FS Exclusive: Q&A with Hitting Coach Todd Steverson

[NorthSideSox72]

Rob snagged an interview with HC Todd Steverson, asking some questions about the mini-camp and a few key hitting prospects. Always fun to get an interview like this, and Todd didn't disappoint.

 

Read it all here.

 

What are your impressions of Todd, and the camp?

 

[southsider2k5]

Interesting. One of the bits I caught was that it sounds like something is wrong with Fisher, do we know anything more about that?

[royoung]

Interesting. One of the bits I caught was that it sounds like something is wrong with Fisher, do we know anything more about that?

 

I reached out to Jameson to see if he will be ready for ST. I know he missed time last season on several occasions when he dove for balls on defense and re-aggravated his shoulder he previously had surgery on. That is just pure speculation though.

[southsider2k5]

I reached out to Jameson to see if he will be ready for ST. I know he missed time last season on several occasions when he dove for balls on defense and re-aggravated his shoulder he previously had surgery on. That is just pure speculation though.

 

The shoulder would be my guess too, but that is scary to me.

[Dominikk85]

Rob snagged an interview with HC Todd Steverson, asking some questions about the mini-camp and a few key hitting prospects. Always fun to get an interview like this, and Todd didn't disappoint.

 

Read it all here.

 

What are your impressions of Todd, and the camp?

 

nice interview, thank you for posting. I'm not sure I love what I read. steverson seems to be a great guy but he sounds to be rather old school focusing mostly on mental stuff and making stuff simple at the plate. that isn't inherently bad but if you look at the really modern hitting coaches like a bobby tewksbary (private coach of josh donaldson and others - look up his stuff, it is really advanced, I know bobby a little and he studies the swing really all day) or the astros hitting coordinator jeff albert who is a sports scientist they are much more advanced in their stuff and they actually like well timed bigger moves vs a simplified quiet A-B-C approach.

 

For example the modern instructors actually favor elevating the ball and a slight uppercut (albert tweets about that a lot). In theory the bat starts above the head and makes contact below the waist so the swing goes down but modern high speed video actually shows that the swing is more like a nike swoosh going down behind the body and then slightly up through the ball so that the upward swing plane matches the downward plane of the pitch. that plane is a little longer than going directly diagonal down to the ball (like mattingley for ex. still teaches) but it allows for more error if you are late or early.

 

here is a good illustration

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ehs-H2V6N5o

 

I think both anderson but also moncada could benefit a little from that. they tend to get a little forward with the upper body instead of having that slightly rearward tilted axis that allows for a nice slightly upward swing plane.

 

I'm not so sure about moncada (because we don't have the MLB data and I only have seen snippets and scouting reports, so I'm not as confident making that statement about him, although it looks like it to me) but anderson definitely hits the ball too low and might have a too level swing plane (his launch angle is well below the MLB league average albeit his exit velo is almost average, he would be a good candidate to do the murphy/altuve adjustment and add some power - I think he could hit 20 bombs with that albeit of course he doesn't have the hit and bat to ball skill of a murphy or altuve.

[GreenSox]

It's not like Anderson was actually making contact with those balls out of the zone....he struck out over 25% of the time. I'd say improving plate discipline more than a bit is paramount and can turn him into a perennial .800 OPS hitter versus an Alexei ceiling.

Edited January 25, 2017 by GreenSox

[Dominikk85]

It's not like Anderson was actually making contact with those balls out of the zone....he struck out over 25% of the time. I'd say improving plate discipline more than a bit is paramount and can turn him into a perennial .800 OPS hitter versus an Alexei ceiling.

 

I think to become an 800 OPS hitter anderson needs to improve both his power output and plate discpline. his chase rate was too high (36%, I think league average is around 30%) but he also needs to improve his power output. I think he has room for improvement (I think there is 15-20 HR power in him) but he also always will have swing and miss in his game. his chase rate is not good but he isn't a great contact hitter inside the zone either (81% zone contact, league average was around 86 or so.

 

that combination of mediocre power output and mediocre contact won't really work, even with better plate discipline. last year he had a 740 OPS but on the strength of a 375 BABIP. he seems to be a solid line drive hitter and also gets a lot out of his grounders but he is not going to sustain that. if his BABIP drops to league average it could get ugly soon.

 

as I said I do see some pop in him, he is not a slap hitter. with an adjusted swing plane he could probably approach average to even slightly above average power and while that will lower his BABIP some I believe he needs to make that adjustment, because his bat to ball skill is not good enough for a hit it low and use your wheels approach.

 

so what he needs to do is I think to first lay off more balls but also pick locations inside the zone that he can drive and then elevate those balls a little more. I'm not saying he should become a brian dozier who pulls everything in the air and thus maximized his not so great raw power (he doesn't have doziers bat control to pull this off either and might get punished with a lot of rolled over grounders which happen if you and not timed perfectly or pull the wrong pitches) but a little more elevation and probably also pull might help him to tap into his OK raw power.

 

he doesn't have to become an 800 ops hitter to become a productive hitter with his defense and speed though, but to even repeat his 2016 output one of either his power or his contact needs to get better and likely it will be his power and not his contact that improves (I think with better plate discipline he could get 4-5% lower but not much more).

Edited January 25, 2017 by GermanSock