Morneau Apparently Won’t Heed Killebrew
Over the course of spring training, we’ve been hearing more and more about the Twins attempting to unlock Delmon Young’s power potential, by simply telling him to “pull the ball more.” He’s clearly been trying to do that, and he’s combined a few home runs with a bunch of weak grounders to the left side of the infield. While it demonstrates that he’s willing to listen to the team, I felt that it also demonstrates the team’s inability to teach power hitting.
We’ve also heard about Justin Morneau talking to Harmon Killebrew about home run hitting. It appeared to work, because Morneau immediately started putting balls over the fence. My first thought was “why doesn’t Killebrew also talk to Delmon?” That’s when I found out exactly what Killebrew told Morneau.
“When I was a young player, I hit for a high average and hit the ball all over the ballpark,” Killebrew said. “One year in spring training, I think I was 18 or a little older, [Hall of Famer Ralph] Kiner came up to me and said, ‘Kid, you’re never going to hit a lot of home runs consistently if you don’t pull the ball. That doesn’t mean you pull every pitch, but to hit home runs consistently, that’s what you have to do.’ “So that’s what he told Morneau. “Pull the ball more.” While it appears to have made a difference, it seems to me that this is a lot like Ted Williams being a hitting coach; “Come on, just hit the ball. It’s not that hard.”
But then we learn something a little disheartening. Morneau is in fact NOT listening to Killebrew.
“If he told me to stand with my back facing the pitcher, I’d try it because he’s got 573 homers,” Morneau said. “He obviously knew what he was doing. So I definitely tried it. I just feel comfortable with what I’m doing.”He tried it. It worked. Then he decided to go back to his old ways because he was more comfortable that way. You know what’d make me more comfortable? A cleanup hitter named Justin Morneau who hits 40 homers and is the second coming of Harmon Killebrew.
Craig Calcaterra has this to say:
Morneau is basically ignoring Killebrew on this point, even if he is doing so in the most polite way possible. Which is a shame, really, because though I don’t know that I’ve seen enough of Morneau to say if he could actually become a Killeresque hitter one day, he’d be a far more interesting player if he tried.I’ve seen a whole lot more of Morneau than Calcaterra has, and I still don’t know if he can (or can’t) be a Killebrew-esque power hitter. But I sure can’t argue that it’d be fun to watch him try.
Also, if “pull the ball more” is all the advice you need to hit with more power, why is it that “hitting to all fields” is valued as a veteran, smart thing to do?
And is it at least possible that Morneau take one or two big pull-happy hacks per plate appearance and then goes back to his comfortable “shoot it to left” approach?
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What about this part of the article:
“Morneau’s all-fields approach has produced 370 RBI over the past three seasons, ranking him third in the majors, behind Philadelphia’s Ryan Howard (431) and the New York Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez (380). [That's astonishing to me.]
‘There’s obviously times when I need to pull, when I go up there and we need a home run,” Morneau said. “But I can’t really change my approach completely. I don’t want to sacrifice being able to go in that other gap with runners in scoring position. Or with two strikes, being able to hit the ball the other way. That’s an important part of my game.’”
I don’t pretend to know much of anything about hitting. But it seems that results speak for themselves- and Morneau is clearly achieving great results with his current approach (assuming he figures out whatever he was doing wrong last September).
I really wonder if Morneau’s as dangerous with a lower batting average. I remember so many games where he put the Twins on top with a bases-clearing double or run-scoring single up the middle.
Both good points. But the RBI thing is largely meaningless … I’d put that total on Mauer and the other guys in front of Morneau. Likewise, ARod is behind Jeter and other OBP guys; Howard is behind Utley and Rollins. Baserunners is what you need to get RBI.
I definitely agree, though, that Morneau’s approach has proven hugely successful to him as a hitter. His ability to get a single off a breaking ball on the low-outside corner rather than a strikeout is huge.
But I contend that he could take home run cuts more often, without sacrificing the batting average (too much, anyway). I just feel that he shouldn’t fall ALL the way back into his old habits.
Maybe Morneau should try this new approach earlier in the games or when nobody’s on base. Adjusting to fit the situation as needed, rather than completely shifting all the time.
But I would be cautious about asking Morneau to change much at all. When he’s in a groove, it doesn’t matter if he’s hitting home runs or doubles- the Twins win.
Yeah. It’s probably not that great to try to tweak the approach of our good hitters, Mauer and Morneau, who I personally think should be going for more home runs every once in a while.
But since they’ve demonstrated ability and strength, it’s so much easier to think about them just changing their approach to change the shape of their success.
It’s much more difficult to look at a lesser player like Buscher or Punto or Cuddyer, etc, and “tweak” a whole bunch of things to compensate for the fact that they don’t have unusual talent.