Nature Vs. Nuture

A quick preliminary note - as previously alluded to in the mission statement, I am a die-hard Mets fan. I've already made a personal oath to broaden my horizons, committing to view as proportionate an amount of unrelated middle innings as Mets broadcasts. Still, the ratio of Mets to unrelated material along with my unavoidable partiality will still lead to a large portion of Mets miscellanea. So now that we have that out of the way...

Spring training is here at last! With it comes a "back to basics" approach by most coaching staffs: windsprints, infield drills, and bullhorns signaling rotation to the next training excercise. Mets skipper Jerry Manuel has instituted a hitting drill that has created a bit of buzz. As Marty Noble of Mets.com describes it:

Rookie Josh Thole stepped into the cage and was told by batting coach Howard Johnson, "swing at every pitch. Don't take anything." And it started, the batting practice equivalent of the sports bar free throw game "Pop-a-Shot." Pitch-swing, pitch-swing, pitch-swing.

The drill calls for a total of 80 pitches and subsequent swings and the whole process lasts about 6-8 minutes.

Manuel presents his rationale for the drill. "It's about bat control and learning to do what needs to be done when we've got a man on third and we've got to get him in. We don't need all that body movement. This pretty much forces you to use your hands." His point is to encourage shortening up one's swing, ensuring contact, and dumping a pitch into the opposite field.

I had pretty much taken this argument at face value until today's first Spring Training telecast between the Mets and Marlins on SNY.

Gary Cohen added another element in the drill's favor. "What Jerry talks about is the muscle memory, the almost turning off your brain so that all you're doing is swinging, swinging, swinging and getting that muscle memory of hitting the ball the other way."

Perhaps there's something to this. The tendency to overthink a swing and mechanics thereof seems to be the root of many a slump. The idea that you can induce an opposite field hit in such a Pavlovian manner is so out there, it might just work. Ryan Church said, of the 10 opposite field hits in the previous day's exhibition, he felt like it was a manifestation of the drill at work.

Keith Hernandez provided the first dissenting opinion I've seen yet. "I think that's too many pitches. That's not something I would want to do. ...My dad taught me how to hit along with my older brother. My dad wouldn't let us hit over fifteen, twenty minutes. He saw us getting tired in our hands and arms, he said 'That's where you get bad habits. Gary, come on in, you come hit, Keith you go shag.'" I can see the merit in this argument as well. If your swing works, you don't want to alter it by batting tired.

This argument has been proven several times in the form of pitchers trying to battle injuries. A delivery can be altered to compensate for a specific ailment, but usually for the worse. A guy injures his push-off foot, but pitches through it, losing the starting inertia he once had, and ultimately loses the velocity on his pitch. Another guy has a problem with his rotator cuff and his offspeed pitches have noticeably diminished break, which leads to a less effective fastball.

Solid arguments exist for both sides. I feel like there's more at play from the hitter's standpoint, but since all the hitters involved fall under the authority of Manuel, they're certainly not going to poo poo it. I hope more teams entertain the notion of this drill so that the debate can continue on a more national scale.