According to Joe Christensen,
Danny Valencia has been working hard all offseason at improving his overall
game. In addition to trying to repair his shoddy defense, he has used video to help
him make a few changes to his offensive approach:
“Valencia, 27, also studied video of his at-bats and decided to make a subtle change with his hands. Last year, he would trap his hands toward his body, forcing a longer loop before his swing. Now, he is bringing his hands straight back, giving him a straighter path to the ball.”
Here’s a look at what Valencia has seen:
Focus on his hands. Notice that during his loading process,
he drops his hands while bring the bat inside then brings his hands back up to
his launch position. This action is what causes the “longer loop” as
Christensen describes it.
Compare Valencia’s loading process to that of fellow
right-hander and former teammate Michael Cuddyer:
Rather than moving his hands towards his body, Cuddyer simply
shifts his set back to the launch position, maintaining the same linear plane
and creating the “straighter path to the ball.”
From the side view, this will better highlight Valencia’s subtle
hitch in comparison to how level someone like Cuddyer keeps his hands:
What is interesting about this is that throughout his career,
Valencia has had this hitch in his swing – at least it was a trait he featured dating
back to at least 2008 in the
Arizona Fall League. It is clear that he has a hitch but this approach
worked well for him during his time in AA (.287/.353/.483 in 539 plate
appearances), AAA (.289/.322/.421 in 484 plate appearances) and at the major
league level last year (.311/.351/.448 in 322 plate appearances). Of course,
when you come off a season like Valencia did in 2011, obviously the performance
demands some answers.
Did his hitch
derail his season? Were big league pitchers better at exploiting this than their
minor league counterparts?
Delving into
his batted ball numbers, you see almost mirror images of his batted ball
output. The difference lies in the quality of ball put into play (a much higher
well-hit average in 2010) which likely led to the large batting average on
balls in play discrepancy:
|
|
LD%
|
GB%
|
FB%
|
IF/FB%
|
Well-Hit
Avg
|
BABIP
|
|
2010
|
18.8%
|
43.0%
|
38.3%
|
11.2%
|
.264
|
.345
|
|
2011
|
17.8%
|
45.9%
|
36.3%
|
14.8%
|
.222
|
.275
|
(via
Fangraphs.com & myInsideEdge.com)
Plate discipline-wise,
the story remained the same as well. There was a minor growth in a tendency to
expand the strike zone and his contact/strikeout rate both made movement in the
wrong direction but none of those indicators are suggestive of someone
struggling through a season:
|
|
Out
of Zone%
|
Contact%
|
Swinging
Strike%
|
|
2010
|
25.3%
|
82.7%
|
6.9%
|
|
2011
|
27.6%
|
79.5%
|
8.6%
|
(via Fangraphs.com &
myInsideEdge.com)
So, there was
not a spike in ground balls or a great inflation in fly balls that would lead
someone to believe opponents were more successful at keeping him off-balanced
in 2011. Same goes for his plate discipline numbers. What’s more is that with
the exception of a slight shift in more hard-velocity pitches thrown to him
(fastballs, sliders) over off-speed stuff (change-ups, curves), Valencia saw
almost the same palate of pitches.
Nevertheless,
it is hard to ignore how quickly his hit rate dropped between the two years and
how his ability to handle right-handed pitching disappeared as he went from
hitting .280/.303/.410 against them in 2010 to .252/.303/.352 in 2011. Was it
because of his longer swing? Probably not. Will adjusting it help? It’s very
possible.
Without
anyone in the system pressing him at third, the Twins went out an acquired
a small insurance policy in Sean Burroughs. Burroughs, who had a solid defensive
reputation and a decent minor league track record, may be the safety net for
Valencia in 2012 – or a left-handed platoon option if Valencia cannot solve
right-handers.
Based on his
prior successful output with the hitch (or longer loop in his swing) combined
with the batted ball and plate discipline data, it is difficult to pinpoint his
2011 woes on that part of his swing so changing that aspect is not a magic
bullet for him to rebound in 2012. Still, if he’s able to adapt to the new
approach, this should give him a quicker swing (perhaps covering the inside
portion of the plate where he’s had some struggles). And, if he maintains a similar
line drive rate in 2012, it would not be unexpected to see his BABIP increase
and with it, his overall numbers too.
9 comments:
I thought a lot of his problems was that he was slow on high fastballs. He wasn't fast enough to get the bat all the way up, leading to a ton of pop-ups. So a change in his approach could help him.
Of course, I'm not even close to an expert but that was my naked eye concern.
I seem to recall an old saying, that when a guy is going bad it's a "hitch", and when he's going good it's a "timing mechanism".
No denying that Cuddyer kept his hands more still. The videos weren't all that comparable though - in the first one in the first pair the pitch seemed to be something that maybe was supposed to drop and then didn't, and Valencia lowered his hands and then quickly raised them again - I'd like to see his swing on the sinking pitch that you showed Cuddyer hitting at.
As an aside, that first swing by Cuddyer was actually kind of awkward, with his front foot in place for an inside-half pitch and him having to go the other way. So was Valencia's, actually. In the second pair of videos, Cuddyer looked like he had a sweeter pitch to go after.
Love the tittle!
"I seem to recall an old saying, that when a guy is going bad it's a "hitch", and when he's going good it's a "timing mechanism"." --
That statement was applied liberally throughout Dave Winfield's career.
"The videos weren't all that comparable though - in the first one in the first pair the pitch seemed to be something that maybe was supposed to drop and then didn't, and Valencia lowered his hands and then quickly raised them again"
No, it's a trait that Valencia has for his swing, not just this particular pitch. You are more then welcome to scour the MLB.com archives but you will find the same swing regardless of pitch type/location.
"As an aside, that first swing by Cuddyer was actually kind of awkward, with his front foot in place for an inside-half pitch and him having to go the other way. So was Valencia's, actually."
If you study the videos long enough you will see that Cuddyer has that stride almost all the time - towards the pitcher. He's very consistent. Velancia, on the other hand, changes his stride. Sometimes he'll simply lift his front heel while keeping his toe down other times - like the above clip - he'll lift his entire foot. He seems to have a higher tendency to using the full lift in fastball counts.
thanks
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