In my post about Sports Motion video software, I mentioned that I travelled to Europe to speak at the European Baseball Coaches Association (EBCA) Convention. It was held in Vienna, Austria in December of last year, so it’s about time I made an official update about it.
The convention is sponsored in part by International Sports Group, and I was invited to speak by ISG team leader and fellow presenter, Tom O’Connell. Each year, ISG helps organize and carry out a full roster of international conferences, and going on the trip was a great experience.
Lets make it 2 days in a row with hitting coach interview. Yesterday was Rangers’ Rudy Jaramillo, today is Chicago Cubs’ Von Joshua, courtesy of the Chicago Tribune:
This is a hitter with a history of success, very good success, but is underperforming this year.
These images are taken from this year and a previous year, front and side view of different swings that resulted in a HR to Left Center on fastballs in similar locations.
Each image on the left side is from this year, 2009. The shots on the right are from last year.
Recently, I traveled to Europe with ISG baseball to participate in a baseball clinic for the European Baseball Coaches Association and my first presentation was basically using video to review different elements of the swing. I’ve always been asked a lot about what types of things I do with video and what software I use, and this was no different after speaking in Vienna. With that, it’s about time that I put this together….
promo code: “jalbert” at checkout for 5% off of total order
The main video software I use is called Sports Motion. I created a page on the main site where I give a brief list of some of the features, but you can also check out Sports Motion’s myspace page which has some videos detailing features of the program.
Because of the number of inquiries from coaches at the EBCA conference in Europe, I was able to get my own promo code for those looking to buy the software and now I can make that available to anyone. So if this is something you are interested in, you can use thepromo code “jalbert” for a 5% discount when you check out with your order from Sports Motion.
If you have any questions related to this, feel free to ask or email
Ok I don’t know how many more of these MLB analysis pieces are going to come out, but this is an interesting one.
Here is the full article at Baseball Analysts. It takes into account some sports psychology in addition to mechanics and looks at some statistical changes over the past couple of years.
I have only been able to catch bits and pieces of the playoffs, but if does seem like every time I turn on the Cleveland Indians, Jhonny Peralta is getting an extra-base hit. Bloop double a few nights ago, and HR’s in the past two games.
Peralta’s swing caught my attention when I first saw him in 2005 and this is why
After an outstanding May, I thought Peralta was going to make me look like a genius based on a piece I did on him over the off-season. Basically just seemed like his swings were consistent but had a vision problem. He did bounce back this year from 2006, but not quite as studly as 2005. But he is still 25 and plenty of potential to continue developing…gotta love that opposite field power.
On that note, a big thumbs up to Cleveland hitting coach, Derek Shelton. According to the description given:
“As Hitting Coordinator he streamlined the entire Indians minor league organization from the Dominican League to Triple A with all new terminology and approach to hitting”
Mr. Shelton is doing something quite well. I’d love to talk to him about that “terminology” and find out what their philosophy is all about.
Jay at Letsgotribe.com asked me to check in on Hafner’s swing, so I made a quick comparison.
FYI when I do comparison, I do my best to use swings that are similar pitch type, location and result. I repeat this over and over. The result does not HAVE to be the same, but it helps support the contention that the swings are as similar as possible.
Overall I think the swings are very similar and it’d take much more time and feedback from the player (Hafner) to really pinpoint the problem/solution. It could very well be a factor outside of swing mechanics – ie Cleveland SS Jhonny Peralta (who has been great since I added him to my fantasy team).
In other words, there does not seem to be any physical indication that Hafner will not “right the ship” and become his normal HR happy self again.
Jeff Samardzija has been in the news a lot lately after signing his deal with the Cubs, so I decided to take a look at how pitching mechanics.
The full article appears here at Baseball Analysts.
I tried to point out or clarify in the comments section that I don’t think the differential in his winup-stretch tempo is that big of a deal. It just got me looking at his tempo in general and he seemed just a bit behind the big boys. I think what it more interesting is his hip loading and rotation, which looks like it will need to improve if he is really going to make it big. We’ll see how he progress and what type of adjustments are made.
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