lumafia

I would be hesitant to advise Rizzo make any changes at this point. He needs to come out of his "slump" naturally without making any unnecessary changes. Making changes now would most likely make things worse. All of that being said, the thing I would change with Rizzo would be the head movement during his stride. His stride, which is basically a timing mechanism, is pretty long. Long strides aren't entirely bad, but when they change the position of the hitter's head between the load and contact with the ball, it can have a negative impact. In other words, Rizzo's head comes forward (towards the pitcher) and down slightly as a result of his stride. Again, he was doing the same thing last year, but head movement can make it more difficult to efficiently track the ball. That is one of the first thing's I look for when reviewing mechanics with a hitter. Tracking a baseball is hard enough to do with your eyes being perfectly still. Imagine how much harder it is to do that when the things tracking the target (the eyes) are moving as well. It's interesting that someone pointed out that he might be having trouble with pitches that are low and in. If that were the case, this could (it could be something else entirely) a result of not being able to effectively track a pitch in that area due to the movement of the head. Pitchers may have recognized this weakness in his hitting zone and are taking advantage.

. Is that another way of saying what lumafia posted? Seems like a safe bet. Besides, I'm not sure how this explains why he's swinging and badly missing at absolute garbage for a worrisome strikeout rate. That's the biggest problem right now. I've been checking more video of Rizzo from 2012 when he was hitting "better" against the most recent videos and I see no changes in his mechanics. Sveum is correct in that he does "hit with his hands". In other words, he isn't using his lower body and core as effectively as possible (what I said in my earlier post), but he was doing the same thing last year. In other words, based on the eye test alone, everything looks the same. The worst thing that can happen to Rizzo is for anybody to tell him to do anything other than what he has been doing. He might be swinging at bad pitches because he is pressing and is not relaxed, and it might be that the pitcher's in the league are adjusting. Mechanically, he is the same as he was last year, though he could refine some things that would put him in a different category.

No he doesn't. He drops his hands as part of his pre-load, but when the ball is released by the pitcher, they are in the proper location. He has a very efficient track to the ball in relation to his stance. Nope. Dynamic counter.... Thank you. Just as law stated, he drops his hands creating more lift but at a cost if things start to go astray mechanically. In general I'm not a big fan of a lot of noise in the batter's box. Rizzo is very noisy and it's hard to stay consistent. I'm not really interested in a pissing contest so take whatever I write any way you want. Nope is good for me. Law doesn't know what he's talking about either. I have yet to find a single video that shows Rizzo's hands in any position below the path of the ball. When his leg moves forward (trigger) after he brings his hands up (load), his hands are in a perfect position. He has a short quick path to the ball. Now, maybe all of the video evidence from the past 2 years ONLY shows his hands in the right position, or everybody is getting caught up on his "noisy" pre-load mechanics. None of that matters. If I knew how to do it, I would post a still image from a recent video (in the past week) of his mechanics in the "trigger" position. It is nearly perfect. This isn't to say his swing is perfect. He opens his hips a little too quickly, his feet point away from his center of balance and he doesn't torque his front and rear leg together enough at the point of impact. These things reduce his bat speed and need to be corrected long term, but none of those issues have anything to do with his hands.

No he doesn't. He drops his hands as part of his pre-load, but when the ball is released by the pitcher, they are in the proper location. He has a very efficient track to the ball in relation to his stance.

The "lu" refers to the university where I played baseball.

By all accounts, most scouts think pretty highly of Vogelbach. It's hard to find a scouting service that doesn't think Vogelbach will be an outstanding ML hitter. Mechanically, the only problems he had coming out of high school (weight shifting forward during load, head movement) have already been corrected. He has either done this on his own, or somebody has helped him with it. Looking at his swing, and the corrections he has made this early in his career, I would expect him to keep hitting. He just doesn't have any holes in his swing. He has one of the more efficient swings I've ever seen. He has the potential to move through the system quickly based purely on his ability to hit. As many have mentioned, he doesn't really have a position. As incredible as Rizzo has been to this point, I would project Vogelbach to become a better major league hitter. It's a good problem to have, but if he keeps hitting, and I suspect he will, he should bring a really nice return in a trade to an AL team.

