Doc,
In golf circles, "lag" is an important term in relation to power. Once you have exploded your hips through and the belt buckle is pointed somewhere near the target line, how far behind does the shaft and clubhead lag? Guys with huge lag (Dustin Johnson, Bubba Watson, the old Tiger) have tremendously quick hands. The wrists don't snap, but roll (exploding is a good term, again) to square the clubface. That lag creates clubhead speed.
I used to be good enough to have played in the Northwest Open plus sundry other events. I never had that lag, and was a relatively pokey, scrambling, up and down machine. But I've seen it plenty.
Vinnie has enough. The Wells comparison is quite nice, btw. If you frame by frame though the linked video you can see it. But you've already done that, I know. He begins with a quiet slide (very horizontal) with the left leg and hip. A fraction of a second later he stretchs the bat handle and arms away from the pitcher and then his hips explode. When you get to 0:12 you'll see his hips and shoulders open and now the bat is catching up. Great lag.
It means, of course, that the bat doesn't stay in the zone long.....but the upside is that the bat hurts the ball when they meet.
He's certainly got extra-base power. Does he have the pitch recognition ability to put that power into play by attacking the right pitch?
I defer on that one.
moe
TAD sez,
Dr. D, could you explain the following?If the spiral adds to Vargas’s power – velocity of his pitches. How does the quietness (lack on any visual spiral loading) of a Wells / Catricala not rob them of their power (as you had detailed in an earlier post). Link is a video of a Catricala homerun illustrating the point that it does not look to me that he is physically prepared to swing the bat with any force behind it.Perhaps it does rob them of power or better phrased it will. Since both Wells and Catricala are fairly young players they still have that youthful explosiveness to compensate for the lack of loading but perhaps as they reach their early 30’s the level of their play could will fall much quicker as did Sexson’s.
Their shorter spiral does rob them of power. :- ) Comments
Funny, but when I first started looking at Vinnie's videos (that guy at Clinton videoed pretty much every batted ball it seems), the first thing I thought of was how he looked like a golfer launching a tee shot.
I didn't take a lot of time, and this isn't my thing, but taking Moe's examples was interesting:
Bubba Watson on this shot anyway wraps himself so far around he almost hits himself in the backside.
Dustin Johnson, on the other hand, barely goes past his shoulder on the backswing.
Ackley is more like the former; Vinnie is more like the latter. Here's a HR from a direct angle. The swing is almost so "casual" that you miss it altogether, and next thing you know it's over the fence. Easy to see why scouts were fooled. Also easy to see why pitchers are, too.
Maybe Seager is "keep the bat in the zone" and Vinnie "get the ball out of the zone"?
KBIZLT hitters are great. It's wonderful to be able to keep the bat in the zone long enough to swing at a fastball and still slow the hands down enough to hit the change.
But there's more than one way to skin a cat, or hit the cover off a baseball. No one would accuse Gary Sheffield of keeping the bat in the zone a long time. It's there for an eyeblink. But because his bat was so FAST he just waited as long as he felt like before swinging. He didn't HAVE to keep the bat in the zone - with his bat-speed he never had to swing early to catch up to a heater.
Ackley collapses his front side like crazy and keeps his hands back on hits. He deadens the force of that long-swing on the front end by keeping the bat head back until the last possible second before accelerating through the zone. It's not what one might recommend to a kid without his batting eye and hand control, because he does things "wrong" that are still massively effective when taken as a whole.
Vinnie does it with knees, as Doc pointed out. Vinnie basically has one swing, and it just starts forward. On breaking balls he collapses his BODY downward at the knees to get the bat head on the ball rather than reaching with his arms to poke at the ball. It keeps the power in the swing since he doesn't step for power but uses hips and shoulders instead. He can still open open his swing while collapsing - you see him do it in the video Spec linked. Swings, realizes partway through that the ball is falling out of the zone, and collapses his knees while pivoting his hips to still get solid wood on the ball and lift it out of the park. I believe it's one of the things that creates his flyball stroke, but he is getting better able to drive the ball doing that as he climbs the ladder.
I think he can have a lot of success with that approach. I'm looking forward to next season already and finding out if he can indeed keep driving the ball like he has been. Personally, I think AA pitchers were rudely awakened by the "A-Ball" guy who can hit a breaking ball just fine, thank you very much. Curveballs and sliders don't scare him.
