One of the most overused words in the world today is organic. It’s everywhere in the food world, of course. This is organic or that’s organic. Everything’s organic. It’s everywhere in conversations, too.
It’s kind of … you guessed it, organic.
Having said that, when an organic hitting conversation pops up, I’m all in, especially when a Hall of Famer like Mike Piazza gets involved.
One of the biggest problems today in Major League Baseball is the lack of true hitting. Now, there is certainly home run hitting. That’s everywhere. There also are more pop ups and fly outs than I can ever remember. Not as many line outs. And there is good reason for that.
Today’s hitters are in love with the upper cut or as they call it, Launch Angle, much more than hitters in the past. Pitchers have caught on. Jacob deGrom was one of the first to catch on because I remember having an organic hitting conversation with him in the Mets clubhouse years ago about how he was going to attack hitters using their Launch Angle against them.
“The more they swing with an upper cut,’’ deGrom said, “the more I am going to throw high fastballs.’’
It was a conversation we would have multiple times and deGrom’s answer was always pretty much the same and he put his words to the test, winning two Cy Young Awards, getting the hitters out at their own game and really did it best when runners were in scoring position, knowing how desperate hitters were to drive in runs against him.
“TOO MANY HITTERS ARE SWINGING FROM THEIR ASS AT SHITTY PITCHES WITH RUNNERS ON INSTEAD OF FOCUSING ON HITTING THE BALL BACK THROUGH THE BOX, KEEPING HANDS CLOSE TO BODY AND MAKING SOLID CONTACT.’’ – MIKE PIAZZA
The bigger the uppercut in the swing, the harder they fall.
All this brings me to a fascinating hitting conversation that took place on Twitter this week on my timeline: @AMBS_Kernan.
Mike Piazza and I have had a good relationship for years, so it was not surprising to see that Piazza weighed in on my Twitter feed about hitting with some hitting gems when the conversation shifted to what is going on in the major leagues today.
And we all know what’s going on, lots of strikeouts.
Only four teams, the Astros, Blue Jays, Red Sox and Angels have more hits than strikeouts and two of those teams, the Red Sox and Angels only have four more hits than strikeouts, so they could very easily go to the other side.
Launch Angle is over-played. Batting average is downplayed by the Nerds. A mistake, of course. The Astros lead the way with 976 hits and 804 Ks. The Astros lead baseball with a .267 average. In all, 23 teams are under .250 and 11 teams are under .235. It’s ugly out there and now baseball, in an attempt to help hitters, is moving the mound back a foot in the Atlantic League as an experiment. That’s dumb and former major leaguer Jeff Frye is all over that move on his Facebook and Twitter accounts, with a host of former players joining in on the fun.
What needs to be done is bringing back more of a level swing so the barrel of the bat is in the hitting zone for a longer period of time. That will improve hitting. Also using the entire field, that will improve hitting instead of trying to pull everything.
I would venture to say those are organic hitting improvements, not moving the mound back a foot like what has been done in this baseball Dr. Frankenstein experiment in the Atlantic League. The mound has been in the same place, 60 feet and six inches away from home plate since 1893 – but Rob Manfred & Company need to change that now, 128 years of success at 60 feet six inches be damned.
1 comment:
Piazza laying it out very nicely.
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