A few years ago, John Levesque, sports columnist for the now defunct Seattle Post-Intelligencer, tried to answer that question when he wrote, “When it comes to imparting knowledge and teaching the principles of hitting, big-league hitting coaches really don’t do much of either…“Even if they tried to teach hitting, they’d run into a solid wall of resistance from self-centered, supremely focused athletes who’ve made it this far on talent and ability and aren’t about to change their swings for anyone, even if he’s got street cred in Cooperstown.”
Former Minnesota Twins hitting coach Rob Ellis, who wrote a book with Hall of Fame slugger Mike Schmidt about hitting, took things a step further.
Ellis told Levesque, “There’s very little solid instruction going on [at the major league level]. The hitting coach tends to be a PR guy, a hitter’s best friend, a security blanket, a go-to guy for salve on his wounds, a friendly guy who’s a little bit psychologist and a little bit con man…
“I never met one truly effective hitting coach. The system is not set up to teach hitting.” …
Advertisements
July 8, 2011
Can a hitting coach change things?
2 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
I think so, the approch they have is terrible… and it’s crazy that they have the worst offensive execution! they can learn if greg would teach them.
rios and dunn just look clueless.
Comment by Anonymous — July 8, 2011 @ July 8, 2011 4:26 pm |
I understand that walker or whomever could/should teach them
but will they listen?
Comment by The Wizard — July 8, 2011 @ July 8, 2011 5:29 pm |