Monday, May 02, 2005
Choi's Swing According To Wallach
Wallach said the following about Choi during the postgame radio interview after Choi's grand slam last Friday. (I'm paraphrasing here off memory - writing down quotes while driving 75MPH on the curvy stretch of the 110 freeway north of downtown is not a good idea.) According to Wallach, Choi needs to swing "inside" the ball so that the balls hit hard aren't pulled foul.
I've been looking for a way to describe why Choi's swing is so long and loopy, and Wallach hit it right on the head. I used to to do the same thing playing softball after a long layoff. Everything I hit hard was pulled foul. Fixing that problem is a apparently much easier in beer league softball than facing a 93 MPH fastball.
What baffles me is how Choi came to LA with that ridiculous swing in the first place. What did the Cubs and the Marlins teach? Was Choi incapable of learning then or were his minor leagues numbers so good that they left him alone? Did his swing fall apart overnight? According to some Cubs fans, he had the tendency to crouch down and come up while swinging during his rookie season. Wasn't this problem only recently corrected during this year's ST?
Choi is starting to get rolling. His OPS has climbed to .833 in 61 ABs, which is about .200 higher than a week ago. And the aggressiveness - what Wallach described as "patient aggressiveness" - is coming along. That grand slam was on a first pitch fastball that Choi was sitting on.
Next agenda for Wallach: Nakamura and his Paul Bunyan axe chop.
I've been looking for a way to describe why Choi's swing is so long and loopy, and Wallach hit it right on the head. I used to to do the same thing playing softball after a long layoff. Everything I hit hard was pulled foul. Fixing that problem is a apparently much easier in beer league softball than facing a 93 MPH fastball.
What baffles me is how Choi came to LA with that ridiculous swing in the first place. What did the Cubs and the Marlins teach? Was Choi incapable of learning then or were his minor leagues numbers so good that they left him alone? Did his swing fall apart overnight? According to some Cubs fans, he had the tendency to crouch down and come up while swinging during his rookie season. Wasn't this problem only recently corrected during this year's ST?
Choi is starting to get rolling. His OPS has climbed to .833 in 61 ABs, which is about .200 higher than a week ago. And the aggressiveness - what Wallach described as "patient aggressiveness" - is coming along. That grand slam was on a first pitch fastball that Choi was sitting on.
Next agenda for Wallach: Nakamura and his Paul Bunyan axe chop.