Well, I have reviewed some of Brett's batting practice/minor league videos online... It's really quite amazing that a prospect can get through so many levels of a professional baseball organization with such elementary mechanical flaws. Impressive analysis. Hitting a baseball is a complex task. Why all of a sudden are these things going to be correctable at the Major League level? I.e., they won't be corrected. These aren't enormous changes. They are very correctable, hence my suprise that they have not been corrected already. Jackson is young enough to make changes, even at the ML level. These changes may just take a little time in the cage and on the tee. But 3 things have to happen. 1)The Cubs have to recognize these flaws, 2) implement a plan to fix these flaws and 3) Jackson has to be receptive to the changes.

Well, I have reviewed some of Brett's batting practice/minor league videos online. Of course, all of the video is crap and none of it provides the best angle. I'm going to use Bryce Harper as a point of reference since they have similar body types, hit left-handed and have similar swings. Mechanically, there are 3 flaws that are pretty obvious. 2 of them are related to one another. The 2 that are related are the leg kick and the head. He has an exaggerated leg kick as part of his load (please, keep the jokes to a minimum). He brings his leg up and back, very similar to Bryce Harper (a swing we have seen a kajillion times). The difference is that Bryce keeps his head still and keeps his weight back. I still think Harper's exaggerated leg kick and the fact that he gets his foot down late has slightly retarted what has been an otherwise amazing start to his career. Anyway, back to Jackson. His weight shifts forward quickly when he puts his foot down (he puts it down late I might add), thus moving his head. So, when the pitcher prepares to release the ball, he rocks back, lifts his leg, rocks forward and puts his leg down. He also puts his leg down further out from where it started, thus lowering his head as well. Hitting a MLB pitch is hard enough, but it's even harder when the things (eyes) tracking the 95 mph moving target are moving as well. I think these things are related. If he can reduce his leg kick to a soft kick, where he essentially picks it up slightly off the ground and puts it down in the same location and turns his body instead of rocking back, it would help him tremendously. Those things can be corrected easily with plenty of tee time. The other issue, which is probably the biggest concern, is the hand movement/location. It's atrocious. I can't understand how he's been able to get this far. During the load process, he drops his hands to just above his waist/below his numbers. He also tilts the bat head slightly towards the pitcher. All of this is happening as the pitcher releases the ball. He then has to correct the angle of his hands so that he can drag the bat through the zone. If he gets a fastball up in the zone, he'll be lucky to hit it. He might literally have to swing UP at a ball high in the zone to hit it. If he is able to hit these pitches at all, then it means he is committed to hitting the fastball up and will most likely struggle with anything off-speed. It's harder to stop a swing than it is to start one. Going back to Bryce Harper, you'll notice that he starts his hands up and keeps them there. He never drops them below his shoulders. By doing this, he always ensures that gravity will help him with his swing. It's so much easier, and quicker, to start you swing momentum down than it is to start out on the same plane as the ball, where you are relying entirely on your own strength to generate momentum. This is harder to fix, but it can be fixed. During the load, he simply needs to push his hands back slightly. He almost needs to push them in the opposite direction of his front foot, and then start the swing from there. The other way to "fix" these things is for Brett to get extraordinarily stronger so that his strength can make up for the mechancial flaws. It's really quite amazing that a prospect can get through so many levels of a professional baseball organization with such elementary mechanical flaws.

His issues have to be mechanical. It's hard to understand how a guy can square a ball up as often as he has and strike out as much as he has. If someone wants to post a video, or link to a video, I would like to take a look at his swing to see if anything stands out.

