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OBF sez, in the shout box,
A picture's worth 1,000 words. Well, it was worth 1,000 words back when Floyd Bannister was our ace; in the age of social media and viral marketing it's worth 1.2 million words.
"A picture is worth a thousand words" is true when --- > a complicated idea is conveyed with images that are of the type that can be processed the subconscious mind automatically. Mojician will tell you, we're sure, that George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin saw things at a glance - glances of less than one second - that can never be conveyed verbally to a jury, no matter how many words are used.
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Watching Franklin Gutierrez swing the bat in San Diego, SSI fans were quick to, consciously or subconsciously, grok that:
Guti was getting weight transfer. Dr. D busted his chops last year for a static, flat-footed swing that started out on the front foot. That was not the way on Friday. Guti was moving weight from the inside of the back thigh the inside of the front thigh, and getting textbook acceleration of the bat.
His home run was both high and far. In 2010-11 there were times when he was not capable of hitting the ball 300 feet*, much less 400. As OBF shouted, there was another ball 10' foul down the LF line that was hit MUCH harder than the home run. Break up the Mariners.
Gutierrez was seeing the ball very early in its flight. His "takes" were decisive. He had few, if any, half-positions. When he let the bat go, he let it go with authority. He was quick and stubborn in defending pitchers' pitches, and he was very aggressive barrelling the bat up.
He was getting a "sweet spot" barrel to the strike zone without overswinging. On one foul back, he held his followthrough just like a golfer, about like the photo above. This means that the "business part" of his through-swing acceleration was --- > concentrated within the area over home plate, not wildly spent on the later part of the swing arc that comes after the pitch arrival.
For two years, we've been busting him mercilessly for ugly, static swings. Then we remote control the game up and WHHAAAAAaaaaaa?, his swing is almost as prett-ayy as his defense. ::blinks::
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Dr. D hasn't seen Gutierrez swing the bat remotely like this since ... what, his first year here? Never mind the stats: they are not going to tell you anything with so few AB's. It's the crosscheck that matters right now, and the crosscheck has Gutierrez in his 5.0 WAR form.
It doesn't make a lot of sense: Gutierrez has had, in essence, no spring training or some small fraction of a spring training, and here he dives into June MLB in, pretty much, the best form he's ever had.
Jack Nicklaus once answered a question about this, from amateur golfers who shot lifetime bests in their first rounds after the winter. "I don't think the reason is hard to guess," Jack said. "You don't expect much of yourself, and don't put any pressure on yourself." Gutierrez is apparently loose and having fun ....
Of course they say he's regained those 19 pounds or whatever. It's entirely possible that he's in his 2009 form because he is, for the first time, in his 2009 physical condition.
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If you watched the game, you saw his slip-n-slide face dive catch. Not a lot of guys who can look sharp, looking stupid. SSI is not Gutierrez' biggest fan, but the guy is truly a pleasure to watch in center field. (Analogously, Brendan Ryan made two plays to his backhand side, each of which would have been made by, at most, 6-8 shortstops in baseball.)
Good on yer there Cranklin,
Dr D