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It's fun to get a read on the club through their favorite media voices. I would guess that we are one Shannon Drayer article about LoMo from having a new 1B.
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Image 1
This was the 431-foot shot off a Capuano meatball. Let's talk LEVERAGE vs FORCE.
Did you know there are situations, in sports, that don't allow much time for leverage? Like when Cristiano Ronaldo launches an ICBM into your goal box with 15 seconds left to advancement. But yeah. Fewer moving parts can, sometimes, allow more of a head start.
Interesting how LOW his hands are, and they do never come up much. Also his shoulders stay unusually relaxed.
This is a classic body language signal for sincere relaxation -- in public speaking, for example, if Dr. D's vocal folds are giving out, he consciously lowers his shoulders. If you think you're in a heated argument with your boss, let's say, and he's carrying his shoulders in a low gait, he probably doesn't care what you think either way. :- )
We could name a few first basemen who are jeeeeest a tadbit more rigid and tense. (You can't be quick when you're tense, LrKrBoi29.)
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Image 2
Morrison took to using this little leg kick -- or has he always used it? -- but over the last week, he's streamlined it. It works well now. He's seldom "in between" -- he's quick on fastballs, and he stays back on breaking stuff. The great swing triggers have like a Plan A and a Plan B wired into them.
Image 3
In the image below, the ball is ALREADY THERE, in baseball terms. But Morrison's hardly turned at all(!) and his lower body is practically inert.
Why inert? Morrison weighs approximately the same as an adolescent Silverback gorilla, and he's ripped. Or looks like he would be. Any bets on whether Morrison could dunk from the dashed lines in the key? How much lower-body action does Shaq need to shatter the backboard?
No contrasts to Justin Smoak on this one. We're far too genteel for that sort of aspersion.
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Also, note the cup on the end of the bat. Doesn't take it back far, does he? Considering we're about to get 431 feet to right-center?
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Defensively
John Dewan has a "plus-minus" system that is taken berry, berrrrry seriously by MLB powers-that-be. It has Morrison as a slightly better 1B than Smoak ... Smoak is awfully good at robbing doubles, but Morrison may be a skosh better at everything else, especially running down balls in the air.
Makes sense.
Next up: a week or two for the M's to look at Morrison while they give Smoak some Taijuan-style, that is to say needless, R&R. Or, if not, maybe we got a DH.
Any port in a storm,
Jeff
Comments
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iI thought that was a pretty decent pitch, too: Down at the bottom of the zone and on the outside 1/2.
Check out the belt buckle, Doc. From Image 4 it stays pointed right at the pitcher (more or less), even on the follow through. There's a centered-ness to that swing. "Eating the ball" (which I've never heard and kinda' like) translates in golf-lingo to "covering the ball." The best iron players "trap" the ball shot after shot, so they get the most consistent contact....and that's something I see in Morrison right now. He doesn't fly off the ball. He traps it against the barrel of the bat.
Justin Smoak would have been a hellacious college hitter a few years ago. The longer barrel on the aluminum bat would have been right up his alley. His mishits everything, just enough to take something off the ball. Get this: On July 22, 2009, the NCAA reported that the rules committee had requested to ban the use of composite bats. The NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel found that 20 out of the 25 composite bats tested during the 2009 NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament failed the BESR (Ball Exit Speed Ratio) test. 2009, btw, was the last year Dustin Ackley played college ball. Those bats made him look good, I think.
But I digress: Morrison is going to get "Pencilled" in for a while.
Pipp Pipp, Cherrio.
moe
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He his this ball, in the Marlins home park, between 467 and 484 feet. He is a really strong human, and unlike Smoak he can make some really solid contact.
Otherwise, they're similar players: low average, get-on-base types. But they separate on this set of numbers: 407.8 vs. 385.2.
That's LoMo average HR distance, 2011 (his healthy age 23 season) vs Justin Smoak's 2013. LoMo's company in distance has names like Fielder, Cruz, Hamilton, Trumbo and Napoli - corner crushers. Smoak's is JJ Hardy, Kyle Seager and Brandon Phillips - glove-position infielders.
In 2013, Smoak had the 5th-lowest HR distance of anybody with enough homers to qualify for this chart. There's an 18 homer minimum that Smoak just scrapes by.
The year before he was better (395 feet) - but still bottom quarter of the league. LoMo was in the top-quarter of the league in 2011 with his distance, and that would have been several steps higher the last couple years.
LoMo has the strength and can generate the solid contact that Smoak doesn't. He certainly seemed to get his timing back on his rehab, which is great. Playing almost every day seems to be keeping him in the groove too. If we could get his career line of .245/.335/.425 from him, it'd be a tremendous improvement at the positon (Smoak: .225/.310/.385). If he wants to give us his healthy upside?
Look out.
But either way, there's more upside in his game than Smoak has. I'm all in favor of Pipping Justin a smaller park in the NL someplace, for both our sakes. Keep it up, Logan. You'll win a lot of fans by being a .760-.780 OPS player.
Our standards for first base are not high...
~G