Introduction to Five Tools Analysis: Hitting

[kyleb]

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I'd love to see an analysis of Vladimir Guerrero or Ichiro's swings and approaches to hitting.

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This is fairly interesting; Vlad is a rotational hitter much like most successful power hitters. However, you probably refer to his "swing away" attitude and his ability to make contact with pitches anywhere within 10 feet of him.

Vlad's (and Soriano's, to a lesser extent) ability cannot be taught - it is innate and it is superhuman. IIRC, Vlad has a high pitches seen per AB ratio, not because he takes a lot of balls, but because he fouls off a ton of pitches that are meant to get him out. Vlad is a rare case of a high-average, high-power, low-strikeout, low-walk player, which is basically impossible, yet he manages to do it.

Ichiro has two swings: One with runners on and one without. When he is leading off, his swing is very linear - he takes his hands straight to the ball in a similar fashion to Roberto Clemente:



This style of hitting leads to high contact percentage and low power. Of course, he is using it to get on base where he is a disruptive force on the basepaths.

With runners on, he switches to a more rotational style of hitting (but still has linear elements) to generate more power.