Who that is and what it takes is Sandy’s job to figure out!
So far Pagan is the only trade he has made that affects the MLB roster…and it hasn’t been all that great! I would mch rather have Pagan in Center and Kirk in Left right now that the two guys we got for Pagan. He has speed and would be as good a leadoff hitter as Kirk or Torres has been.
Time for Sandy to do his horsetrading like we were told was so important in building the Braves and Phillies when they were presented as genius builders ( I know that wasn’t you so don’t take it as such!)

Ike is just one case.
Bay was doing it, Duda was doing it more, Wright used to do it but hasn’t this year…
About the only players who haven’t are Tejada, Murphy and on occassion Thole!
Which would explain thier BAs at the moment.

Face it as bad as Acosta and Miggy have been nothing you can do now is going to change it!
The time to fix it was the offseason!

Maybe he couldn’t, maybe he refused!

As many claim this is a rebilding year right it’s all about the future?
So whats the problem with the way we are playing now if WIN NOW is such a bad idea to begin with why change mid season?
If all the crap and arguments made in the offseason was worth spewing then I don’t see why anyone is concerned with the failures and deficiencies of this current team! The ones making excuses were largely the ones who thought we were doing the right thing in getting and relying on these players months ago!

We KNEW we had no shot before the season started thats why so many said we had to wipe the slate purge the all stars and start over!

Now we are going to change that opinion because we started off hot against depleted teams in our division?

Just let them play and at the end of the season we can sort out who sucked who didn’t and who was right in the scrap or play to win this year argument!

No reason to blow though Minors in the name of winning a season no one said was worth building a team to win with.

Better to trade those kids for something you really CAN use than bring them up and ruin their trade value to win games no one was concerned with winning when we passed on improving the team in the offseason!

That being said, I showed earlier that Ike is actually swinging too much not taking too much.

You can drive any strike provided you go with the pitch!
In the case of Ike on pitches to the outside you go opposite field.
On Pitches inside you pull.

We talk about how best to get bat on ball but hitting skill also has a high degree of being able to foul off pitches as well!

You forget the batter doesn’t determine what he gets the Pitcher does!
And to get what you want you have to show the pitcher you can beat him when he gives you what he wants so he will try something else that maybe you DO like!

Or swing at what he presents and foul it off until the pitcher screws up or works himself into a position to give you what you crave!

Now its less important to swing at the first strike than it is to swing at the second or potential third.
But it much more important to swing at pitches that are close enough for a fallible human to call a strike!
And this is where Ike has failed almost from the start of him being here!
I’m certainly not blaming Hudgens for that and if he gets any knock it is for maybe not correcting it but I can’t say he hasn’t tried!

You can wait for a pitch to drive right up until you have one strike on you!
Then there is no more WAITING it should be about REACTING!

Truth is a batter should be able to drive ANY pitch that is a strike. Thats what seperates the men from the boys!
The better hitters leave no strike you can throw to get them out consistently as a weakness a pitcher can exploit!

Part of Ike’s problem is he is anticipating and waiting for a pitch that doesn’t come and by the time it does he is either looking for something else and taking those strikes or rolling over on them.
The way to stop that is to (for awhile) don’t let the count get deep!

Once you have done that for awhile you will get those pitches later because he isn’t sneaking strikes by you early in the count anymore!

Good rules for batting no matter if your playing moneyball, small ball or long ball!”

His approach is less about the anticipation and prediction used in batting and more focused on the REACTION to what is presented. And I agree with this approach as it does not require guessing correctly to succeed. All it requires is concentration of putting the bat on the ball when it is pitched to a place that you like.

Yes this will result in more walks AND more hits but it will also lead to more called third strikes and swings and misses if you get fooled by the pitch. This is the norm for an AGGRESSIVE approach. But in the end the fact that you are looking for pitches to HIT as opposed to waiting for mistakes or trying to draw more walks means you probably won’t strike out on balls you could not hit if you wanted to (ie High Heat) because it’s not your pitch to hit and therefore more often than not you will succeed in putting the ball in play where anything can happen!”