A home run, especially a Venture-backed home run, is a mystery with a lot of
luck that defies logic or analysis.

------
callmeed
Wild to see this on HN. I'm a huge baseball nut and Ted Williams was my
father's hero so naturally I learned a lot about him as a kid.

I believe this image is from his book _The Science of Hitting_.

Williams has a fairly fascinating biography and I'd encourage people to browse
his story a bit. A few interesting things about him:

\- He served in both World War II and the Korean War. During the latter, he
crash landed his plane after it took heavy fire.

\- He was an amazing angler and at times held tarpon or bonefish records. I
believe he's also in the fishing hall of fame.

\- He was actually a terrible baseball manager. Most people attribute this to
giving no attention to pitchers and not being able to handle that his players
simply weren't as gifted or as disciplined as him.

\- He was the last player to have a batting average > .400 for a full season
[1] but amazingly did not win the Most Valuable Player award that year. It
went to Joe DiMaggio.

[1] For those who don't follow baseball, this is calculated as (hits / at
bats) and generally the modern-day leaders vary between .330 and .375 (see
[https://www.baseball-
reference.com/leaders/batting_avg_top_t...](https://www.baseball-
reference.com/leaders/batting_avg_top_ten.shtml)).

~~~
redshirtrob
And regarding his military service, he lost three years of his prime to World
War II, and another two-ish years to Korea. He put up 11 WAR in the years
before and after WW II. Had he kept that pace from '43-'45 and put up decent
years in '52 & '53 he'd be in the argument for greatest of all time.

His career WAR was about 130. Ruth's was about 168. It's entirely possible he
would have reached 168 had he not lost those years.

~~~
callmeed
Well put. My dad would say (pre-WAR) that it cost him at least 100-150 home
runs, likely putting him ahead of Willie Mays and behind only Ruth and Aaron
(among pre-steroid era players).

~~~
itsoktocry
> _(among pre-steroid era players)._

I find this unfair to Barry Bonds.

Yes, he was an asshole. Yes, he took steroids. But this idea that he suddenly
became good (or that steroids make anyone "good" in baseball) goes too far. It
certainly allowed him to stretch his career out, but as a guy who grew up
cheering for Bonds since he was a young man playing for the Pirates, who
wouldn't want that?

My point here is to have a look at some of his career in earnest. He was
_always_ a fantastic ball player (led the league in OPS from 1990-1994). His
28-year-old campaign in 1993 was one for the ages, long before the steroid
controversies. But his record-setting seasons are video game level. He was
intentionally walked 120 times in 2004!

[https://www.baseball-
reference.com/players/b/bondsba01.shtml](https://www.baseball-
reference.com/players/b/bondsba01.shtml)

There is no way he should be left out of greatest-ever conversations.

~~~
redshirtrob
I don't think anyone has ever argued steroids made Bonds good (IMHO he was
already a first ballot HOFer). It's pretty well understood that they aid in
recovery. Bonds' most transcendent stretch came when most ballplayer's
production is falling off or completely disappearing.

He put up 47 WAR during his age 37-41 seasons. That's unheard of. Given those
seasons coincide with when he was using the cream and the clear, it's fair to
call into question some of his counting numbers.

Being charitable, let's say he would have put up 23 WAR during those
seasons[0]. That would leave him about 140 career WAR and around 660 HRs.
That's solid Mays territory.

He would still be in the conversation for best ever. Mays certainly is. So it
comes down to how you value those steroid seasons. Some folks want to throw it
all out. Some folks (HOF voters) want to subtract points. Some folks think it
didn't matter. We can never know. Just like we can never know how Ruth would
have done in an integrated league.

[0] Given what we know about aging curves this is unlikely. But Bonds was a
special athlete and it's not totally unheard of for players that age to have
really good seasons.

------
dhritzkiv
A shame the resolution is so low. Zooming in, the numbers are illegible.

I found a higher-resolution version[1] on a Deadspin article[2].

[1] [https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-
media/image/upload/19e2qerif7...](https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-
media/image/upload/19e2qerif7ffcjpg.jpg)

[2] [https://deadspin.com/the-beautiful-infographics-of-ted-
willi...](https://deadspin.com/the-beautiful-infographics-of-ted-williamss-
the-scienc-1511889371)

~~~
dang
Ok, we'll change to that latter article from
[http://tedwilliams.com/_data/hzone.htm](http://tedwilliams.com/_data/hzone.htm).
Thanks!

Edit: ok, changed back from [https://deadspin.com/the-beautiful-infographics-
of-ted-willi...](https://deadspin.com/the-beautiful-infographics-of-ted-
williamss-the-scienc-1511889371)

~~~
BoiledCabbage
Agreed that you probably want to change it back. The original posted the quote
alongside it which was his philosophy at hitting, which can be applied to life
in general. And Warren Buffett explicitly called out that philosophy as his
approach to investing (which is why this was posted).

The new link is just an article about infographics about baseball. Completely
useless outside of baseball - mainly now just trivia about an athlete.

Original link, and a comment with the link to higher resolution is best
option.

~~~
gowld
I like the baseball dataviz better than the "metaphorr for life" pablum.

------
rosywoozlechan
I like this kind of technical technique break down in sports. It's interesting
how you can break down a problem into a system like this and then focus on
that system as a way to improve. It's similar to improving optimal outcomes in
other systems, like driving more engagement in your app, improving uptime of
your service, improving the speed at which your product flies off of shelves
at the supermarket, improving your performance in a video game, or how optimal
your shipping pipeline is from your manufacturing hub.

It's just a very neat thing to do, figure out what your problem is, whatever
it may be, in a way that you explain a path to improving outcomes.

