What impressed me... what didn't.

[klaiggeb]

Let's start with the obvious; Jarrett Parker. NOT the HR, although that was impressive,but rather that 1st at bat... when he flat out didn't give in against Kazmir.

Then the HR.

Wow.

2-Belt going the OTHER way on that outside fastball for a single. THAT'S hitting

3-Ty Blach. Command, stuff, moxey. From what I saw, he picked up where he left off last year.

4-Tomlinson-Just what we expect; outstanding 2 strike hitting.


What didn't impress me.

1-Matt Cain. I love Matt Cain, but what I saw was nothing more than a continuation of what we saw last year. I said it before Bochy did; Just like last year, he cruises along... and then loses the strike zone.

2-Beckham. You know I watch mechanics, and it's my opinion that Beckham's set up is what kills him. Tight hands, HIGH back elbow, bat pointed more or less in the direction of the mound. Causes his failure to NOT square up pitches.

After 4 innings, that's my take.

boly

[sfgdood]

No offense, Boly, but at this point in the Cactus League, most of this means exactly SQUAT

[Rog]

I'm sorry, Randy, but you're acting like a child. Boly makes good observations, and you try to kill his comment and his enthusiasm. Meanwhile, you last salient comment came -- well, I don't remember when.

We've seen good stuff from you, Randy, but we haven't seen it lately. With spring training here, Boly is stepping up his game. Why don't you?

[klaiggeb]

I understand your point, Randy, and you are right; it's early.

But my biggest complaint against Belt, outside of his multiple brain-dead moments was his UN willingness to go the other way. I was merely commenting that I liked his approach.

That's all.

He NEEDS to be working on these things EARLY in the spring so they become a habit.

boly

[klaiggeb]

2nd Impressions:

I liked Ruggiano's set up. Shoulder down, bat flat, lots of coverage through the hitting zone.

Beckham. I don't see him making the team BECAUSE of his bat; or lack thereof.

His technique is poor and if he can't hit, I'd rather have Tomlinson... who can, even though Kelby likely isn't the defensive player Gordon is.

Slayton-Great power the other way! But can he play defense?

boly

[Rog]

. Parker got the start against a southpaw, and he made the most of it. We heard a week ago today he would likely be the starter in left field, and he has certainly played like it.

. When Brandon got the single, it went back through my head that Brandon hits the ball in the air to the left side and a lot of ground balls and line drives to the right. I believe the hit would be called a liner, and Brandon hit 33 line drives to the left side of second last season. Because of his unlevel swing path, he hits more balls in the air to left than right, and he hits them higher. That's also easy to tell from the time portion of his spray chart. Did anyone aside from Boly look at it? It certainly confirms what we've been saying about him, including explaining why the over-shift is so effective even though he does hit the ball to left fairly often.

Boly should weigh in on this, but it appears to me that Brandon is holding bat too upright, causing his hands to go through the strike zone with his left wrist bent too far backward. Maybe that's what Boly has said before. That contributes to his bat angle and I think also is responsible for his bat once in a while whipping through the zone as his wrists break loose, allowing him to hit a low pitch toward the inside a long way in the air with what appears at first to be modest contact. I'm not sure I've seen any other batter hit the ball quite that way, and at the very least it is rare. It's rare even for Brandon, but it does happen sometimes. Looks like a ball hit softly but goes out of the park to right or right center. With only 17 home runs, clearly he hasn't done it often!

. I think Boly described Blach's performance to a T. He has to rely heavily on command. Perhaps a guy the manager should keep a close eye on, since like Matt Cain, he can probably lose it in a hurry.

. Because he doesn't strike out much, Tomlinson is indeed a good two-strike hitter as Mike Krukow said. But that means hitting .222 with two strikes as opposed to the normal sub-.200 batting average in that situation.

. At this point in his career, Cain's command has to be right on. He was throwing 86, although the ball that was hit the hardest came in at 87. As Boly said, it's inexplicable that he can have such nice command and then suddenly lose it. Although I realize he threw a small number of pitches, could it be a tiring thing?


