I’ve loved him ever since he came on as an incredible freshman, but let’s face it, he ended last year in a hitting slump & made a bunch of errors. I thought he’d fix all that in the off-season. But for some reason I don’t understand, he seems to have gotten worse. His strikeout at the end was almost a given. Instead of the clutch hitter he once was, he’s become an automatic out.
Why? It has to be mental. Is there something in his mechanics? He’s a tremendous talent we desperately need to play like he did as a freshman if we want to get very far in the post-season.
i don’t know much about baseball, but it looks like he’s trying to pull every ball to hit the long ball. he won’t see many fastballs the rest of the year. trouble with the curve, or slider or changeup.
Well it’s hard just to change swings now that the season has started the only thing what I would try having him do is possibly do is scooting up on top of the home plate. He may can get to some of those sliders and he’s very quick inside to handle the fastball. He just has to understand that those pitches are not strikes… his stance is his biggest problem in my opinion because with an open stance he has it’s too easy to step your foot into the bucket, that’s why he rolls over so many pictches, but like I said it’s very hard just to change stances/swings now
He’s the Mark Wohlars of Arkansas…a complete headscratcher…happening to his fielding and batting. Makes me wonder if he also getting sore knees (like a 60 year old).
I still think his best position, ultimately, will be in the outfield…as I first posted here last season (April 2019).
I did take notice that during the tryouts for the USA team (he didn’t get selected) he did play in the outfield some.
Some have suggested trying him at second base. The issue I have with second base is that it still exposes him to his kryptonite - the routine infield grounder. If you’ll notice, very very few of Casey’s errors come off of difficult plays. It is the ball that virtually anyone could and should gobble up and throw out with ease that he struggles with, for whatever reason. He’d still get a lot of those at second.
One might say that there are “routine” plays in the outfield. But those are fly balls, and Casey’s never had a problem catching pop-ups or line drives. I just think it would take a lot of pressure off of him. Not sure that would immediately cure his hitting woes, but at least he could focus on them almost exclusively. Right now he’s in a vortex where nothing is going right.
I have not seen us play a game, yet. If Casey has an open stance and is trying to pull the ball…that is trouble. He won’t be able to hit the ball on the outside part of the plate.
Many times when a hitter is struggling, he will just try to hit the ball up the middle on go to right field which hardly anybody does in today’s game. The best hitters just hit the ball where it is pitched. Throw the ball inside…hit it to left. Throw it on the outside part of the plate, hit it to right or up the middle. Putting the barrel on the ball is the goal.
That’s exactly his problem,he can’t cover the outside corner that’s why I suggested I would move him right on top of home plate, probably too late to be tweaking a stance now…if he stays where he’s at now he’s going to have to learn just to not swing at thoseand he obviously has a very hard time picking up slider spin because he swings at them over and over
Martin can’t cover the outside part of the plate and he continues to take cuts at balls over a foot outside. He took strike 1 last night in his last AB which was the beat pitch of the AB from there his was finished. You don’t have to throw him a strike and that’s what teams are doing to him! When he decides to take the ball to right field he might go to hitting again! I wish they would have pinch hit for him last night.
All the tools on the world won’t fix mechanical issues. Your right about him stepping into the bucket. Open stance and when he swings he is WIDE open. It’s been a while since he seen the ball hit his bat. His head is looking down the left field line on his swing.
His fielding is horrible as well.
Well, I love hitting and even though I’m an old guy, I am still a student of the art of hitting a baseball. I would show Martin videos of him trying to hit a baseball. Then, I would show him videos of some of the really good hitters that are around. Benintendi comes to mind. Here’s what he would see. Martin is never looking down at the spot where the bat hits the baseball. He swings with his head looking out toward the field. It’s swing and hope hitting. It’s like kids in little league do it. A really good hitter will take his stride forward but leave his head vertical over the plate. The head will be looking down as the bat hits the baseball. Remember in little league when the coaches would say “watch the bat hit the baseball”. Martin also limits his ability to hit the baseball because he has that goofy stance. If he would square up at the plate, he could protect the outside part of the plate and take the ball the other way when necessary. I know everyone is saying that it’s mental with Martin and he has to relax and get his head right again. I say it’s more than that. His technique and approach at the plate is really bad and he will never really be a good hitter against really good pitching until he changes a few things.
Martin has a thousand things rolling around in his head when at bat… much like a good golfer’s issue with the shanks. He couldn’t hit that outside the zone pitch with a five foot tennis racket but the swings keep coming. If DVH does indeed sit him tonight, maybe he’ll start believing the instructions we all know he is getting from the staff. If not, his draft status will fall off the planet. It’s starting to look like a Twilight Zone story between the fielding and hitting.
I don’t remember Martin struggling to hit those outside pitches as a freshman. I pulled a couple of videos from that year and it looks like his stance was a little wider then. This was from one of his best games that year:
Missing two months of swings over the holidays while his hand healed means he has not rebuilt that strengthin hand. Even on some of his fly balls to left, did not have the distance of last year. That will come in time. Nate Thompson works with him every day to hit the ball the other way. Easier said than done.
He can hit the ball if it doesn’t go low and away,singer left the ball enough toward the middle so he could reach it… the last two nights he is saw really sharp breaking sliders that are low and off the plate. I don’t really know of anybody that can hit the pitches he’s been swinging at to be honest. He has to learn to lay off of them or move closer to the plate and take them to right field… he has always come around so I think he will eventually do so this year but right now he’s as lost as I’ve ever seen him
Well I stopped the video at the moment the ball was arriving at the plate (very hard to do) and what I saw was that he was doing a better job of tracking the pitch. I guess that is an obvious statement. But…I stand by everything I said and will until I see a change in his approach at the plate.
Someone jokingly posted he should follow Goodheart and get his eyes checked. May be that simple. If he’s not seeing the spin of the ball, he can’t recognize a fastball from a slider or curve. Could also affect his fielding.