Tim McCarver's Baseball for Brain Surgeons and Other Fans by Tim McCarver

Author:Tim McCarver [McCarver, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-83177-4
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2013-04-11T00:00:00+00:00

Guys with big cuts have a tough time catching up to the fastball, inside or outside. The shorter your stroke, the longer you can wait and the fewer bad balls you will swing at. So it would be a good idea for some batters to spread their legs to cut down their strides, assuring their stroke will be more compact. You hear players talk about long swings. Remember: Short, quick, and strong is better than long and strong.

Edgar Martinez, a marvelous right-handed line-drive power hitter, has the ideal compact swing. He stands with his right foot close to the plate and left side slightly open, and looks for a ball to pull, although he also has success going the other way. Because of his short stroke, he is quick on the inside pitch and high strikes over the middle, and he is also very aggressive on the outside part of the plate. His hand quickness allows him to wait, and he gets great plate coverage, which I think makes him the toughest guy to pitch to in the American League. Most hitters adjust their swings because of the count or an intimidating pitcher, but not Martinez and the left-handed Tony Gwynn, the hardest out in the National League. They are fluid with all their swings.

Paul Molitor has a patented compact swing that works wonders for him but shouldn’t be imitated by young right-handed batters. It would make more sense for them to pattern themselves on someone like Nomar Garciaparra, who exhibits no wasted motion, than on the rare batter who is virtually motionless at the plate. When the low-first camera focuses on Molitor, you will have a hard time understanding how he generates the power he displays because his hands don’t go back to trigger his swing. He gets away with this because, like Joe DiMaggio, who was also motionless at the plate, Molitor has exceptional hand speed and weight transfer and uses the powerful muscles he has in his big pecs and forearms.

Almost all other batters need a trigger. You take the bat back and then forward and your hips move in unison. I had a problem in that I was comfortable starting my swing up front by my head, which meant I would have to pull my bat back pretty far to trigger my swing. Other left-handed batters didn’t have to be as quick as I did because they started with their hands already back. I would run the risk of taking the bat back too far, and if you do that you make contact over the plate instead of in front. When I slumped, I’d hit the lazy fly the other way on pitches that were up and away … my nemesis.

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