My main beef is .....

[JohnU]

During the winter, Cozart studied video of his swing from last year and compared it to his better days. He finally noticed a glitch, not previously spotted, where his front shoulder was not turning in like it should.

"I looked to find that one little thing I was doing different. It was something really small and it was an easy fix," said Cozart, who will likely bat eighth most often in manager Bryan Price's lineup. "That's a huge positive when you find something like that."

Now, I realize it's more complicated than this, but if he had a glitch in his swing that he fixed this winter, it was the same damned glitch he had all season. Did the hitting coach actually not waste time dealing with it in July or August? Did Price just tell Cozart to "fix it in the off-season?"

They have a million dollars worth of video equipment and the glitch was previously "not seen."

Huh? Anybody who watched the guy hit could spot what he was doing wrong.

What do these guys do all year long?

Same thing with Bruce. He decided in September that he was having a bad year. No shit, big guy. No shit. So he decided to play out the entire season and fix it in the winter.

Billy Hamilton decided to work on his bunting in the off-season. Why not call up Norris Hopper and fix it during the season?

This is one of the mysteries that surround this team. I wonder about their commitment to winning.

 

[Redsfan1507]

I hear you.

It's the days of kindler, gentler, more sympathetic baseball, John. You know, where it's offensive to ask a .209 hitter to bunt a leadoff double to 3rd, or take extra BP. It breaks the poor kids confidence to ask him to change something, that suggests there is something wrong with him, and that's just not fair.

I have a piece of undiscovered wisdom on Cozart's swing last year-the guy could have taken the same swing off a tee and popped up 90% of the time. If you put the tee on the low outside corner, he would have missed half the time. Cozart pulled everything, hips open, hands start too low and finish too high to hit line drives, or anything the other way, not straight up in the air. I noticed that without a million dollar video budget. So did any hitting coach that didn't need a cane and a dog to get to the park. If his front shoulder wasn't turning "in" means he wasn't staying closed long enough, he may be onto something... Won't help if his lower body is already down the 3b coaches box by the time his hands get to the ball, though. If you've heard the term of good contact hitters "staying inside the ball"- Cozart WASN'T the guy to model after.

IMO, Coaches don't coach, and players don't frickin listen, very often.... because they don't have to. Suggestions make players "uncomfortable". Players with 5 year deals worth $70M win any disagreements with coaches with 1 year deals worth $70K. Even scrubs making $750K a year with no minor league options left usually only take advice if someone else on the team under 35 years old can play his position, and people stop acknowledging him in the dugout... Sometimes, DFA is the best lesson for them. Suarez in camp might be more Cozart motivation than he had all last year.

 

[Redsfan1507]

Do you know which knee Bruce injured last year ? If it was his plant knee- the left one, I get it having a bearing on him hitting 40 points lower than normal. Same may be true for Votto. If it's sore and swolen, weight distribution at the plate isn't right, and players wind up hitting off the front foot too much...other than Todd Frazier, never seen that work in their favor much, and even if you do make contact, it doesn't go as far. For a long ball or else guy like Bruce, he doesn't need much of a handicap to be defenseless at the plate.

I don't get Cozart though. Never much power. He could learn a ton from watching Skip Schumaker. Schu is about done age and reaction-wise, but his approach would be good for Cozart's BA.

 

[Redsfan1507]

Hamilton needs to bunt twice a game....and get it down on the first try. If he could learn to master the push, pull, AND Norris Hopper bunts, and he could stop taking strike 2 curveball swings, he would get enough pulled in defenses and fastballs to hit .280 or better. I still think too many hitters, and coaches, depend on guessing by the count, instead of reacting to the pitch. Most perennial 100-plus strikeout hitters thought every single slider was a fastball. The 150-plus K-aholics thought the curveballs were too.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

To answer 1507's question on Bruce's knee, I believe Bruce, Votto, and Latos knee injuries were all to the left knee. Latos' plant knee and a lefties' push knee.

