Let's talk about Jay Bruce and his swing over the years

[RFS62]

Pull and push in golf have nothing to do with spin, rather the path of the club through the hitting zone. You can pull a ball to the left and still have it spin back to the right, and visa versa.

Fade and slice are spinning left to right, draw and hook are spinning right to left.

Fade and draw are generally controllable, slice and Hook are more extreme in side to side movement.

[Raisor]

Pull and push in golf have nothing to do with spin, rather the path of the club through the hitting zone. You can pull a ball to the left and still have it spin back to the right, and visa versa.

Fade and slice are spinning left to right, draw and hook are spinning right to left.

Fade and draw are generally controllable, slice and Hook are more extreme in side to side movement.

RF should know, since he was around when golf was invented.

[lollipopcurve]

Bruce has a long swing compared to many other good power hitters. He is not adept at pulling his hands in close to his body to stay inside the ball, particularly on balls on the inner part of the plate. Instead, he opens up (and this makes him vulnerable to offspeed stuff). He does a lot of "corralling" -- pulling balls that are away, sometimes very effectively, like over the fence. When you can do that, there's less incentive to take those pitches the other way. Plus, if he closed up and "stayed in" more, giving himself more of an opposite field orientation, he'd likely be even more vulnerable to fastballs on his hands.

Just one of those hitters who does much better with his arms extended, and that leaves him exposed to that age-old hard stuff in, soft stuff away attack. I don't see this changing.

[edabbs44]

Dunn hit .300 squarely his first full first half in the big leagues in 2002 and was an all-star...

He really took off in 2001 in AAA ball, .329/.441/.676 with 20 bombs in 55 games. Maybe we should try and figure out who his hitting coach was there.

Oh wait...

http://cincinnati.reds.mlb.com/team/...staffid=116461

[Kingspoint]

Nothing really new here. It has been obvious that he has become more of a pull hitter. When those hips and lead shoulder start opening up early it makes it almost impossible to hit anything on the outside half of the plate. This has been Bruce's problem when he's going bad. There's no doubt Jacoby and Bruce know this, but it's a tough thing to fix.

I'm reminded of what Lee Trevino used to say when discussing a fade/slice vs. a hook (golf terms -- slice is like going to the opposite field, hook like pulling the ball). He would say, "You can talk to a fade, but a hook won't listen." And Ben Hogan said, "I hate a hook ... it's like a rattlesnake in your pocket." The chief causes for a persistent hook are the same as those for pull-hitters -- the front side opens up too soon. It's a devil to fix.

I remember when Johnny Bench came up. He used all the fields and hit for average, even hitting .301. But, the organization thought it would be better served if it made him a pull-hitter to take advantage of his power. They said it would drop 30-40 points off his average, and that he'd settle in at .255-265. I really don't know if it gave him more homeruns or not. I didn't see any difference. I think he would have hit just as many, if not more, had they not forced him into being a pull hitter. I remember from his early interviews when he was trying to make the switch that it made him uncomfortable, put him into prolonged slumps, and that he didn't like doing it. But, I believe the overall production hurts the team when you're chasing that 3-run HR. It certainly made a whole lot more sense from a Sparky Anderson managed team where yuor top two hitters had a combined .420-.450 OBP, than with a Dusty Baker managed team where he loves putting guys in the top two positions who struggle to get on base at a .300 clip. Jay Bruce, the King of the solo homerun, makes hitting them useless. The organization is flawed in Coaching him this direction, either intentionally, or incompetently.

It didn't make any more sense for Bench either, as Rose and Morgan were masters at getting into scoring position, Rose with his Doubles, Triples and Stolen Bases, and Morgan with his Walks, Stolen Bases and Doubles. An opposite field single by Bench plated runs and set up 'Big' innings. Instead od a .290-.300 hitter batting third with power, they had a .260 hitter batting third with power who failed more often at making a productive out, a typical Baker philosophy at-bat.

[Redhook]

Pull and push in golf have nothing to do with spin, rather the path of the club through the hitting zone. You can pull a ball to the left and still have it spin back to the right, and visa versa.

Fade and slice are spinning left to right, draw and hook are spinning right to left.