Historically, the crowds are always smaller on the 4th regular season game played on the first Monday of the regular season after a major earthquake in Japan.

This is great. They are turning college baseball into college softball.

Only the Cubs.

So Alomar gets in even though he had unprotected sex with 2 women without disclosing that he had HIV, but McGuire gets held out based on a morality clause? That's good to know. I hate the Hall of Fame.

In reference to the hits, I'm not a big fan of the helmet to helment hits on guys that aren't "able" to brace for the impact. That being said, the fact that teammates of guys who are getting knocked unconscious aren't standing up for them makes me a little less concerned. If guys playing against James Harrison really cared about their teammates, it would be handled the way baseball and hockey handles it. Eye for an eye, and then it's over. If you don't like the fact that James Harrison is out there trying to knock your receivers unconscious on every play, you tell him before the game that if he wants the receivers on his team to leave the field under their own power, he needs to make sure his hits are clean. If not, he'll have to explain to his QB and/or receivers that the reason they spent the afternoon in an MRI machine is because his idea of seperating a receiver from the ball is turning himself into a torpedo.

Wow. I would love to read the thread where somebody said that curve balls didn't actually curve. not a thread, some physicist or somebody made the claim a long time ago. Don't remember details. That's awesome. They must have made that claim prior to the invention of airplanes.

Wow. I would love to read the thread where somebody said that curve balls didn't actually curve.

Yeah, mind-bottling. You know, when things are so crazy it gets your thoughts all trapped, like in a bottle?

It's perfectly acceptable for a fan to consider the 2010 season the most brutal season he/she can remember. The level of success, or failure, in the mind of a fan can be sculpted by many things, none of which can be defined as right or wrong.

So....managers think it's important that the umpires get the call correct? We really needed to see results of a survey to uncover that?

:roll:

Just some of it? Some instances of ignorance are tolerable, but other instances are so categorically absurd that it leaves me agape.

Wow. Some of the ignorance on this board is stifling.

Again, unbalanced scheduling makes rewarding division winners necessary. There is no way that teams from different divisions have the same schedule strength. So a 95-67 record in one division may not be the same as a 95-67 record in another division. That's the ultimate issue. What is fair, and what generates excitement and tickets sales are 2 different things. If we all wanted it to be "fair", it would be a round robin format for the regular season where everybody plays everybody else the exact same number of times, and then the top 8 or 10 teams would play a "seaded" tournament consisting of best-of-seven series with only 1 day off during each series. The only other method would be to have a formula that would be able to calculate and "account for" the strength of schedule based on the division and the un-balanced scheduling. Isn't a form of this what many, myself included, are wanting to get away from in college football? I'm not advocating for the use of a BCS-style format to MLB, but I do think it would be more relevant based on the large sample size, i.e. 162 games instead of 11 or 12. The other problem with the BCS is "how" the points are calculated. In baseball, you could propose a very simple formula based on the limited number of teams and the fact that they all play each other.

Again, unbalanced scheduling makes rewarding division winners necessary. There is no way that teams from different divisions have the same schedule strength. So a 95-67 record in one division may not be the same as a 95-67 record in another division. That's the ultimate issue. What is fair, and what generates excitement and tickets sales are 2 different things. If we all wanted it to be "fair", it would be a round robin format for the regular season where everybody plays everybody else the exact same number of times, and then the top 8 or 10 teams would play a "seaded" tournament consisting of best-of-seven series with only 1 day off during each series. The only other method would be to have a formula that would be able to calculate and "account for" the strength of schedule based on the division and the un-balanced scheduling.

That is a whole bunch of nonsense stuffed into a couple sentences. Divisions are relatively new things. Having everybody in each league all bunched together is a relic from the past. Divisions have been around in MLB for 41 years. I wouldn't exactly call that "new". Technically, different "divisions" of the same entity began 90 years ago when the first baseball commissioner was appointed to make unilateral decisions for all of professional baseball.