Maverick Handley 2022

[Legend_Of_Joey]

Left tonight's game after taking a foul ball to the head while behind the dish.

[emmett16]

Slow time of year….some fun info on Maverick from Driveline  Newsletter.  FWIW this data is from last years off-season training, but gives you a glimpse into what guys are doing and are capable of achieving in off-season workouts.  

 

Maverick Handley, Former Pac-12 Co-Defensive Player of the Year and a high draft pick, was already an extremely talented baseball player.  But after his second season of professional baseball was canceled due to COVID-19, Maverick decided he wanted to improve his game. TRAIN WITH US

Pushy Swing Maverick's hands would disconnect from his body, creating a vertical bat path that only makes quality contact further in front of the plate at higher attack angles. We focused on staying connected and flattened his bat path to allow for more productive contact deeper in the zone.  Low Pitch Receiving On the receiving side, the big focus was the low pitch. We added a quarter turn and pre-set the glove slightly lower.  This allowed him to attack upward through the ball instead of having downward reach into the ball.

IMPROVEMENTS 104.2 mph (+4.7 mph) MAX EXIT VELOCITY 101.1 mph (+4.3 mph) TOP 8TH EXIT VELOCITY 89.6 mph (+0.6 mph) AVERAGE EXIT VELOCITY 83 mph (+3.8 mph) THROWING VELOCITY

[Frobby]

11 hours ago, emmett16 said:

Slow time of year….some fun info on Maverick from Driveline  Newsletter.  FWIW this data is from last years off-season training, but gives you a glimpse into what guys are doing and are capable of achieving in off-season workouts.  

 

Maverick's hands would disconnect from his body

 

I found this part pretty disturbing!  I definitely think it’s disadvantageous to hitting and most other things if your hands disconnect from your body!

[owknows]

4 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I found this part pretty disturbing!  I definitely think it’s disadvantageous to hitting and most other things if your hands disconnect from your body!

I took it as a positive that the pushy swing was recognized and remediated (at least worked on with results measurable in exit velocity).

 

I know this is a self-serving newsletter... but still.

[ChosenOne21]

I think someone, somewhere posted something about how the Orioles weren't considering Maverick Handley as the MLB backup catcher out of spring training, and I can't for the life of me figure out why not. Can he really hit that much worse than Bemboom and Chirinos? People were saying Handley was the best defensive catcher in the system when ADLEY was still there. That's got to count for something, right?

[wildcard]

I wanted the O's to protect him from the Rule 5 draft.   He could be ready for the major by June/July.

[CHIP]

On 11/25/2022 at 7:19 AM, wildcard said:

I wanted the O's to protect him from the Rule 5 draft.   He could be ready for the major by June/July.

Driveline did a bit more about Handley via John Soteropulos reviewing his drastic improvement in swing and miss improvements after focusing on this prior to the 2022 season.  Lowered his overall K rate by 11.5% from a 2019-2021 average of 32.3% to 20.8%.  A lot more detail for sure.

 

https://twitter.com/Joney93/status/1581324388498276353?s=20&t=N2742gdDGVVTN0lpAGlL0A