It goes hand in hand with waiting till the last possible moment to swing. That was my downfall. I could never catch up with a high fastball without cheating.

For example… Ryan Sweeney is a guy that is easy to project as a fellow who will develop power. I am usually skeptical of such things, but in his case it is more than a big frame that can hold more muscle than it presently does. I watch him and see that he makes a lot of contact out in front, not out on hsi fornt foot but towards the tail end of the “contact zone.”

With his, already mentioned by Nico, ability to lay of crappy pitches, his potential to add strength to his frame and the opportunity to learn to let the ball get just a bit further into the wheel house before swinging on a more regular basis… it is easy to see why some people expect him to develop more power.

Additionally, there was a home run he hit in Toronto where all of this came together. I think ti was shortly after the all star break. I just remember he put a good swing, on a good pitch and he let the ball get more into his happy zone and he crushed a tape measure job. Of course doing it once and developing it into a habit are some very different things.

which of course, if you have all the attributes listed above going for you, then confidence comes easy. I look for a hitter that doesn’t get too down on himself during bad spells as well. Sweeney indeed looks like a very good player so far, displaying all of the above.

Giving himself up for the team.

Stuff like that.

Do they have a five frame swing? Meaning, at launch, does the bat get from the start of handle torque to contact in five frames or less?

Do they use all fields? Self-explanatory.

Do they see a lot of pitches per AB? Self-explanatory for anyone who has read Moneyball.

Are they fooled on offspeed pitches? If they can’t hit breaking balls, it will be evident very quickly – and they won’t be playing at AA or above. However, there are many great hitters who can’t handle changeups. That’s what I look for.

1 year $4 million w/ $1.25 buyout for 2009 + option for another $4 miilion in ’10

Link

look through comparison reports and if there is any mention of Bobby Crosby or praise from Peter Gammons, I know that there will be not victory in Muddville that day or hitting form said hitter.

also, I wish we’d taken a poll on what salary people would switch to the “sign Giambi” camp. Looking back I’ve already found a handful of people that were at the $5/6m mark, and I’d be curious to hear what they say now.

Obligatory small sample and uneducated/spotty eyewitness anecdote caveats aside, Cunningham in his cup o’ coffee last year simply couldn’t make contact with straight-as-a-line fastballs over the plate. The league will likely keep feeding him those until he proves he can hit ‘em with authority (and, as I’ve guessed before, I think he’ll have a Byrnesesque “breakout month” in ‘09 or ’10 where he makes solid contact on a steady diet of fastballs, and then go back to waving at ’em once they’re mixed in with junk).

by my height

He has very strong pull tendencies on balls hit on the ground (singles and ground outs) but when he hits the ball more solidly (fly outs, doubles, and home runs) it goes to all fields, in fact slightly more to RF than to LF. That’s pretty typical of most power hitters (and for that matter many non-power hitters), and while it does make an infield shift effective, I’m not convinced that those players are really easier to defend than the slap hitters. They also tend to have high BABIP (n.b. not luck).

http://blog.swingtraining.net/2006/07/18/jeff-francoeur-and-the-x-factor.aspx

See Werth… Jayson

I look for the mustache.

Giambi has it. The A’s have been lacking it since Swish left. I think it’s helpful to have some confidence on a team, and I really think Giambi is a +5 in wins for the A’s. He’ll have a much better year than expected because he will be so much happier here and the leader on the team. Now we need another arm, Andruw Jones in CF and somebody else at SS. I’m getting more excited for ‘09 all the time. Go A’s!