From Ken Rosenthal (FOX Sports):
For Alex Rodriguez, the adjustment was simple — swing at strikes, the way he did in the first two rounds of the playoffs.
For Nick Swisher, the change was far more dramatic — stunning, in fact, considering that it came in the middle of the World Series.
Swisher, benched in Game 2, completely overhauled his stance for Game 3, spreading his legs far apart in the batter’s box.
So much for his 4-for-35 slump in the postseason.
Swisher went 2-for-4 in the Yankees’ 8-5 victory, hitting a double to start a three-run rally in the fifth inning and a solo home run in the sixth.
Yankees hitting coach Kevin Long said that Swisher’s new stance is the first step of a major overhaul that will continue in the offseason.
Swisher, a switch-hitter, had tried the stance in the batting cage and in batting practice in recent days, taking approximately 300 swings from each side.
The idea, Long said, is “to eliminate movement, put yourself in better position to react to the baseball.
“Everyone knows he is a great fastball hitter,” Long continued. “They’ve been trying to off-speed him to death. When you have a lot of motion — he has a toe tap and also a long stride — pitches are tough to see, tough to react to.”
Here’s Swisher’s old stance, seen just a few days ago, in Game 1 of the World Series:
Now, here’s Swisher’s revamped stance, which made its debut last night, in Game 2, against Cole Hamels.
I really don’t think that Rosenthal described the change well in his article. Swisher had an extremely wide stance prior to the change, however, his stance was noticeably more open. In his “new” stance, Swisher continues keeping his legs far apart, yet now he’s much more closed off at the plate (the Yankees made a similar change to Robinson Cano’s stance over the winter). I watched a few videos and the toe tap timing mechanism is still there, except it’s not nearly as pronounced. Plus, Swisher has adopted a Gary Sheffield like bat waggle with the closed off stance, which he may have to work on eliminating over the off-season. As Kevin Long says, it’s a work-in-progress and, based on the way in which the new stance looks, I think the change could help Swisher hit for a higher average in 2010.
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Good pick-up Chris…
Pulling yourself together to hit the ball takes to long and to many moving parts, everything has to be perfect…when it is, you have a hot time…when not, not so much.
In retrospect, baseball and golf are alike (in some regards) “approach, timing and repetition”, well talent also helps.
Go for it Swish, make Long a great hitting coach!
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The other Chris H Reply:
November 1st, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Long actually is a pretty decent hitting coach he helped out Cano in the offseason while in the Dominican (and I think he is again this offseason), he helped Arod to get rid of his huge leg kick when they went down to Boston and Alex starting getting his power groove on after that and he has obviously worked with Melky because he has stopped trying to jerk as many balls as before. I criticized both Eiland and Long and they have both proven that they know what they are doing.
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If the talent is there and the player is willing to work with the coach, one gets good results. Some players say things like; “This has worked all these years, why should I change now”. Very stupid of them, age and everyone else has changed the way they pitch you…so change or make room for someone that can do a better job and is willing to learn. Also, all of us pick up bad habits as we play, we need a coach to pick-up on it and let us know about it.
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The other Chris H Reply:
November 1st, 2009 at 7:16 pm
I also think it has a lot to do with the way you explain things, I know some coaches say the exact same thing in two different ways and in one way it clicks more in your head. This is evident with Eiland and Gaudin’s change up, everything I read when we acquired Chad showcased him having a terrible change up and lefties were killing him because of it, now I know the Padres tried to work with Gaudin on his change but it never sunk in. With Eiland it was almost an immediate difference in how effective his change up actually was. Both coaches and Girardi deserve a lot of credit this year! I am a believer in taking coaches who can bring out the best in players over a great X’s and O’s coach or manager and this staff really has these players playing hard and together and you can’t highlight that enough in this team!
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“Everyone knows he is a great fastball hitter,” Long continued. “They’ve been trying to off-speed him to death.”
That part is the key to me… They have been curving and chnaging him up all postseason and it really shows some heads upness by Long to be willing to fiddle with his swing now and actually get it done (or at least the first steps done). If Swisher can take care of the hole in his swing you should see his average go up! Swisher works the count 3-2 more than any batter in the league but he only bats like .220 with a 3-2 count and he sees almost exclusively breaking balls on a 3-2 count and he chases a lot of those 3-2 breaking balls for strike outs, if he can react quicker to breaking stuff you should see his 3-2 count production go up and since he puts himself in that position so often just getting his average up in that scenario could help his whole average come up a lot!
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With a 3-2 count he has to cut down on his swing a bit also.
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