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If you think it's easy to find an image of a condor stopping on a dime and reversing its direction ... like Robert Asprin said.  You allot 50% of your time to writing the book and then 50% of your time writing the little quotes that start each chapter.

Appreciate my efforts or the condor gets it.

..........

Let's go to the mainframe.  

I recently calculated that my iPhone was about 10,000 to 20,000 times more powerful than my 1984 128K Macintosh used to be; and as you know, the SSI Mainframe is about 10,000 to 20,000 times more powerful than an iPhone.  The Mick's new swing was unveiled with a dramatic whisk of the TV curtain on March 13th.  We'll need every terabyte to crunch it.  

Three trips to the plate:  a groundball out, a ringing double, and a walk.  Processing...

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=== Lower Body ===

If you'd extended a ray of light from Saunders' knees in previous years, you'd have seen a circular motion towards the 1B line, as though he were turning right, around a corner, into a hallway.  His back hip would have circled and his back foot would have stepped on the plate to keep his balance.

On March 13, his belt buckle hardly turned at all - it's the anti-Catricala lower body.  Here, give a looky:  at contact, Saunders' belt buckle is hardly past the third baseman.

Saunders doesn't need Catricala's lower body leverage; Saunders already has long-lever power coming from his ungainly "Condor" upper body.  So the work with the 60-ounce bat has quieted his lower body and eliminated the pure-pull aspect of his swing.

Condor is a weird, weird baseball player, and one of the few who can benefit from eliminating a hip turn during his swing.  This was real creative genius on the part of somebody with the M's.  Brilliant!  ::guinness::

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=== Upper Body ===

If you look at the video again, you'll see that Saunders doesn't really follow through with the bat.  It's kind of brought around to the foul line and it stops there.  A little punch-shot swing.

And the ball goes off the wall the opposite field, right under the 385 marker -- the ball getting to the wall so fast that the center fielder, playing Saunders about 10 yards the other way!, gets nowhere near the ball before it CLANGS off the boards.

Saunders couldn't have done any more to cut down his swing -- it's not much more than the one Ichiro uses to slap the ball through the SS hole.  And look at the carry!

I don't know if this will fix Michael Saunders, but I'll tell you this.  Right, wrong, or indifferent, this was the approach that he needed to try.  If this does not work, nothing will, end of story.

Can't tell you how impressed I am with somebody's diagnosis and treatment here.

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By the way, Saunders has an annoying little hand bob as the pitcher winds up.  Fortunately, as the pitcher comes into the release area, he brings his hands consistently to his shoulder and then he uses a Catricala-style rearward stretch.  Not as good as Vinnie's; Saunders' hands move both backwards, and up.

But Saunders starts lower and finishes lower, now.  And his ki, his intentionality, is much more up the middle.

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