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Watch Nick Franklin between pitches. You'll see him look at the barrel of his bat, look over at the catcher and maybe say something, look over at the camera well, look out at the pitcher for a second, glance down at his spikes as he lightly, one-handedly taps his bat against them...
He points his head at the pitcher as the pitcher takes the sign. But! He doesn't really begin focusing until AFTER the pitcher is well into his windup. You can see the legs sink, the shoulder coil, the hands chamber --- > only JUST before the pitcher releases the ball.
It took Dr. D a long time to realize -- say, in basketball -- that the shorter the duration of your "hard focus, tunnel vision", the more intense it can be.
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The old samurai used to speak in terms of "soft eyes."
We are not talking about modern 7th-dan showoffs who very likely have never been in a single actual fight. We are talking about 16th-century samurai who, once their blades were drawn, did not put them back until blood had been cleaned off the blade. These samurai prevailed in battle conditions because they maintained, at all times, a 360-degree field of awareness.
Nick Franklin, between pitches, manifests this same awareness of an environment that extends beyond the 60' by 3' tunnel of space between him and the pitcher. Watch other ML hitters; many of them are "captured" by the pitcher, alarmed by the pitcher's presence, frozen by the potential energy they will face in a few seconds.
"Soft eyes" refers to an "easier" focus on your enemy. You sort of allow your eyes to blur the edges of an object, almost as though you were cross-eyed. The object looks "soft" and you pick up random movements earlier.
It goes hand-in-hand with a loose, relaxed body. Your body is soft, your eyes are soft ... boom, a hostile movement begins to occur and both your eyes and your body contract.
Watch Nick Franklin and you will see him do this. Two other people who do it: Ichiro and Kendrys Morales. Kyle Seager is not bad. Mike Morse is relaxed between pitches, but goes into "tunnel vision" mode far too early for an aiki sensei's liking. Michael Saunders, ouch.
But Nick Franklin? Man.
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Why should ML pitchers be throwing a little rookie second baseman so few strikes?! Have you seen a single AB in which the enemy pitcher didn't nibble and pick as though Nick Franklin were Edgar Martinez? I mean even one?
The Zone% against Franklin is an unbelievable 38%. The other 62% have been taken* for balls -- and even that is skewed by the fact that Franklin gets ripped off a good steady two pitches a game. It's remarkable. What is there to be so scared of?
You get the idea that the pitchers sense Franklin's "soft eyes", sense the fact that AS SOON AS they catch a decent part of the plate, Nick Franklin is going to "praying mantis" EXPLODE into a dangerous swing. And their subconscious awareness of this puts them into "danger" mode.
Still haven't quite decided whether to go "Best Bet." You could conceive of pitchers finding a flaw, pounding it, and the walk spigot getting cranked off. But with his KBIZLT swing, am not sure what that flaw might be. I dunno ... wasn't too long ago his minors stats were less-than-overwhelming. Somebody was getting him out. :- )
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In his first 10-11 games, Franklin has 7 walks against 5 strikeouts, and has a .400 OBP with a .500 SLG. But it is the subliminal aspect to his game that has landed him the 2B job permanently.
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Lee Trevino, Doc.
Same thing. "Soft eyes."
And you know what, it's hard to teach. Lots of folks try hard to stay relaxed more. It doesn't work that way.
There is something natural about Franklin, or something learned that is so owned that it looks natural.
I'm glad he's ours.
moe
Franklin looks like he owns the field the way the British Navy owned the oceans at the height of it's power.
It occurs to me that there was a couple of months when Dustin Ackley looked much the same. Franklin is exciting to watch; we'll have to see how he responds after the league figures him out.
As a vision therapist, who works with both people with learning related vision problems such as dyslexia, as well as high level athletes to improve visual performance, I can vouch that looking soft is difficult to teach. One activity to illustrate this is something we call peripheral colors. Put colored post it notes on a white board around a central target. If you were to 'look hard" boring your eyes through the center target, you will lose the ability to identify the colors of the notes, shutting down your peripheral awareness. However, "looking soft" allows you to know where the colors are, allowing better movements when we ask a person to touch the targets while still looking only at the central target. Once the person is aware of what look hard, look soft means, we push the concept of "opening periphery" in many other procedures, and people are amazed at the gains in performance. It all starts with awareness however. I would say most therapy patients tend to be too central, so this peripheral training is key to their success.
You don't see comments like that anywhere else in the M's little corner of the blogosphere. Fascinating.
Appreciate the insight, Dr. B. Look forward to more.
I hate the word holistic, but, geez, that's what this blog is. Or maybe it's catholic in its original meaning: Samurais, frigates, dyslexics, and white-shoed Tex-Mexicans. It's the Mos Eisley bar and it must drive SABE purists bananas.
Once the training has had good effect, does the skill become "automatic" or to what extent is followup training and awareness necessary? In aikido this skill would be emphasized each practice, again and again for years ... however, 70% (?) of the skill becomes automatic, even to the extent that you couldn't stop doing it if you wanted to.
Would it be your speculation that Nick Franklin maintains a "soft vision" pre-pitch routine consciously, or that it's more likely to be a natural personality trait? Any comment on the underlying personality of an athlete who does this well?
Finally, your peripheral colors exercise would provide the ability to measure an improvement in the ability to touch targets in the periphery. Is there any way to measure how much "hard focus" skill has been lost in doing so ... less memory of a 7-digit number in the center, or whatnot?
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Thanks Dr. B! :- ) We now have a B, a D, a G and a K, although the D only plays a doctor on TV.
Would Chi Chi Rodriguez have been in that category also? The freewheeling personality seems to correlate, doesn't it?
Other golfers in that category?
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Ichiro actually spoke in terms of making sure that he looked out at the fans in the upper deck between pitches. At the time, I didn't quite get how this related to "soft vision" until having watched Nick Franklin.
Coming from you, a remark like that weighs more heavily than a blizzard of the type of attaboys you often see 'round the 'net.
Sometimes we forget about the kind of reader at SSI and the way it is that they read. Thanks amigo -