Roundtable II: Is Cuts Done?
First part here. Great job making the defense's case, counselors. The D.A. steps up for cross.
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Q. What about Cust's 4 homers in Arizona? You think he lost bicep circumference between March and April?
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Point 1: Not waving off Cust's 4 HR's in spring ... had simply forgotten about them :- )
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Point 2: Good catch bro'. The homers in Arizona are a somewhat comforting piece on the other side of the scale. :cpoints:
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Point 3: RE: Spring Training Stats.
Not wanting to be stubborn, can't /cosign that March means much. Here, or in any player evaluation. Overall, or pertaining to any one skill, like PWR.
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There are any number of guys *who cannot play major league baseball* who hit HR's, and plenty of them, in Arizona. Mike Wilson hit 8-9 homers in Arizona... about four different times, I think.
I don't doubt that Cust can hit 6 straight homers in batting practice, for instance. The question is whether a hitter is explosive enough to generate power while being quick against quality Verlander pitches.
Jack Hannahan hit 4 homers this spring. What do we make of that?
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ST stats are a little like Cuban stats or AFL stats. I wouldn't build an argument off them.
Certainly not to the extent of saying "well, you think he was fine in March, but you think he lost his stroke in April." No, in March he was not fine. He was not playing major league baseball.
That said, Cust did go long in March, and that's worth considering from a physical-strength standpoint.
Most of the HR leaders in March are ML power hitters (partly because they get the full month's AB's, but still).
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Q. What I see is a picture of a guy who is seeing the ball as well as ever - but who is swinging over the top of EVERYTHING.
Why isn't the ball sailing? Because he hasn't hit a ball "squarely" all season. Maybe that means he's finished. But, he wasn't swinging over everything in ST, and that was less than a month ago.
A. Not wanting to pull rank... how many AB's of Cust's have you visually seen, m'man? :- )
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A LH hitter who is still in his prime ... when a RHP drives a fastball in there, the hitter will do these things:
- Let the ball drive deep, get a good look at it
- Pull the trigger late and explosively
- Get around on the ball, and if it's in the air, the ball will carry well
A LH hitter who is physically done, like Griffey last year, when he gets a fastball, he'll do this:
- Start the swing real early, 'cause he is just not quick enough any more
- Swing smoothly, not explosively
- When he does connect, will make the OF back up a few steps
The main reason I wrote the article is because to me, Jack Cust looks like he is doing the Junior out there.
The second reason: it apparently looked the same to the A's. It does not seem to be giving anybody pause for that, what the Oakland As' evaluation of Cust was. He was drawing tons of BB's for them. They evidently doubted that he would ever deliver anything else.
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Q. Why is he topping the ball more?
A. Because on many of his AB's, he is not even trying to hit home runs any more.
He has gone to a cut-down swing and this swing is much more level. Men on base, he's often trying to line the ball up the middle. That produces the LD's and hard two-bounce grounders.
You remember Russell Branyan hitting the ball straight up in the air? When Cust was going good, he had quite an uppercut.
Cust goes to his "just hit the ball somewhere" swing? With his stiff mechanics, a level swing tops the ball.
Seriously. The GB's reflect his dialing it down.
Here's a 2008 homer from Cust. Any of you guys remember seeing this swing in 2011?
Or watch the game tonight and tell me which pitch he does this on.
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Q. To what extent might luck play in?
A. It's true that he's only hit 14 fly balls this year. He might have 2-3 homers instead of 0, and then the HR/F ratio would be back to 15%, 20%.
This year's HR/F ratio is not the oyster off which you make this soup. Granted, that ratio might be 15% instead of 0.
The oyster is that he looks like Junior at the plate, that the A's powerflushed him, and that there's a ton of corroborating data that says he's done (first article).
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Supposing that Cust had hit 2 more home runs? Where is his 59 OPS+ then?
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Q. Is that for sure?
A. Nah. I figure a 75% chance that I'm reading his swing right, and a 25% chance that he'll fool me and go back to hitting one homer per week.
He doesn't look 40 years old out there. He just looks like he's lost something. He looked that way to the A's, too, a long time ago.
Supposing Cust hit his 25% chance and did return to a 100 OPS+. So what?
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BABVA,
Dr D
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