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Mo Dawg sez,
The overhaul on Ackley ['s evaluation this year] is more problematic, perhaps. Or many will see it that way. His down side is that he's a glove first 2B, who will get to 100 OPS+ some seasons. That's a heck of a downside. Upside is that he's a glove first 2B with a first rate bat.
For the record, SSI is still bullish on Dustin Ackley. His swing shape became VERY weird in 2012, had an grotesque contradiction it. Part of it was probably due to his legs hurting, and part of it was certainly due to his frustration in not being able to anticipate the pitches.
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=== Swing FLAW ===
To give you an idea of what we're talking about, check the hand action in these screen grabs from September 2012. Ackley raises his hands sky-high as the pitcher comes into the release area, then bobs them down, and continues to sink his hands, chopping down at the strike zone from a very high position.
Exercise for you: Contemplate this little aiki puzzle for a moment. Why would a hitter sky his hands as the energy loaded up at him?
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ze: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; font: inherit; ">Dr D
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If Dustin for some reason is slow at making this adjustment, I am sure Jack will not wait more than 2 months before he ships Dustin to Tacoma.
There is no way Jack can let Dustin reach the super two status, and Dustin not be obviously better than Franklin and Romero.
The funny thing about Ackley is that he had a complete reverse split last year. He was .215-.285-.328 against righties! Lefties he hit at a .246-.310-.365 rate. This was after a .290-.369-.435/.224-.287-.365 split his rookie season.
So he actually improved vL, but fell off the planet vR. Weird, no?
But I think the pictures above indicate much, as Doc has said. I don't know anything about chakra (I was no fan of the music of Chaka Khan, however. Dating myself, I know), but Ackley sure looks relaxed and loaded in picture #2 and in #3 he's doing the Snead/Woods power dip. Good stuff that, I think. Especially #2. But it 4 he is completely out of sync, Doc, you couldn't be more right. On what appears to be a fastball (considering where the target is set and the ball's trajectory), his body is either way out in front or his hands are incredibly far behind: Yin to his body's yang, as it were. His arms need some yang, too.
It's almost as if his natural tendency is to rip one down the RF line but he's intending to soft-liner one over the SS. When I think about it in that way, your Branyan/Ichiro analysis is dead on.
Funny that (evidently) he learned to hang in there vs. the lefty curve and improved nicely. But RHP schooled him.
I don't remember noticing it during the season, but did he get pounded away with FB's last year? Well, I just answered my own question: Fangraphs says he saw almost the same mix of pitches in '12 that he did in '11. Wow. And it indicates that he actually had a significantly better wFB in '12 than '11 (.0.1 vs -3.1). While he saw no increased number of them, his wSL numbers dropped from -2.6 to -6.6 and his wCH imploded completely, from 8.3 to -6.3! Yikes.
That makes sense, though. IF he looks out in front of a heater, as he does in the pictures above, then he must be way out in front of off-speed stuff, giving a little Randy Johnson-wave-of-the-arms AB at them. Funny though, that pitchers didn't capitalize by throwing him more off-speed stuff.
Get his parts in sync, he'll wear out the RF wall again. To his credit, his annus horribilus was really doomed by a terrible July and an ugly Sept. In every other month his BABIP was .280 or better, in July it was .189 and in Sept. it was .224.
Hey guys, he's going to bounce back.
Would be interesting to know if hitting leadoff impacts his approach at the plate. I want to discount that kind of stuff because of the whole Figgins debacle, but it could matter. In '11 he batted almost exclusively 3rd or 5th. He mini-mashed. In '12 he NEVER batted 3rd and only once 5th. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wedge, huh?
Get this: in the 72 wins he played in last year (all starts) he hit .278-.363-.420. In the 81 losses he played in (79 starts) he was a .181-.231-.248 Mendoza. Ish!
But Doc, he's going to find himself again. Wedge should help, and bat him in a mash/RBI spot.
moe
I remember a Drayer interview with Ackley at the beginning of the year where he said that he wanted to hit a home run every time he went to the plate. She interviewed him again at the end of the year and asked him about that and he back tracked a bit, saying he just wanted to make good contact and the HRs would come. I think maybe he learned a valuable lesson.
You'd think that would come into play, yeah...
Even with the new rules, it wouldn't take much in AAA to freeze Ackley out of Super Two, would it ... whether this would be fair to him would be another question, but if he actually didn't dserve to be here, well...
To me, it's totally consistent with the conflicted swing he's taking at the ball -
In the long run, I love love love his aggressiveness. It's probably just his not knowing the pitch sequences that's the issue...
That corroboration is very welcome, Moe! Thanks for taking the time amigo. Getting a similar analysis from the golf-swing paradigm pretty well leaves it resolved for me.
And I think the conclusion is safe: "he's going to bounce back" because that yin-yang clash is not going to last forever.