~~~
legitster
I find that it's almost impossible to appreciate and enjoy a sport until I
start learning the technical pieces that determine decisions.

Football is full of all of these random plays that make no sense. Until you
learn things about how clock management works. Then they become very tense and
exciting.

The problem I have with baseball is that all of the minor strategic decisions
are there, but you are talking about subtle changes that affect probability by
a few percentage points. And that can take an entire series of games to see
play out.

~~~
darkerside
Soccer is similar in that there is a tremendous amount of "luck" involved.
Only a couple of goals are scored in a typical match, so teams can play
excellent soccer for 90 minutes and still lose because a ball broke the wrong
way.

I think what's fun about that is that it mimics business (and life) much more.
You have limited control over a few key factors, luck plays a large role, but
if you play smart, you can see things break your way over a long period of
time.

~~~
AceyMan
> but if you play smart, you can see things break your way over a long period
> of time

Which brings to mind a great quip attributed to Gary Player (the multi Grand
Slam winning golfer / peer to Palmer & Nicklaus) which goes,

"I've found that the harder I practice, the luckier I get."

And as anyone who knows golf knows, the game is rife with unknown unknowns and
butterfly effect types of outcomes; but over time those nearly infinitesimal
improvements move the deterministic needle in ways that change your score.

~~~
darkerside
Love this quote. Thanks for sharing it.

------
dfxm12
I know my strike zone. When a project gets handed my way that I know is not
suited to my strengths/job description and lines up particularly well with
someone else's on the team, I communicate that to my manager. Unfortunately,
my manager is batting 1.000 when it comes to ignoring me :). I don't even get
a token "this is something I need you to improve in".

If I wasn't so busy or if every project wasn't "highest priority", it might
not matter as much.

~~~
fred_is_fred
"Which of the other highest priority projects should I deprioritize to work on
this"

or

"If you had to rank these 5 highest priority projects from 1-5, what would
that list look like"?

Managers like this need to have it shown to them in black in white that you
are at capacity. Once you push back, I suspect you will have better luck.

~~~
sulam
I take things one step further.

"My assessment of the priority is A, B, C. I only have time to work on A, B. I
am going to let TPTB know that I am focused on these, and that C isn't getting
my time. Let me know if you disagree with my prioritization, but otherwise,
this is how I plan to manage the situation."

~~~
fred_is_fred
That's another great approach. In almost every case this has happened to me
simply pointing out that you cannot have everything as top priority caused the
manager to reassess.

------
phjesusthatguy3
I'm surprised by the "The Slight Upswing is Best" graphic. I understand Cub-
Scout-softball-playing-me isn't any example at all for what a professional-
league baseball player should do, but I _always_ internalized swinging up and
through the pitch, and I was the best batter in my league. Is (or was) there
some explanation for why you would want to swing flat at a ball?

~~~
OldHand2018
You'll notice in the bottom right of the graphic that it says "*exaggerated".
Timing is important - the bat is not presented at a constant angle to the ball
despite what the graphic implies! You could hit the ball 500 feet but on the
wrong side of the foul pole, and you've accomplished nothing.

Modern baseball analytics places a very high value on the the "Three true
outcomes" [1]. Batters are "optimizing" for the exit angle of the ball leaving
the bat - we're in a juiced ball era (perhaps even a juiced batter era) and
home runs are valued very highly. You'll notice that strikeouts are also
setting records. Nobody seems to care as much about ground balls or line
drives and that seems to be what a "flatter" swing gives you. If we were
playing with the same baseball as Ted Williams played with, you'd have a lot
more fly ball outs. I'm pretty sure that his "slight upswing" was actually
very slight compared to current players.

[1] [https://www.baseball-
reference.com/bullpen/Three_True_Outcom...](https://www.baseball-
reference.com/bullpen/Three_True_Outcomes)

------
wwarner
That's a great batter's point of view. Here's a pitcher's POV [0], a poster
breaking down the different pitches. ”Hitting is timing. Pitching is upsetting
timing.“

[0] [https://s3.amazonaws.com/my.llfiles.com/00120380/pitch-
grips...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/my.llfiles.com/00120380/pitch-grips.pdf)

------
every
Somewhat in the same vein, I can heartily recommend "Weaver on Strategy":

[https://tht.fangraphs.com/on-weaver-on-
strategy/](https://tht.fangraphs.com/on-weaver-on-strategy/)

------
vermilingua
Seems baseball and poker have more in common than I’d realised.

~~~
dhosek
Baseball is probably the most intellectual of the sports. There's a lot of
strategy in it. The fielders are reading the signs the catcher gives the
pitcher too so they have some idea of what to expect. The game is ultimately
about pitching more than anything else as opposed to softball, which is a
superficially similar game but the game is much more about batting and
fielding.

~~~
sokoloff
Fast-pitch softball is quite a bit closer to baseball than slow-pitch.

~~~
dhosek
Fast pitch softball isn't a real thing. It's like a liger.

Deb: What are you drawing?

Napoleon Dynamite: A liger.

Deb: What's a liger?

Napoleon Dynamite: It's pretty much my favorite animal. It's like a lion and a
tiger mixed... bred for its skills in magic.

~~~
reducesuffering
You're not aware ligers are a real thing?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liger)

~~~
dhosek
There are people who believe in fast-pitch softball too. Doesn't mean they're
right.

------
TwoBit
Being that Ted Williams was the greatest batter of all time, for most other
hitters the numbers would probably all be lower.

~~~
trey-jones
Or he was the greatest batter of all time because of his dedication to these
principles, and willingness to do the work to make them habit.

~~~
TwoBit
Not sure what you mean by starting with "or". Both statements may well be
true.

