Aside from Freeman....

M

MadduxFanII

Swallowed by Mark Bowman
Do we have anyone who can consistently hit a fastball?

I know it's early and we have a lot of streaky hitters on the team, but it's been striking how many hittable, down-broadway fastballs we've missed already. BJ's struggles in this area are well-known. Justin seems only a tick faster with the bat than his brother; it's odd to think he came over here with a reputation for exceptional bat speed. Heyward really isn't turning on the ball with much authority.

Gattis can turn around anyone's fastball, of course, but he's so vulnerable to junk that it kind of negates that ability. Johnson can hit a heater, I suppose, but it still seems like he gets blown away an awful lot on hittable fastballs.

Admittedly, we're just not hitting anything right now. That 3-2 slider Heyward swung through on Sunday in the ninth inning was a hanger that just screamed "HIT ME!" But it's more than a little discomfiting to see so many tardy swings.
 
Johnson can hit anything. The times you see him blown away is when he guessed breaking ball.
 
MadduxFanII said:
Do we have anyone who can consistently hit a fastball?

I know it's early and we have a lot of streaky hitters on the team, but it's been striking how many hittable, down-broadway fastballs we've missed already. BJ's struggles in this area are well-known. Justin seems only a tick faster with the bat than his brother; it's odd to think he came over here with a reputation for exceptional bat speed. Heyward really isn't turning on the ball with much authority.

Gattis can turn around anyone's fastball, of course, but he's so vulnerable to junk that it kind of negates that ability. Johnson can hit a heater, I suppose, but it still seems like he gets blown away an awful lot on hittable fastballs.

Admittedly, we're just not hitting anything right now. That 3-2 slider Heyward swung through on Sunday in the ninth inning was a hanger that just screamed "HIT ME!" But it's more than a little discomfiting to see so many tardy swings.
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Yeah, Johnson is a decent fastball hitter, but his swing is a hair long with causes him to have some issues on fastballs up. He has very good hand/eye skills and put the bat on the ball well for someone with a long swing, but still creates that wide gap between his k's and his walks.
 
While hardly all the troof.

But so far this year, Freeman is negative in both normal pitch values and pitch f/x. Both give Gattis and Johnson positives.
 
I am most impressed by Freeman's plate discipline and eye. He is going to walk a ton this season.
 
KeithLockhart said:
This is one of those times I trust my own eyes to observe and report.
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Well if we look at all of Freddie's hits.

Curveball - 1
Sinker - 2
Changeup - 1
Fastball - 2
Slider - 2

Freddie's bread and butter is that he doesn't have a major weakness. Even if you roll sinkers into fastballs, 50% of Freeman's hits came off fastballs (33% of homers IIRC, i know he had 2 off sliders) and he see 62% of his piches are fastballs. So yeah I'm not shocked.
 
I think Uggla seems to be a pretty good FB hitter. Despite a flyout to RF in game 1 (and the resulting blabbering by he announcers), he is still all pull. That's fine because that's what he's always been. He is hitting the ball hard, and he should be better than a total disaster at the plate this year.

It is alarming watching JUp swing through so many FBs that appear to be hittable though. It seems like he goes into a mode where he has a super long swing trying to hit 500' bombs every AB (almost like a slowpitch softball swing), and when he's swinging like that he can't get the barrel out front to square up a normal 90 MPH FB. Last game he smoked a few liners up the middle with what appeared to be a quicker, shorter swing, so maybe he is about to heat up a bit.

Heyward just has a lot of swing and miss in his game. It is infuriating watching him get blow away by anything inside above the knees, and then tap anything away to 2B, but it's not like we haven't seen it 1000 times before.

Gattis still has a hard time with offspeed stuff, so when he gets one of the 2-3 hittable FBs he will see every night, he CAN NOT miss them. So far all he's really done this season is guessed right on a changeup that he hit 450', but he needs to start punishing hittable FBs soon.

BJ is pretty much toast. His swing is an absurdly complicated mess right now, even after all the so-called adjustments, and he needs a complete overhaul. Pick the front foot up, put it down, and fire your hands at the ball. Stop with all the twisting and jerking pre-pitch.

Simmons looks like he might be pressing a bit trying to prove he can take that "next step" offensively that everyone keeps talking about. I'm not worried about him at all, but I don't think he has any chance to become much of a legit offensive force.

CJ and Freeman are just good hitters. CJ has a bit of a loopy swing that looks like a prototypical LH'd swing from the RH'd batter's box, but he will continue to spray liners all around the field all year. Freeman is by far the best and most consistent hitter on the club, which is why he is now a very rich man.
 
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