Cozart can watch all the film he wants apparently and not figure out the problem. You don't see very many hitters being successful that have a downward swing of plain as severe as Zack does when trying to hit opposite field. His plain is better when trying to pull the ball. Pulling a baseball and going opposite field have similar swing thoughts to drawing and cutting a golf ball. Most people can't do both consistently.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

What sure why I spelled plane with a "i". Just plain bad spelling I guess.

 

[JohnU]

Watching Cozart, when he does what he should do, he has hitting streaks.
When he stops doing that, he goes 0-for-20. I can't fully explain, but it's about pulling the bat into the strike zone. The issue there is to know which pitch to hit. Anything at the waist is probably too high. I suppose pitchers all know that. So a guy like Zach needs to be successful hitting mistakes, not trying to beat a pitcher's best pitch.
No mystery there. About 95 percent of all hitters in MLB can only hit a mistake for average about 25 percent of the time. Most times up, the pitcher wins. The trick is to have the pitcher fuck up about three times going through the order. If he does that three times (9 fuckups), you ought to have 4 or 5 runs.

Nobody wants Cozart to be Rose, but we don't want him to be Rob Deer either.

 

[Redsfan1507]

I guess my point about knees is the dominant side is more important- lefty hitters and pitchers need that left knee push for power. The leg you land on is less important IMO than the one you push off of. I think shoulder injuries are worse than knees for throwing and hitting.

 

[Redsfan1507]

I think Cozart is a great shortstop. He isn't a hitter, though. There is a real chance he can be a Brandon Crawford kind of guy though- .250 /10 HR is serviceable for a stud SS. .205 doesn't cut it though. Ozzie Smith and Dave Concepcion took several years to get respectable with the bat, so maybe Cozart can too. That is less important if guys playing the OF hit like OF instead of SS. We've already got a leg up on most teams- our catcher isn't terrible behind the plate and he can hit a ton too- most are lucky if their C can do either well, much less both.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

I agree he doesn't have to hit more than his first two full seasons that would put him at that .250/ 12-15 HR type performer. If he'd walked an MLB average amount his OBP would be more respectable as well. Why he doesn't have more SB's is the thing I don't get? I don't think he has a CS as a major leaguer.

I think Jay Bruce's knee played a large part in a down year. He had the highest % of ground balls of the starting eight. Makes me think he couldn't get off the back injured knee and create the tilt needed to elevate the ball.

By contrast Billy Hamilton needs to get the ball on the ground. Only two of the starting eight hit a lower % of ground balls- Mesoraco and Ludwick, both of them were trying to hit HR's, only one actually did.

 

[JohnU]

The upside with Hamilton is that he is fully aware of his talent and his skills. The problem was, for him, how to maximize that. I think he wanted to hit gappers and run all day. Nice work if you can, and if he was in SF, he'd be on the MVP list. So that is a pretty good place to start -- a guy knowing his skills and hopefully realizing his limitations. I don't know that Cozart and guys like Stubbs ever did. Stubbs in this Reds outfield would be a gas, if the guy could just make ground ball contact.

I suppose it really is up to the player to know what he needs to fix. With Hamilton, I think he already realized it about the middle of August but what he needs to work on depends on too many real variables. You can't practice bunting if the offense isn't calling for the bunt.

In Cozart's case, it is just a matter of him actually paying attention to how he was swinging the bat.

 

[Redsfan1507]

Cozart stole bases, bunted and hit the ball up the middle more in the minors. IMO, Dusty put a stop to that. Players tend to stick with what got them to the show...Cozart was a .260-ish low contact hitter in the minors-like many Reds past and present that didn't hit much in MLB. The problem is, like Stubbs, he's gotten progressively worse each year. That tells me there is an issue that hasn't been, or couldn't be, addressed yet. That's a problem for me after 2-3 seasons. Someone is getting paid for something we're not getting there.