This off-season, the Mets hired former Yankees hitting coach Kevin Long to help alleviate some of the Mets woes on offense. In an article by John Harper of the NY Daily News, Long shared his thoughts about the Mets approach and he believes there are misconceptions about it.
“I think they’ve had to try to change the culture here,’’ says Long. “It’s funny, because, isn’t walking a byproduct of swinging at good pitches? It’s about swinging at good pitches. It’s about making smart decisions.”
“I believe the most important thing you can have as an offensive unit is guys that walk and guys that drive the baseball for power. But to drive the baseball, they have to swing at strikes.”
“I’d say that 95% of big league hitters can do damage with a pitch that gets some part of the heart of the plate. So if we can hone in on that, our walks will go up and we’ll drive the baseball.”
“I do think you can be too patient, if you’re taking fastballs in the heart of the plate just to work the count. But with some guys you do need to make them take just so they learn. We want to be aggressive in the strike zone but take the walk if it’s available because we want traffic on the bases. It goes hand in hand.”
Long also talked about his own philosophy and style as a coach:
“I feel very comfortable with what I see and taking that to the player and saying, ‘here’s what I’m seeing, here’s the adjustment I think needs to be made, here’s the drill I think can fix that, and let’s go to work.’
“Part of it is listening to their feedback too and creating a trust with the player. My philosophy is that I work within a guy’s individual scheme. I don’t have a cookie-cutter approach. Remember Walt Hriniak (a Charley Lau disciple who worked with the Red Sox and White Sox in the 80s), where everybody did it one way? That’s not my style.
“My style is more to work within what an Ichiro does, or a Jeter did, or a Cano. Or take a Swisher and kind of put him back together again. I’ve been given a lot of credit for being able to do that. And I feel comfortable doing that, where some hitting coaches, they can’t do it. It’s not their forte.”
Long has already worked with some of Mets hitters and provided an early analysis of several players. Here is what he had to say:
“I wasn’t here, I didn’t live that shoulder injury with him, but if you have a shoulder injury and you start to extend your swing, especially on a pitch away that you want to drive to the opposite field…if you feel pain doing that, you cut your swing off to compensate, and you can’t get through the ball and drive it. What I’m seeing now is a guy who’s healthy, he feels good, and I’m sure he’s on a little bit of a mission.”
“He’s a beast. This guy’s special. You know when Lucas Duda’s hitting because it’s a different sound. There are some things he needs to work on, and lefthanded pitching is one of those. But we’ll gain on it. Remember, the knock on Curtis (Granderson) was he couldn’t hit lefties. And what happened? He ended up killing lefties (as a Yankee). It’s basically about angles. We’ve started on some drills to help Lucas with that and, I’ll tell you what, he looks great.”
“I’m excited about working with him. We’ll just try to get back to what he was doing some of those years (with the Yankees) when he was hitting 40 home runs. You look at where his swing was. You look at where it is now. I felt like we had a very good blueprint. Get compact, ‘A’ swings that will play in any ballpark.”
“He has a good understanding, a good feel for what he’s doing. He uses his hands real well. A lot has been made of using his lower half a little more. He’s a no-stride guy so he should be able to make good decisions. He’s looking to go middle-away but I feel like he reacts to the ball inside very well. There’s room for improvement and we’ll address things as we go along.”
“When he came back from Triple-A he looked like he had some fire in him, and he wasn’t thinking so much. He’s got to get his body in a good position to be explosive. He’s got power but when his hands are moving all around or he’s jumping at the ball, those things aren’t going to come out. He’s quieted down quite a bit and he’s moving in the right direction.”
