The hips don t lie
One thing that is worth noticing though is that overall exit velocities seem to be up, which is possibly attributable to the new ball. Weirdly, during spring training HR/batted ball event went up relative to previous years, though there are lots of mitigating factors, obviously. This is talked about in greater depth here at The Ringer as well as at Fangraphs. The initial word is that the ball was designed to have a lower coefficient of restitution (COR), which would make it less bouncy, though there is also some evidence that the new balls also have a greater drag coefficient, which would also lower how much "carry" fly balls have. It's something I'm aware of, and it's something I'm excited to get to the offseason and just grind the hell out of it.”Ĭlick to expand.FWIW, there IS (again) a new ball this season, but this one was designed to help reduce flyball distance and home runs, not increase them.
I've had very mobile hips, very loose hips and they've been kind of out of control. You cut distance to the ball, and all of a sudden the fastball is doing this, your hips are doing this and that's what happens,” said Martinez. And he knows the poor alignment with his hips are the reason he’s not catching up to the fastball. In a way, it is more frustrating for Martinez that he knows what the issue is and still hasn’t been able to fix it. I just threw away four at-bats.' That's been the most frustrating part.” That's what it looked like in BP.' But then I'll go in the game and I'll do the move all day, and after the game, I go look at it and I'm like, 'Great, I just wasted the entire day because I didn't do the move from the first at-bat. “ will feel great, then I go in the game and I'm like, 'OK, well, I'm just going to ride this out, because I think that's what the move is. I don’t know if I’m doing the right move, and I’m like, 'OK, I think I have my hips.
It’s like, I think I’m doing the right move. I feel like I have a little bit more control of them. “It’s just, as of late, I’ve been feeling better. It’s been obvious to me all year,” Martinez said. It could also be the result of reduced bad speed, which is potentially more concerning - I don't think that's injury related because if he was at all hurt he already would have been shut down like Benintendi was, which means if bat speed is an issue, it's most likely just wear-and-tear and age, which doesn't bode well for upcoming seasons.Īt least he believes he knows what the issue is. As you say, really the only statistical anomaly for him is that he's not hitting balls hard/barelling them anywhere near his career numbers, which could be the result of such experimentation. Click to expand.I haven't watched nearly enough Red Sox baseball this year to know if this has any merit, but part of me (the glass-half-full part) wonders whether he had already more or less decided he wasn't going to opt-out after this season before the year even started, and once it became quickly clear that the Sox weren't going to be contenders he just decided to treat this year as extended spring training and work on certain aspects of his swing or something.