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The young players need to watch Yadi.
He’s wise enough to know that the best pitch to hit may come early in the count.
Plus he doesn’t fiddle around between pitches and overthink. Simple approach comes naturally almost every time up.The trouble with yadis approach though is he is guessing. I’ve seen him swing at a first pitch a bunch of times that bounced 3 feet in front of the plate. If I was a pitcher I would never give him a first pitch strike cause more often than not he’s swinging no matter what. It’s worked out good this year but he’s also worked the count a few times here or there.
Yadi has a style the youngsters should emulate. See the pitch you want and hit it where it’s pitched. A pleasure to watch.
When Yadi was learning the game from his dad on the sand lot field in PR video rooms and VR headsets were in short supply. I doubt he has much use for all that to this day.
Yadi relies on reflexes and muscle memory.
He’s not up there thinking about “the 7 steps to the perfect baseball swing” the younger players get caught up in.It was a different way of teaching the game years back. We had a coach would throw batting practice. If he saw you lifting that front leg way up he’d chuck it right at you and let you try to do anything about it standing there on one leg. That’s how he taught batters to internalize the timing mechanism. If you had the bat waving around behind your head he’d quick pitch you. He’d step off. So you couldn’t do it that way.
If you were slow to learn and kept making the same mistake you’d get socks and jocks. That’s when you showed up to find your locker stuffed with yesterdays socks and jocks. Believe me, that was not what you wanted to happen.
A good article in The Athletic (in my car on my iPhone so will link later) showing advanced metrics like contact rate and exit velocity for the Cards is excellent, but so is bad luck.
It confirms my intuition that if the club will stick with Carlson and Williams, the outfield “problem” will not be so apparent mid-season.
And if by chance O’Neill can practice pitch selection there is no reason he cannot be very good. But that is a legitimate concern as he should be farther along with that now.
We will see if Bader is better at that as well. Again, he is one who seems to have regressed in that regard.
Maybe their swing planes, launch angles, barrel rates, and exit velocity are fine. They’re just having trouble hitting.
First month outfield assessment from Bernie:
“It’s going a little better than I thought, but that’s mostly because of Carlson. In a comparison to other NL outfield groups the St. Louis crew is fourth in slugging (.407) and homers (11) and sixth with 35 RBIs. And their .712 OPS (7th) could be worse. But there’s also the 29 percent strikeout rate, .228 average and a too-low .305 OBP. Going forward, much will depend on Tyler O’Neill and returning center fielder Harrison Bader.”
(Lots of other Cardinals bits in this article.)
I have always liked Bernie. He comes off as a guy in the stands with a dog and a beer telling it like he sees it. I don’t care at all that he is not an expert analyst, neither am I.
If anyone can link a picture of Bernie in a mask, I’d like to see it , for some reason.
The outfield ranks 12th among 30 mlb teams with a 102 oPS+
The infield ranks 17th among 30 with a 99 OPS+BR through 4-29-2021
Carlson is sporting a 146 ops+ currently after entering this season with a 68 career ops+
O’Neill is a 91 this season and entered 2021 as a career 91 ops+
Dean is an 88 currently and entered 2021 as a 77
Williams is currently a 56 and entered the season as a 31 ops+Edman is a 96 as a 2B this season over 70 PA’s, and a 117 ops+ as a Rf’r over 40 PA’s
He’s currently a 102 ops+ overall and entered the season as a 110
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