Thanks Trey. Great point. Played with Mikey in 19. Played against him forever. See the athleticism on the front side in a breaking ball. Stays down through it. Head down. If he dumps “snaps” barrel behind him and spins on back side …he’s out. Either roll over or swing and miss. Our hands work as extensions of our body. Dumping them back first move takes 2.ft of barrel length, at least, out of strike zone. This decreases chances of clean contact immensely.

Great question. Biggest reason is that analytics has taken a massive role in the development of the game. Launch angle, exit velo, bunch of bs in my opinion. These are fancy words for hitting the ball hard out in front. Just people naming things to sound smart who never played. Younger players have come up through the ranks focusing strictly on data (new school) vs results(old school) For example, I hit .300 in 2014. Bunch of doubles, and my best statistical year. If you go watch every double I had, which was 54 total, I think?, can’t remember exactly but I’d say 15-20 of those doubles were duck fart flares. Jam shots. Lucky hits basically. Or, conversely, were they lucky or were they a by product of a swing that was focused on a quality bat path with barrel length and time through the zone that facilitated a room for (timing) error swing? A path that led to my timing being off, getting jammed, and still fighting for a hit that drove in a run that contributed to winning a game. This is what great hitters do. I wasn’t one of the best but I had a couple of decent years. Great , true hitters, not “swingers”, get jammed and get those extra 15-20 knocks a year that add RBIs, OBP, hits, etc. These modern players have gotten so used to Instagram hitting coaches and mlb analytics team valuing and teaching certain things. Like homers. Trying to hit the ball in the air. Instead of low line drives with back spin. They are great and all but if you want to be a good hitter then focus on hitting line drives and the homers will come. Striking out is not okay either. Too many guys are fine with it. I hated to strike out. More than anything. Loathed. This is the main issue of the modern hitter.