Why Do the Yanks Love Kevin Long?

[cohenzone]

Every year for too any years with Long as the batting coach, the teams goes through long droughts of horrible hitting with guys in scoring position with less than 2 outs. I don't really know what the role is of a hitting instructor at the ML level, and (maybe this goes for many teams in this era of overshifting on almost eveyone) and getting guys to go the other way whenever possible. Hey Yankees, there are ways to score without jacking the ball. Maybe it's the manager's philosophy and not the hitting coach, IDK. With the overshift you can set up a big inning with bunts, some might go for doubles, and the overshift frenzy would go to sleep in a hurry. Anyway, the whole Yankee approach to hitting by anyone not named Jeter or Ichiro (the 2 oldest guys on the team) is to try and jack the ball.

 

[Cheddie]

I think Long is a very good hitting coach, but he can't perform miracles. No one is ever going to get Soriano to be patient at the plate. A lot of hitters are streaky. NY has some patch-work players like Roberts, Johnson and Solarte that you figure are going to scuffle (or they wouldn't have been available). And Teixeira and Beltran, at the heart of the order, expected to drive in table setters like Gardner and Ellsbury, have been hurt and off their games too much. None of that is his fault.

(And I didn't even want to include Cano in the discussion).

 

[cohenzone]

I think Long is a very good hitting coach, but he can't perform miracles. No one is ever going to get Soriano to be patient at the plate. A lot of hitters are streaky. NY has some patch-work players like Roberts, Johnson and Solarte that you figure are going to scuffle (or they wouldn't have been available). And Teixeira and Beltran, at the heart of the order, expected to drive in table setters like Gardner and Ellsbury, have been hurt and off their games too much. None of that is his fault.

(And I didn't even want to include Cano in the discussion).

Absent HR's, the last several years the Yankees in general have had lot's of trouble hitting with runner's in scoring position with less than 2 outs (and it would be nice to get a few more 2 out hits as well). As I said, I don't know it it's Long or Girardi's philosophy, but very few of the players go the other way often enough. Texiera never. Elsbury will go with the pitch. Soriano and McCann seem to forget that they hit much better when they go with the pitch. Gardner is much more dangerous when he goes with the pitch, but even he has adopted a jack swing all too often. The team looks lousy against off-speed pitchers because they are so intent on the big blow. They ought to notice how many rallies are built against them by opposite field hitting. If it isn't the batting coach who can get them into going with the pitch, then I'd have to conclude that either Girardi is content with all or nothing or that Long somehow doesn't get the batters in making better contact more often. It would up the anemic BA's and probably get those too streaky guys into a better hitting rhythm overall. At the moment, the Yankees and others in the division are surviving because there are no great teams in the AL East.