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You are correct KG. I wish more players would value avg over slugging but front offices send mixed signals. They may say they want hitters to adjust and hit to all fields but the big money usually goes to sluggers so that is what players go after unfortunately.
Gscottar…The opposition regularly deployed the shift against both Clark and Darryl Porter while they were Cardinals in the 80’s.
Pete Rose was one of the first players ever to make $1M per season and he was basically a singles and doubles hitter.
Funny seeing you mention Rose. I’ll never forget in the 60s he said he wanted to be the first “singles hitter” to get a 6-figure salary. I think he was the first. So the slant toward power guys has always been there, but probably more so now.
Also was looking at salaries of the 1982 team and over half the team was making in the $30K range, lol. I know about inflation, but still. That’s what a bunch of singles hitters get for sticking to singles. Hendrick was at $800K, Hernandez $760K, the Wizard $450K, and that badass Dominican pitcher (who evidently has become a poster here) $350K.
Figured so 1td. That’s the exact amount so many of the players were making. Today’s MLB min is $720K — that’s 21.5 times greater than in 1982. Meanwhile national inflation / wage growth has changed by about a factor of 3 during the same time period.
1td, yep there were guys in the 80’s who had to face shifts but I think players of that era were more likely to try to go opposite field than they are today probably because of what is prioritized in contracts. However, Porter and Jack the Ripper weren’t above gripping and ripping, especially Jack.
Yeah gscottar, I remember numerous times especially with Porter. He saved the day and probably the ’82 WS with an oppo two run double in game 2 and if I recall rightly it was mentioned during the game that it was the solitary base hit that he had to that portion of the field for the entire season. He yanked everything to the right side.
Today vs the Yankees Gorman faced the new shift in the 6th inning. An outfielder played between 1st and 2nd, back on the grass. With left field wide open, Gorman grounded it to the right side, right at the shift. Thanks for coming in, we’ll be in touch if we have an opening for somebody with your skill set.
If the pitcher is pounding it inside it’s pretty hard to slap it the other way isn’t it? Never played organized hardball so really have no frame of reference….
It takes an inside out swing. The objective now days is to be able to consistently and repeatable take you optimized swing to maximize exit velocity and launch angle. I guarantee nobody is working on their inside out swing so they can slap one the opposite way.
For one reason or another, the best examples of the inside out swing I’ve seen have been illustrated by left-handed hitters. Keith Hernandez, Mark Grace and Billy Williams are always at the forefront of my memory and for my money, Hernandez may have been the best. He was good with the Cardinals, but seemed to perfect that type of soft stroke later on in his his career when he was with the Mets. He sometimes took on the look of a world class tennis player who had the ability to place a back-handed lob out of reach of the SS and into shallow LF anytime he felt the need to do so. I felt it was a thing of genuine beauty.
Trying to not let the defense put a guy right where a lot of the misfires go is the alternative to forcing some attention to the art of hitting.
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