FIX THE DANG HITTING!

[Sports Guy]

 

[casadeozo]

44 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

 

A pretty milquetoast generic response IMO 

[dystopia]

 

[spiritof66]

3 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

 

The language here is so imprecise that it's hard for me to follow, but it sounds like Fuller is saying a couple things that, if I'm right, are disturbing:

1. The coaches are giving advice to the hitters about the right mental approach, but the hitters are unable (or unwilling) to follow it. It's just too hard for them to implement the coaches' sound advice when they're at the plate. If that's the case we need new batters or new coaches or both.

2. Reviewing successful ABs and comparing what guys did then with what they're doing now. It sounds like that effort is just getting under way, or at least that it's recent. If they weren't doing that stuff two months ago, why weren't they?

The message that does come through is that the coaches have some good ideas about what to do. That's so comforting to hear. 

 

[Sports Guy]

45 minutes ago, spiritof66 said:

The language here is so imprecise that it's hard for me to follow, but it sounds like Fuller is saying a couple things that, if I'm right, are disturbing:

1. The coaches are giving advice to the hitters about the right mental approach, but the hitters are unable (or unwilling) to follow it. It's just too hard for them to implement the coaches' sound advice when they're at the plate. If that's the case we need new batters or new coaches or both.

2. Reviewing successful ABs and comparing what guys did then with what they're doing now. It sounds like that effort is just getting under way, or at least that it's recent. If they weren't doing that stuff two months ago, why weren't they?

The message that does come through is that the coaches have some good ideas about what to do. That's so comforting to hear. 

 

I think he’s just saying that no matter what you show them and no matter how much you work on them with it, the onus is on the players to not get tight and overthink things mentally.  And that’s true. If you press and you get tight mentally, no coaching can help that.

[spiritof66]

2 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

I think he’s just saying that no matter what you show them and no matter how much you work on them with it, the onus is on the players to not get tight and overthink things mentally.  And that’s true. If you press and you get tight mentally, no coaching can help that.

You and I agree that Fuller's take is that the reason (or part of the reason) for the failed offense is Oriole hitters' inability to take their advice. But you say that when the problem is hitters pressing too hard,  "no coaching can help that." I can't accept that. Maybe Fuller's coaching team hasn't gotten through to the Oriole hitters. If that's the case with a lot of valuable players, and it goes on for months, you need a new coaching approach or new coaches. The alternative is to conclude that you're stuck with a bunch of flawed players who can't perform well under pressure and may never be able to turn that around.

[Sports Guy]

2 minutes ago, spiritof66 said:

You and I agree that Fuller's take is that the reason (or part of the reason) for the failed offense is Oriole hitters' inability to take their advice. But you say that when the problem is hitters pressing too hard,  "no coaching can help that." I can't accept that. Maybe Fuller's coaching team hasn't gotten through to the Oriole hitters. If that's the case with a lot of valuable players, and it goes on for months, you need a new coaching approach or new coaches. The alternative is to conclude that you're stuck with a bunch of flawed players who can't perform well under pressure and may never be able to turn that around.

It’s hard to believe the coaching isn’t working. Overall, they have been an excellent offense with him here. They rate highly in traditional stats, statcast stats or advanced stats. 
 

But you have a lot of bad players right now, a lot of good players playing bad and a lot of young guys still learning how to play. The injuries are killing things.

Coaching can only do so much for sub 600 OPS guys.

[spiritof66]

2 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

It’s hard to believe the coaching isn’t working. Overall, they have been an excellent offense with him here. They rate highly in traditional stats, statcast stats or advanced stats. 
 

But you have a lot of bad players right now, a lot of good players playing bad and a lot of young guys still learning how to play. The injuries are killing things.

Coaching can only do so much for sub 600 OPS guys.

True, if you're talking about guys without batting talent. But there are numerous guys on the Orioles who have proven ability to hit in the ML or are believed to have a high level of ability to do that, and almost all of them are performing poorly. Isn't the job of coaches to help those guys to maximize and utilize their talent? I don't know what the hitting coaches are doing, but it's not working.

