Cos-K?

No no, don't worry; it's not a math post. It's another baseball post!

I was reading baseball prospectus today, and they have a highlight video of new Cubs right-fielder Kosuke Fukudome. I watched the video and closely scrutinized his stance and swing. The first thing I noticed was "ohmygod, he's a carbon copy of Kaz Matsui," the former Mets "savior" who couldn't handle the New York pressure, yet managed to make the World Series as a member of the Colorado Rockies. I always thought that there was something mechanically wrong with Matsui's swing from the left side. When he would bat righty, it looked more natural when he drove the ball, like he actually knew what he was doing. But when he hit lefty, it looked like he was always stepping away from the plate with his front leg. This is symptomatic of many Japanese imports (Hideki Matsui, Ichiro, Akinori Iwamura), although I think it's less pronounced with H. Matsui. It appears that all these players have been trained to begin their natural stride towards first base during their swing so they have that extra quick step getting out of the batters box. I think this is an OK approach to hitting if you have little power (Ichiro was 2nd in lowest Isolated Power in 2007 for players who qualified for the batting title and hit over .300 at .080. Luis Castillo, another lefty slap-hitter was first. Ichiro was tops in 2006. Isolated Power measures your propensity for getting extra-base hits by subtracting your batting average from your slugging percentage.), like Ichiro, Kaz, and Iwamura, because when you're relying on your speed, that quick stride to first base can help a lot. But if you're a power hitter like Hideki Matsui or Kosuke Fukudome, you need to be stepping in towards the plate so you can get your powerful body behind your swing. I think Hideki figured it out early on; he "only" hit 16 home runs in his first season in America, but since then has hit 31, 23, and 25 in his other full seasons. We'll see how long it takes for Fukudome to adjust to American pitching.

Now, I'm far from being a good hitter. Anyone who has watched me hit over the last year or two knows that I basically hit line drives to center/right-center field, unless I'm deliberately aiming somewhere else. I think in 14 softball games last summer in about 40 plate appearances, I probably got out 18 times, walked eight times, and got 14 hits (wow, a .550 OBP and a .469 SLG. A not too shabby 1.019 OPS. Again, I was just estimating; I might be slightly off), which is great, but only one of those hits was for extra-bases (a double in our last regular season game). One thing I really cut down on was pop-ups. When I was in high-school, I was primarily known for my slick-fielding; I wasn't much of a hitter (G-d knows, we even had a DH for me a few times, and I was the 2nd baseman!). I used to ALWAYS step away from home plate with my front foot, so I would pop out to 2nd base/right field all the time. I really worked hard on trying to keep my body in close to the plate while I swung, so I finally started getting my not-as-ample-as-now-yet-still-ample-enough body weight behind my swing, and I started to drive the ball a little bit.

Kaz, and Ichiro should be trying to hit a lot of bloopers the other way as lefties, but I think they look a whole lot better when they swing at inside pitches (it's hard to pull your body away from an inside pitch and still get decent wood on it).

Of course, these things I've noticed could just be a trick of the camera angle, which usually comes in over the pitcher's right shoulder, but I don't really think so.

Anyway, I wish Fukudome all the success in the world; he obviously knows a ton more about hitting than I do (although I'll be surprised if he has a better OPS than I do this year ;)