Cardinals Rookie Brendan Donovan Believes in Line Drives

Discuss all things Cardinals Baseball
Post Reply
Magneto2.0
Hall Of Famer
Posts: 17325
Joined: June 16 07, 2:12 pm

Cardinals Rookie Brendan Donovan Believes in Line Drives

Post by Magneto2.0 »

Fangraphs interview with David Laurila
David Laurila: How have you developed as a hitter since coming into pro ball?

Brendan Donovan: “We made a change in our hitting department — Jeff Albert, Russ Steinhorn, and those guys came in — and I was someone that made contact, but it wasn’t always quality contact. What we did is put me into a better body posture, better positioning, more tilt over the plate. I learned how to load the back hip a little better and flatten out my path. From there, it’s basically, ‘Let’s just try to get on plane, and see how long we can stay on plane.’ That’s helped me with fastballs up, and given me more adjustability on breaking balls and changeups, because I’m in the zone longer.

“I’m not a guy that chases the home run. Over the course of the season, I’ll hit my homers — I had 12 last year in the minor leagues, which is decent; not a ton of pop — but I mostly just try to make quality contact. There’s hard-hit percentage, and I obviously want to hit balls hard, but if I hit it 95 [mph] on the ground, that’s not great. I want to hit line drives.”

Laurila: You mentioned a flatter bat path. Fly balls presumably aren’t your goal?

Donovan: “I’ve always hit line drives. I’m not hitting the ball 115 mph — I’ve got one at 110 this year — and if I start hitting more fly balls, then I don’t have success. I start flying out, whereas if I can hit line drives, head-high line drives in the gaps, I’m going to hit doubles. I’m going to be on base. With that approach, I’m going to hit more balls square.

“I say ‘flatter,’ because I have more of a vertical bat angle. When you go to swing, if the bat doesn’t connect back here, you’re not going to be in the zone until roughly before contact. In college, we had metal bats and I was trying to drive the ball. I was trying to hit home runs, because I could. But I think that was counterproductive. Knowing me — knowing my swing and the way I play the game — I don’t think that was a good idea. When I got into pro ball and started to see some analytics and numbers, we started to make some changes that will make me more successful.”
Whole interview is at fangraphs: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/cardinals-r ... ne-drives/

User avatar
Joe Shlabotnik
Hall Of Famer
Posts: 23104
Joined: October 12 06, 2:21 pm
Location: Baseball Ref Bullpen
Contact:

Re: Cardinals Rookie Brendan Donovan Believes in Line Drives

Post by Joe Shlabotnik »

Marp 2.0. I hope he sticks around awhile.

User avatar
Big Amoco Sign
Master of Hyperbole
Posts: 14402
Joined: December 1 17, 11:05 am

Re: Cardinals Rookie Brendan Donovan Believes in Line Drives

Post by Big Amoco Sign »

Brendan Donovan: “We made a change in our hitting department — Jeff Albert, Russ Steinhorn, and those guys came in — and I was someone that made contact, but it wasn’t always quality contact
Jeff Albert adding value.

User avatar
Big Amoco Sign
Master of Hyperbole
Posts: 14402
Joined: December 1 17, 11:05 am

Re: Cardinals Rookie Brendan Donovan Believes in Line Drives

Post by Big Amoco Sign »

Weirdest Statcast I've ever seen. Does not barrel it. Just doesn't get affected by the spin of the ball in his swings. Very interesting.

Image

Post Reply