Going back to Blach, he really turned his season around last July, posting a 2.28 ERA the rest of the season. Even more impressive was his 0.92 WHIP. His 7.5 K/9 wasn't great, but it was a noticeable improvement over his previous 6.3. His K/BB ratio jumped to 4.3 from 2.7. He yielded just one home run over July and August after giving up eight the first three months of the season. Sounds like a big leap in command.

[Islandboagie]

Randy- No offense, Boly, but at this point in the Cactus League, most of this means exactly SQUAT

Boagie- You are correct. But it's still interesting to hear opinions of what someone sees during a game, even if the game doesn't matter.

What I normally look for in spring is how players coming off injuries are looking. The players this year falling in that category would be Cain, Pence and Panik.

The other thing I look at are the young players like Parker, Williamson, Arroyo, Okert, Beede and Blach because they're playing for more than just getting ready for the season.

What the veterans do has almost no importance. I've seen too many times a veteran having a good spring and end up sucking during the regular seadon. Didn't Denard Span have a good 2016 spring? Or have an awful spring then are brilliant during the season. Barry Zito in 2012 comes to mind.

There have also been four-A players that have wonderful springs then go onto being four-A players during the regular season. Damon Minor was a great spring hitter, as was Niekro, but they stunk in regular season.

[klaiggeb]

Boagie-Every time I watch Blach pitch, I become more and more impressed.

He really looks like he's ready to make the mental jump as well as the physical one... and I love the "wanna!" that I see in him.

boly

[Rog]

But my biggest complaint against Belt, outside of his multiple brain-dead moments was his UN willingness to go the other way. I was merely commenting that I liked his approach.


Rog -- If you are saying that you're disappointed Brandon Belt doesn't hit more GROUNDERS to the left side, I'm with you. But if you're merely saying that Brandon doesn't go the other way, here is a fact:

Last season 30.6% of the balls Brandon hit went to left field according to Fan Graphs. That's well above the 25.9% Joe Panik hit that way.

I realize it SEEMS that Joe hits to left more often than Brandon -- and to some it would seem it isn't even close. In 2015 Joe DID hit the ball to left more often -- 29.1% to Brandon's 25.8%. In 2014 Joe hit the ball to left more often, and by a lot -- 29.1% to 21.2%

What we see is that despite his alleged stubbornness to go to left, Brandon has improved by a lot the past two seasons. On the other hand, Joe has gone backward just a bit.

It's as if we don't believe Fan Graph's numbers. Fan Graphs have no ax to grind, and I'm pretty sure I can assure us that major league teams use their data.

If we're going to criticize Brandon for not hitting the ball on the GROUND to left field, the spray charts I presented showed we would have a valid argument. But that's not what has been said. If we're saying he is too stubborn to try to go to left field itself, we're way off base.

The facts say otherwise. I think we need to look very, very closely at our opinions when they aren't congruent with the facts.

Saying that Brandon Belt is too stubborn to try to go to left field is quite simply incongruent with the facts -- as in it goes in the face of the facts.

My guess is that Brandon would have to pretty much completely re-tool his swing in order to hit significantly more ground balls to left field. What he COULD do is bunt more in that direction. We've been espousing that since the over-shift began -- although that would likely make Randy say all the more that Brandon is, well you know.

Could Brandon be a better hitter in three years if he properly re-tooled his swing? Probably. But he might not be too good in the meantime, and he's darn good as it is.

If I were Brandon I would bunt more often. I would pick my spots. With no outs, I would bunt a LOT. With one out I would bunt very situationally. With two outs, I wouldn't bunt at all unless it was against a pitcher who gave me a ton of trouble.