Fade and draw are generally controllable, slice and Hook are more extreme in side to side movement.

Thanks for taking the time to write this. I didn't have time yesterday on my phone. It still amazes me, as a golf instructor, how many people think a slice is caused from swinging in-to-out. A pull and a slice are caused by virtually the same swing, just different club faces at impact. A push in golf is more like going to the opposite field in baseball. Bruce, IMO, hits his best when he can push or pull the ball on command. When he gets deep into his pull-mode is when he struggles the most.

I also want to apologize for derailing this thread for being overly critical of golf terms when I knew exactly what the original poster meant by his comments, and I thought it was pretty cool how he threw in the golf quotes.

[Redhook]

I remember when Johnny Bench came up. He used all the fields and hit for average, even hitting .301. But, the organization thought it would be better served if it made him a pull-hitter to take advantage of his power. They said it would drop 30-40 points off his average, and that he'd settle in at .255-265. I remember from his early interviews when he was trying to make the switch that it made him uncomfortable, put him into prolonged slumps, and that he didn't like doing it.

Wow, I never knew that. I was born when the BRM was in full force.

The organization is flawed in Coaching Bruce this direction, either intentionally, or incompetently.

I don't think they've done it intentionally with Bruce. At least, I hope they haven't. That'd be a darn shame. It's hard to say for a fact if the coaching has been incompetent. Maybe it is, but maybe Bruce has a hard time with this. That being said, I do believe there's a better hitting coach out there for Bruce that could make him a better overall hitter. The question is will Bruce ever find out who that is.

Instead of a .290-.300 hitter batting third with power, they had a .260 hitter batting third with power who failed more often at making a productive out, a typical Baker philosophy at-bat.

[Red in Atl]

Golden Sombrero for opening day. Nice. And a loss.

My personal belief is this should be it for Jay. If he continues as he has in the past, I'd trade him, sign Choo long term and let Hamilton play center next year.

[reds44]

Golden Sombrero for opening day. Nice. And a loss.

My personal belief is this should be it for Jay. If he continues as he has in the past, I'd trade him, sign Choo long term and let Hamilton play center next year.

And who plays LF? Bruce had an .841 OPS last year with a career high in HRs and RBIs. It's not like Bruce is some bum in the OF either. He's been in the playoffs twice and has a .931 OPS. Not like he's a choker.

Are we really start with this already? My God. I don't get it.

[GADawg]

i like the guy, glad he's on "our" team, etc..etc..with that said I never wanna see him up with 2 outs, runners on and in need of timely hit. Even my wife asked me if Bruce ever gets a hit when I really want him to. In all honesty the guy gets hot and makes hay for a week or two and then disappears and he's not the worst player who ever did that

[AtomicDumpling]

Here we go...

[Raisor]

[redsmetz]

And who plays LF? Bruce had an .841 OPS last year with a career high in HRs and RBIs. It's not like Bruce is some bum in the OF either. He's been in the playoffs twice and has a .931 OPS. Not like he's a choker.

Are we really start with this already? My God. I don't get it.

It's been a good spring training and RZ is in mid-season form, to say the least.

As for Bruce, he's such an enigma. I remember saying to my son a year or two ago, that Bruce is one of those players you can't watch on a game to game basis. You need to look at his cumulative results. It's either something ugly to watch or a wonder to behold. Again, the final numbers are the important thing (and the result for the club). He'll win some games for us this year, just as he'll leave us in tears in others.

[Todd Gack]

Golden Sombrero for opening day. Nice. And a loss.

My personal belief is this should be it for Jay. If he continues as he has in the past, I'd trade him, sign Choo long term and let Hamilton play center next year.

Bruce is what he is. I've stopped accepting that he's an MVP type of player even though he has the talent to be that kind of guy. Just way too inconsistent for my taste. I've been one of Jay's most vocal critics, but I feel better about him, (and myself) once I realized to just accept that he's not going to reach the level we all thought he could. His level right now is AS type level at some points, but I think we all expected another level out of him and he's just not reaching it and that's still pretty good for him and us.

[Raisor]

He doesn't even turn 26 until tomorrow.