Enough Aldrete? NO! We Want More!
SF Giants Minor Lines, June 29, 2022
John Shea, dean of SF Chronicle’s coverage of the Giants, had a fantastic article yesterday about the changes that the Giants are working on with Joey Bart, complete with insightful comments from both Bart and Justin Viele, and plenty of video that Shea took from Tuesday night’s game. The quotes from Bart himself focussed on his mental adjustments and the benefits of getting away from the pressure of his big league situation. The quotes from Viele, however, were a very in depth and technical look at the mechanical side of the equation.
This is really a terrific piece, and hopefully all of you have been able to read it. Just focusing on the mechanical part, the Giants are trying to simplify his swing to help him get quicker. They really want to focus on keeping his back knee over his back foot, and staying away from the upper body drift that tends to come with his back knee getting out in front. And then they want his hands to sit right in the middle of his body, so the bat doesn’t have so far to travel to catch up with velocity.
If you look at this shot, which is from a video I took of Bart in Double A back in 2019, you can see that his old load had him taking his hands far back and up — Viele said they were getting up almost head high at some points this year (fwiw, the result of the swing below was a monster home run!).
And this is Bart’s setup now in Sacramento, staying very calm with his hands in the middle of the body to try to simplify the whole swing:
This, by the way, is similar to some mechanical changes we’re seeing elsewhere in the organization. Schulman mentioned Brandon Crawford above, which I can see, but check out David Villar’s current setup (which is a bit different from last year in Richmond). Pretty similar, no?:
The most important thing that Viele emphasized in Shea’s piece is that these changes are going to feel uncomfortable and weird for awhile to Bart, whose body has long been comfy with its muscle memory of the old swing, and in that transition time, results don’t matter quite so much as commitment to the process. Let it play out…
HITTER of the Night: Carter Aldrete (Eug), 2 for 4, 2 HR (13), 7 RBI, K
PITCHER of the Night: Nick Sinacola (SJ), 4.0 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 7 K, 1 HR
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