Hitting coach Kevin Long spoke yesterday about the changes he and Derek Jeter are making to the Captain’s swing, specifically with regards to the inside pitch. “The issue with the stride foot is when it crosses over and goes [toward the plate] and the ball is coming inside, you don’t have a path to get to that pitch,” said Long. “So he’s going to try to [keep his hands and body inside] and try to stay into it … Now, by staying square and going up on his toe and going [inside with the swing], he’s creating an avenue for his hips to get through and to become square to the baseball.”
The two heat graphs above show Jeter’s foul balls over the last two years, with 2009 on the left and 2010 on the right. They come courtesy of Dave Pinto at Baseball Analytics, and allow us to see that the inside pitch was giving the Cap’n a hard time last year. Instead of putting those balls in play like we’re so used to seeing, he was just fouling them off. Assuming the adjustments work, the bulk of the foul balls should come on pitches on the outer half in 2011.
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