I'm not saying the hitting coaches are incompetent. I can't judge that. But it appears that they have been ineffective in helping this group of hitters with their current problems. That suggests to me that there is a shortcoming in either the coaches' advice or their communication of that advice to the players. 

[Sports Guy]

8 minutes ago, spiritof66 said:

True, if you're talking about guys without batting talent. But there are numerous guys on the Orioles who have proven ability to hit in the ML or are believed to have a high level of ability to do that, and almost all of them are performing poorly. Isn't the job of coaches to help those guys to maximize and utilize their talent? I don't know what the hitting coaches are doing, but it's not working.

I'm not saying the hitting coaches are incompetent. I can't judge that. But it appears that they have been ineffective in helping this group of hitters with their current problems. That suggests to me that there is a shortcoming in either the coaches' advice or their communication of that advice to the players. 

Why can’t it be that the players are just failing?  Were the coaches failing through June?  Last year?  

[spiritof66]

25 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Why can’t it be that the players are just failing?  Were the coaches failing through June?  Last year?  

Sure, that's a real possibility, as I said when I first posted on this topic. But I think you'd want to look hard for sources of improvement before concluding that a lot of your players are not as good as you (and everyone else) thought they were, just waiting for them to get better on their own and, if they don't, trying to replace them with upgrades.

[Can_of_corn]

3 minutes ago, spiritof66 said:

Sure, that's a real possibility, as I said when I first posted on this topic. But I think you'd want to look hard for sources of improvement before concluding that a lot of your players are not as good as you (and everyone else) thought they were, just waiting for them to get better on their own and, if they don't, trying to replace them with upgrades.

If these hitters end up missing I have no idea how they are going to acquire upgrades.

[Sports Guy]

Just now, Can_of_corn said:

If these hitters end up missing I have no idea how they are going to acquire upgrades.

Trade pitching for it.

[GoldGlove21]

3 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

I think he’s just saying that no matter what you show them and no matter how much you work on them with it, the onus is on the players to not get tight and overthink things mentally.  And that’s true. If you press and you get tight mentally, no coaching can help that.

I think this is spot on. These guys have played baseball their entire life, they know what needs to be done to get the guy in. It sound like the team slumping has but pressure on all members of the team. A pitcher going out there saying "I need to give up 3 or fewer runs to have a chance to win" is tough. A bullpen arm saying "I can't make a mistake at all because our offense is struggling". I think these guys need to relax and stop pressing. How do you convince players to play loose?

[now]

9 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

 

Sorry but that response from Fuller sounds to me like too many words, concepts, abstractions, and if that's how he communicates, wordy and convoluted, it's a lot for hitters to carry "into the box." Not to mention all the specifics involved, re. what pitches and locations to look for, all the analytics of how to do the swing and torque the body, etc. I'm no coach but I can imagine a whole season of this approach just becomes information overload.

Maybe it's not rocket science, after all (with all due respect to ex-NASA Sig).

Maybe the antidote is more Zen: just see the pitch and hit the dang thing. 

BTW I think the analytical, overthinking approach is better suited to the pitching side, where you can plan your attack based on all the data. Hitting is more reaction, no time to think. You can't beat pitching using the same approach--rather, need the opposite approach, to counter with instinct and intuition. At least, that's my cheap (2 cents) advice!

Edited Monday at 04:46 by now

[sportsfan8703]

Hyde was saying before the deadline, right after the Marlins series, that the hitting had been struggling, and asked the press if they thought the answer was to get younger?  At the time Holliday and Mayo weren’t up. I believe Norby was the temp injury fill in for Mateo. 

Being forced to play Holliday/Mayo in ride or die situations this year has really killed us. 

A couple of things…

1.  It’s tough to break in a lot of rookies/2nd year players all at once. 

2. Hindsight 20/20, the rash of pitching injuries forced Elias to buy a 2nd SP and we should’ve kept Norby as insurance. Hindsight 20/20, Holliday was the #1 overall prospect and in AAA. Mayo was having the best AAA season offensively anyone could’ve dreamed of. 

Overall, offensively we’re just a year or two away. 

Long story short… our young hitters need experience that only time will bring. 

Edited Monday at 11:51 by sportsfan8703