I'd throw Vinnie a bunch of changeups, since he doesn't have Sheffield's extreme batspeed, nor Seager's zone-long-time tendencies, nor Ackley's hand control. But Vinnie, IMO, IS a really good top-to-bottom zone hitter. If you want to get the better of him then messing with him using the front-to-back of the zone is probably a better plan.
And for me, it's always fun to watch players who can hit the FB or the slider with equal efficiency. Can't wait to get more data on that, as well as see him in person.
~G
Dr D,
Thanks for the post.
I certainly hope you will offer your observations any time that you have any w/r/t a hitter.
Golf swings, and baseball swings, are much more alike than they are different :- )
Love the second-to-last paragraph especially...
The shtick writes itself. You da man Tad.
Spec,
Where they are much alike is when they get to the ball (except Bubba hits from the wrong dang side...funny, I hit a baseball left handed but golf right-handed).
Freeze frame just before impact and you'll see that almost all good power golfers look remarkably alike.
G,
The Sheffields of the world feasted on the fact that they combined bat speed with pitch recognition. They could identify the pitch they wanted and mash it. You're dead right that part of that ability is being able to wait a fraction longer to commit.
If you can identify the pitch to swing at, and then get their with gusto, you're going to be dangerous. I think Carpy has made this leap. Would like to know the difference in his bat speed from two years ago.
Carp is one variety of that template, Sheffield and Granderson are another, a step or two up. (I, btw, expect Carp to make even more improvement for the next couple of years).
Hammering Hank is, of course, the perfect example of that template.
BTW, while I think Aaron was a front-leg hitter, Vinnie's quite slide with his lead leg is similar to The Hammer's.
Just thought it was interesting how twisted around Watson got on that swing and then how far he extends afterward. Hard to do and maintain any type of control, but obviously he can, and that reminds me of Ackley. Ichiro and Fukudome are others that strike me from memory as having particularly coiled up and whipped around swings.
Don't really follow golf closely and I'm not about to get into Doc's realm of motion dynamics or whatever he calls it, but was just throwing it out there.
I think Vinnie is an elite prospect, and loved watching him develop this year. I have reservations about him making it at 3b (errors), and as a RH hitter at Safeco, but I love having him in the org.
And given that we've now seen Carp, Wilhelmsen and Delabar completely transform themselves physically while retaining what got them into baseball in the first place, you have to have hope for all kinds of potential plateau-leaps going forward. (Saying that in regard to making himself a better 3b and/or a guy who won't get eaten alive by the Safe.)
That one (above) was from me, moe...I'm not that anonymous.
Great articles and comments gentlemen! Thanks. I was taught in golf early to load and lag. Developing the needed leverage is not just the secret for distance by the Dustin Johnsons of the world but look at the greatest ball striker of all time, Ben Hogan, and you see incredible power in a small package along with precision consistency. Golf and baseball very much alike. The law of physics does not wear different uniforms.
Good point about the difference between the warning track and K's. Great to see a kid like Catricalla come out of nowhere. And who knows what exactly his potential is or if he has reached it? That is like being able to call tops and bottoms in the stock market. Only the market is always right.
Thanks for the work everyone.
The law of physics do not wear different uniforms.
Heh!
... and didn't know that we had another serious golfer to chime in on the batting strokes. I for one can't get enough of the golfers' takes on the minor leaguers' swings.
You've seen Ichiro in the batting circle Jeff? :- )
Showing my stupidity and lack of live M's games (regretfully but hoping for a trip or two next season), you need to help me with Ichiro and the on deck. I know the stretching. The concentration of a Hogan both in his swing and the game. But I have a feeling I am missing a bunch.
Serious golfer? Years gone by but grew up with the best instruction. I was taught the physics not just how it should feel, etc. Have you ever heard of Homer Kelly?
Yes, love the golf analogies as well Jeff. Lots of good ones here. I enjoy your respect for the past in both sports (yes, I still defend golf as a sport!). Golf and baseball are very similar in that players of all shapes and sizes will have certain variations but all share sound fundamentals. That is the physics...can't ever get around it!