Quote Originally Posted by lidspinner View Post
its never to late.....but my biggest fear has never been his swing or his hand placement.....I agree, his swing just didnt look right these past few years but I am 100% of the opinion that when a player struggles, he looks for the easiest and quickest fix, or the simplest fix.....and in this case, tweaking his hands sounds like the easiest thing to do for multiple reasons......

but when you go back and watch video, something I do way to much of in the winter...and something my kids probably would tell you that I am obsessed with(watching video to correct things) ...Jay Bruce's swing is the least thing I would be worrying about....I hope it works for him and there is a reason I am not working as a hitting coach...its obvious he/they know way more than I do....but I see a huge issue with Jays pitch recognition from his early years to these past few years....
dont get me wrong, Jay has always had problems seeing the curve and slider, his problem these past few years has been once he realizes the pitch is a curve/slider, its to late to hold off, he has already committed to swing....in his early years you can see Jay step, load, shift his weight, start to flow his hands through the zone then hold back......that my friends is 100% pitch recognition and its something that can be fixed but he needs to be working on that instead of trying to fix muscle memory, which is very hard to do and takes years to fix.
I'm certainly no scout, but that has been my take too. When he swings over the top of that slider, missing by 18", it seems that he's almost always swinging at what he thinks is a fastball. Sure, every guy swings and misses on occasion. But not everybody gets fooled as much as Bruce does. Having his swing stay in the zone longer won't help him put the bat in the right spot.

That said, perhaps his swing issues drove him to start his swing too early, forcing him to commit before he had given himself enough time to read the pitch. Perhaps being quicker to the ball will let hit wait longer and get better reads. I honestly don't know, but I agree that it looks like an issue of recognition and timing more than anything else.