The King of Baseball
Moderators: SammyKhalifa, Doc, Bobster
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fjk090852-7
- Posts: 3619
- Joined: Sun Jul 03, 2016 2:52 pm
The King of Baseball
Bell matched his home run total of last season with his second homer last night.
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rucker59@gmail.com
The King of Baseball
Joe Block also asked for the MVP chant when the Pirates return home.
An interesting article from CBS Sports talking about 12 surprising breakout players. The article ranks the likelihood of continued success; “confident” is highest level. Only Josh Bell and Jorge Polanco (twins) were rated “confident”. Note the new evaluation of last year’s struggles (doesn’t include last night; does mention MVP!):
Josh Bell has always been the physical specimen with the glowing scouting reports and the impressive batting eye. He just needed to put the ball in the air more. He started down that path a year ago, which hurt him in the short term, but the commitment is paying off now. He's not just elevating the ball but doing so with authority, boasting an average exit velocity akin to Joey Gallo and Christian Yelich. And that it hasn't come at the expense of his existing skills makes this year's production seem like a natural buildup point. There will be some small regression, in all likelihood, but not enough to topple his MVP-caliber production.
Legitimacy scale: confident
An interesting article from CBS Sports talking about 12 surprising breakout players. The article ranks the likelihood of continued success; “confident” is highest level. Only Josh Bell and Jorge Polanco (twins) were rated “confident”. Note the new evaluation of last year’s struggles (doesn’t include last night; does mention MVP!):
Josh Bell has always been the physical specimen with the glowing scouting reports and the impressive batting eye. He just needed to put the ball in the air more. He started down that path a year ago, which hurt him in the short term, but the commitment is paying off now. He's not just elevating the ball but doing so with authority, boasting an average exit velocity akin to Joey Gallo and Christian Yelich. And that it hasn't come at the expense of his existing skills makes this year's production seem like a natural buildup point. There will be some small regression, in all likelihood, but not enough to topple his MVP-caliber production.
Legitimacy scale: confident
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Bobster21
The King of Baseball
Last year with all his bad and constantly changing swings, it always seemed to me that he had an issue about missing the ball. That is, he would use some bad swings just to avoid missing so that he could make contact. That resulted in weak popups and a lot of grounders. But I saw this quote from Bell today in the Trib:
“Just trying to sync up fastballs, get on a starter’s fastball and understanding how guys are going to attack me and sell out to an approach and just go from there.”
I like that he's "selling out" to an approach and hitting with authority. He's swinging hard and if he misses, that's no worse than making an out on a bad swing. But he doesn't miss much and he's currently one of the best power hitters in MLB. What a difference from last year!
“Just trying to sync up fastballs, get on a starter’s fastball and understanding how guys are going to attack me and sell out to an approach and just go from there.”
I like that he's "selling out" to an approach and hitting with authority. He's swinging hard and if he misses, that's no worse than making an out on a bad swing. But he doesn't miss much and he's currently one of the best power hitters in MLB. What a difference from last year!
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SammyKhalifa
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The King of Baseball
do you think that's change in personal development, or batting coaching, or instruction over the offseason? I'm guessing it's mostly the first thing but won't totally discount the other two.