But I probably wouldn't work to re-tool my swing -- unless I felt I could do so very quickly (as in if I could do it next winter without losing anything in 2018, I would do so). Brandon's OPS+ -- which takes into account park effect and where average hitting produces a 100 OPS+ -- is 127. Some players who played/have played over 1000 games who have OPS+ of 127 are Robinson Cano, Jim Ray Hart, Rickey Henderson, Wee Willie Keeler and Joe Mauer. The player with the same OPS who probably most closely compares to Brandon as a hitter would be Don Mincher, who also didn't have a high batting average but got on base and had reasonable power.

I'm not saying Brandon is as good a hitter as the other guys. There are other factors involved. But that Brandon has a career OPS+ of 127 shows pretty much unconditionally that he's an above-average hitter. It would be virtually impossible for a hitter to rank 27% higher than average on a reasonable, objective scale and be below-average in reality. OPS+ isn't an end-all, be-all, but it's pretty well accepted by the baseball community.

And anyone who is paying close attention can see that Brandon hits the ball to left field a lot more often than he did two years ago. That part is a fact.

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[klaiggeb]

Roger, I watch a hitters hands. To hit the ball the other way, the hitter leads with his hands, throwing the knob of the bat through first, the bat head follows and is in a plain to hit the ball the other way.

I don't often see that from Belt, which is why I made the comment.

What I see is his right side flying open, bat-head lead to pull the ball.

boly

[Rog]

Roger, I watch a hitters hands. To hit the ball the other way, the hitter leads with his hands, throwing the knob of the bat through first, the bat head follows and is in a plain to hit the ball the other way.

I don't often see that from Belt, which is why I made the comment.


Rog -- In reality, Boly, wasn't your comment "But my biggest complaint against Belt, outside of his multiple brain-dead moments was his UN willingness to go the other way."? He went to left more often than Joe Panik last season, after Joe overpowered him in that regard two years ago. That's showing an unwillingness to go the other way?

My wife should be so unwilling!

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[Rog]

He really looks like he's ready to make the mental jump as well as the physical one.


Rog -- I think Ty may have already made the mental jump. Or perhaps it's just that he's been able to execute it well of late.




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[klaiggeb]

Roger-
Rog -- In reality, Boly, wasn't your comment "But my biggest complaint against Belt, outside of his multiple brain-dead moments was his UN willingness to go the other way."?

***boly says***

Yes, that WAs my comment.

Thus my POSITIVE comment when I actually saw him execute it and do it well.

boly

[Rog]

Thus my POSITIVE comment when I actually saw him execute it and do it well.


Rog -- Thanks for noting it. It appears that Brandon has been working for some time on going to left field more. I do think (without going back to the spray charts) that he's still hitting more balls to the right side than the left, but it doesn't appear to be very one-sided.

If he could hit more GROUND balls to the left side, that would be great. But if he hasn't changed the type of balls he hits to the left side, he certainly has increased the number of them. I do with he would bunt more though. He could pick up a lot of hits in situations where the Giants need a runner, at worst he would advance some runners, and he could reduce the amount of the over-shift, which would almost certainly result in more balls getting through the infield.



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[klaiggeb]

I've thought about the reasons Brandon DOESN'T hit more ground balls to the right side, Rog, and here's what I've decided;

That funky bat angle through the hitting zone.

It's a 'lift' stroke, not a ground ball stroke.

Until that "Criquette-like" bat angle changes, he'll be a fly ball guy to most fields, especially LF.

boly

[Rog]

I've thought about the reasons Brandon DOESN'T hit more ground balls to the right side, Rog, and here's what I've decided;

That funky bat angle through the hitting zone.

It's a 'lift' stroke, not a ground ball stroke.

Until that "Criquette-like" bat angle changes, he'll be a fly ball guy to most fields, especially LF.


Rog -- I think you're right on here. Surprisingly though, he hits more line drives and especially ground balls to the right side of second than flies. One would think that with his cricket swing, when he gets around on balls he would hit a lot of fly balls. One thing that is truly unusual is that when hitting the ball to the right side last season, Brandon only ONE blooper. Every other ball was a ground ball, line drive or true fly ball. And a high percentage were ground balls. Not what we would expect.


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