I'm beginning to think that there's only so much a hitting coach can do.
Consider the Jays' last two hitting coaches. Cito Gaston preached aggressiveness - the ideal batter was to go up to the plate looking for a pitch in his zone, which he could then drive. You can see this approach in the Jays' 2000 stats, when Cito was in charge of the hitters: everybody and his grandmother was yanking balls out of the yard. Seven Jays hit 20 or more home runs that year, and the team's collective total was 244 big flies, a number which seems implausibly huge today.
Unfortunately, the American League pitchers, a wily lot, adapted to the Jays' strategy. Batters who are aggressive at the plate find it difficult to lay off bad pitches - it's the nature of the beast. Once the pitchers found out the Jays' hitters could be made to chase bad pitches, they started making them do that. The Jays' team OBP fell off 16 points to .325 in 2001, and their runs scored fell from 861 to 767.
Fast forward a couple of years. Mike Barnett, the Jays' current hitting coach, preaches patience at the plate. Work the hitter, foul off pitches, run up pitch counts, and either draw a walk or feast on the pitcher's mistakes. This approach worked like a charm for a while, as anyone who recalls last June's offensive explosion will happily recall. However, the worm has now turned once again: pitchers have now realized that the Jays' hitters are more likely to take pitches, so the pitchers are more willing to throw strikes. Once the hitter is behind 0-2, he is forced to swing defensively; the result is the abrupt decline in the Jays' home run totals. And it's harder to score runs with a bunch of singles.
The moral? I'm not sure there is one, other than that major league baseball is hard. Perhaps the best approach is a blending of the Gaston Method and the Billy Beane Approved [tm] Moneyball Method of hitting. Or perhaps the last word belongs to Stan Musial: if I remember correctly, when he was asked what his approach was at the plate, he replied that he simply waited for a strike, and then knocked the s*** out of it. Would that it were that easy!
Comments?
Consider the Jays' last two hitting coaches. Cito Gaston preached aggressiveness - the ideal batter was to go up to the plate looking for a pitch in his zone, which he could then drive. You can see this approach in the Jays' 2000 stats, when Cito was in charge of the hitters: everybody and his grandmother was yanking balls out of the yard. Seven Jays hit 20 or more home runs that year, and the team's collective total was 244 big flies, a number which seems implausibly huge today.
Unfortunately, the American League pitchers, a wily lot, adapted to the Jays' strategy. Batters who are aggressive at the plate find it difficult to lay off bad pitches - it's the nature of the beast. Once the pitchers found out the Jays' hitters could be made to chase bad pitches, they started making them do that. The Jays' team OBP fell off 16 points to .325 in 2001, and their runs scored fell from 861 to 767.
Fast forward a couple of years. Mike Barnett, the Jays' current hitting coach, preaches patience at the plate. Work the hitter, foul off pitches, run up pitch counts, and either draw a walk or feast on the pitcher's mistakes. This approach worked like a charm for a while, as anyone who recalls last June's offensive explosion will happily recall. However, the worm has now turned once again: pitchers have now realized that the Jays' hitters are more likely to take pitches, so the pitchers are more willing to throw strikes. Once the hitter is behind 0-2, he is forced to swing defensively; the result is the abrupt decline in the Jays' home run totals. And it's harder to score runs with a bunch of singles.
The moral? I'm not sure there is one, other than that major league baseball is hard. Perhaps the best approach is a blending of the Gaston Method and the Billy Beane Approved [tm] Moneyball Method of hitting. Or perhaps the last word belongs to Stan Musial: if I remember correctly, when he was asked what his approach was at the plate, he replied that he simply waited for a strike, and then knocked the s*** out of it. Would that it were that easy!
Comments?
