Back in 2015, when Dale Sveum was the Royals’ hitting coach, he turned his hitters loose.
Sveum thought hitting in the big leagues was hard enough without letting hittable pitches go by. So if a Royals hitter got a good pitch to hit, he was free to hack away, even if it was the first pitch of the at-bat.
Fans of sabermetrics didn’t like that approach.
Those fans believed it was good for a hitter to see a lot of pitches. After all, walks are good, and you can’t walk unless you see at least four pitches.