In 2009, the league batting average in Major League Baseball (the average of all players in the league), was .256. In simple terms, this means that batters had just slightly better than a 1 in 4 chance of getting a hit when stepping up to the plate. Even the best of the batters, the league leaders, improve the odds of getting a hit to just over 1 in 3. Now the odds change slightly if you are to consider stats like sacrifices, walks, and errors; but when you dissect all the statistics you could possibly get hold of (and baseball stats are almost infinite!), baseball pitchers have a significant advantage each and every time a batter steps up to the plate.
In his book How We Decide, Jonah Lehrer breaks down the near impossibility of the batter's task, like this:
A typical major league pitch travels from the hand of the pitcher to the plate in 0.35 seconds. It takes 0.25 seconds for a batter's muscles to initiate a swing, which leaves his brain with only 1/10th of a second to make up his mind as to whether or not he will swing at the pitch. In fact, it's even less time, as it takes a few milliseconds for visual information to travel from the retina to the visual cortex, so the batter actually has less than 5 milliseconds to see the pitch and decide whether or not to swing at it. Problem is, no one can think this fast, as it typically takes the brain 20 milliseconds to respond to sensory stimulus.
So, how do baseball players ever hit a pitch?
The batter's brain begins to collect and analyze information, long before the ball leaves the pitcher's hand. From the pitcher's stance to his grip on the ball, the batter's brain is picking up clues (based on what has occurred in the past under similar conditions), attempting to do what Malcolm Gladwell described in his book Blink, as "Thin-Slice;" draw a conclusion from thin slices of information, or clues. For the batter, most of this analysis is occurring at an unconscious level, so when he 'pulls the trigger' and swings, it's not always a conscious choice.
And if the pitcher didn't already have all the advantage in the world, major leaguers have an added trick up their (proverbial) sleeve - the Change-Up!
A Change-up (also called an off-speed pitch) is intentionally disguised as a fastball until the moment it leaves the pitcher's hand. As a result, the batter's brain prepares for a 90mph fastball, but what comes across the plate is typically 10% slower. The result - the batter is "way out front" and whiffs at the pitch, before it even crosses the plate. An effective change-up can make a batter look completely off-balance and awkward.
We all face the equivalent of change-ups in our everyday lives - stimulus that is thinly disguised to feel intuitively familiar.
The simplest of examples is a smile. A smile is generally accepted as a positive expression of warmth and friendly intentions. But, as we all know, a smile can easily be applied to mislead. And despite our belief that we are good at spotting those who would choose to mislead us with something as simple as a smile, most of us are actually quite poor at spotting the fakes!
Invariably, there are other tells or clues that a smile is not genuine; but if we stop at the smile, we will invariably get caught in the trap. So, the next time you feel yourself responding instinctively to someone or something that feels comfortably familiar, take a moment to look a little further and ensure that the facts support your intuitive feelings.
Want to test your skills at spotting fake smiles?
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