Jackson Holliday 2024

[Spy Fox]

27 minutes ago, Roy Firestone said:

Coby Mayo has EARNED a call up. Jackson Holliday has not.

Right at this moment that's true-- Mayo is more deserving of being the next callup. But I think Holliday was deserving of the call up when it happened. And he'd have been deserving of some more MLB time, even with his awful statline, if this team weren't so stacked. 

[OnlyOneOriole]

31 minutes ago, Roy Firestone said:

Coby Mayo has EARNED a call up. Jackson Holliday has not.

Agree.  

[Sports Guy]

They have both earned the call up.

[OnlyOneOriole]

13 minutes ago, UMDTerrapins said:

He has. And odds are good he struggles at first. League batting average is .239 and there are a good number of vets who are putting up awful numbers so far. JH demotion was badly needed...he just wasn't ready yet. Mayo, Kjerstad, Norby......in today's baseball these guys are going to need a commitment of playing time in order to develop them into productive MLB hitters......moreso than in the past. The gap between AAA and MLB success is wider than ever. So the thought of trying to break these guys in by splitting their time with guys like Hays, Mateo, Urias, O'Hearn seems like a miscalculation of the current day environment of MLB that you wouldn't expect from the kind of front office we have. Just my read of course....not gospel. 

I think that is a very reasonable take.  Pitchers, especially middle relief pitching but all pitching as well, is just so much better than it used to be. 

 

I do think the leg kick is a big issue.   In the minors he can get away with it and still keep his timing intact.  In the majors?   Where velocity, spin, and movement is all magnified?   It is much harder to keep the balance throughout the swing that one needs to be successful.

 

All imo of course. 

[Aristotelian]

1 minute ago, OnlyOneOriole said:

I think that is a very reasonable take.  Pitchers, especially middle relief pitching but all pitching as well, is just so much better than it used to be. 

 

I do think the leg kick is a big issue.   In the minors he can get away with it and still keep his timing intact.  In the majors?   Where velocity, spin, and movement is all magnified?   It is much harder to keep the balance throughout the swing that one needs to be successful.

 

All imo of course. 

Anyone watching his AB's right now? Is he using the time at Norfolk to work on the leg kick and change it up at all? 

[OnlyOneOriole]

2 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

Anyone watching his AB's right now? Is he using the time at Norfolk to work on the leg kick and change it up at all? 

I saw a couple highlights and it did look a little less pronounced.  Maybeeee?  Possibly not keeping his leg in the air quite as long as he was, but it wasn't a super big change.  If any.

 

The one thing I see with his leg kick is whenever he swings and misses, because he keeps that leg so long in the air that once he commits to a swing, he loses his balance a lot.  He does the leg kick, letting his foot dangle in the air, and then tries to pull the trigger while its still in mid air.  That is hard to do and hard to time.  Many times his foot still seems in the air when the ball is already by him.  And every single time the right leg kick foot ends up going straight towards first base instead of towards the pitcher.  This causes his entire body to pull off the ball and towards first base and he just has no chance doing that.   All swings and misses. 

Watch Gunnar for comparison.   Much more on balance and his stride foot when swinging is more or less at the pitcher, which keeps his entire body and swing plane where it should be.  

[.500_OR_BETTER]

15 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

Anyone watching his AB's right now? Is he using the time at Norfolk to work on the leg kick and change it up at all? 

No.  No change.

[Frobby]

I would not expect a player who’s been as successful as Holliday to start overhauling his mechanics based on a couple of bad weeks in his major league debut.  

[lfallo1]

31 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

Anyone watching his AB's right now? Is he using the time at Norfolk to work on the leg kick and change it up at all? 

Hasn't changed in terms of removing it and don't notice anything less pronounced.  I would imagine they (coaches + JH) are just trying to get the timing back.

[RZNJ]

19 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I would not expect a player who’s been as successful as Holliday to start overhauling his mechanics based on a couple of bad weeks in his major league debut.  

Overhaul, maybe not but he seems very in tune with why he does what he does so I think he must have a pretty good idea why he was whiffing on so many fastballs, why he hit so few balls hard, and why he hit so few to LF.  I showed his minor league highlights which at one time showed no leg kick at all.   He’s made changes before.  IMO, he added the leg kick to tap into more power and it led to some bad habits that were exposed at the ML level.   I assume someone as smart and analytical as he is, isn’t going  to keep doing the same exact things that didn’t work, to say the least, at the MLB level.

[jabba72]

26 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I would not expect a player who’s been as successful as Holliday to start overhauling his mechanics based on a couple of bad weeks in his major league debut.  

I would hope it was a humbling experience for him. Which means some adjustments are required.

[Moose Milligan]

11 minutes ago, jabba72 said:

I would hope it was a humbling experience for him. Which means some adjustments are required.

I think the truth, as is with most things, is somewhere in the middle.  

He doesn't need to "overhaul" anything.  He's also got to work on a few things.

Now, what those few things are, none of us know right now.  Ben McDonald makes one comment about his leg kick and everyone here seems to have taken it as gospel.  

I'm sure we'll learn after he comes back up and plays well.  But the rampant speculation about the leg kick being the thing that held him back in the majors is silly.  It might be true in the end, but right now some of you guys would believe that Mark Teixiera was at a Ravens game.

[OnlyOneOriole]

What is odd is if you watch this video from 5 months ago in a home run derby against his brother and dad, he barely lifted his leg at all.   And he was jacking them....granted it was against a pitching machine.

I wonder what made him change before this season?

 

youtube

 

Edited May 7 by OnlyOneOriole

[OnlyOneOriole]

58 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I would not expect a player who’s been as successful as Holliday to start overhauling his mechanics based on a couple of bad weeks in his major league debut.  

True,  but look at the video I posted from last winter.  His leg kick was much lower.

[Rbiggs2525]

Just now, OnlyOneOriole said:

True,  but look at the video I posted from last winter.  His leg kick was much lower.

They may lower the leg kick but it’s mainly his timing mechanism. I think Elias saw something more in his swing path that is keeping him from hitting high fastballs. Teams attack Mike Trout the same way.