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
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