Today we are going to look at Jose Altuve. He is listed at 5’6 on baseball reference, yet has somehow managed to establish himself as a superstar in todays’ game. What?! All of my fellow sub 6’0 guys, pay attention!!!
Before I get into talking about Altuve, how about we stop and listen to the man himself. This is a very recent video taken of him, talking about his swing:
(couldn’t get the link to embed in the post, sorry)
Throughout this video there are some real nuggets. The first thing they talk about is the scissor action that occurs in Altuves’ lower half when he swings. Basically, as he swings, instead of his back foot coming forward, pivoting, or whatever else might happen, it swings behind him a little bit. Here is an example:
As he said in the video, he is not the only one that does it. Other guys, such as Cabrera do it as well:
(you can see Miggys’ rear foot kick behind him a little here, even on a pitch that is off the plate inside)
Baseball is not the only sport that sees this scissor action. Have you ever watched hockey?
(Watch his rear foot as he shoots)
So, what is this scissor action and what causes it? I want you to try something. Stand up. Act as if you were looking out at a pitcher. So you should be looking over your left shoulder if you’re a righty, and right shoulder if you’re a lefty. Now, pick your rear foot up off the ground. So right foot if you’re righty and vice versa. Now I want you to lean forward. What happens to your back leg, the one that is off the ground? It goes behind you, like we see in the videos. Really, all the scissor action we see in these swings are the body reacting to what’s happening so that it can balance itself. If you are hitting, and have to hit a low pitch, you are going to have to get some tilt. This means that more of your bodyweight is going to be distributed forward, or over the plate. Your body needs to balance this out, so the back leg kicks out. If it didn’t, you’d probably just fall over. We don’t want that.
(should’ve scissored bro)
Now not all hitters scissor on low pitches. Why? I think it has a little bit to do with the way guys like Altuve and Cabrera hit. In the video, Altuve talks about staying closed with his front leg. Whether you agree with that or not, it contributes to the scissor action (Cabrera does the same thing. Stays more closed with the front leg). When you don’t allow yourself to open up, energy that you have created is being blocked by the front leg. It has to go somewhere, and again the back leg kicking out is just a result of that. The energy created finding a way to even itself out to get back to balanced. To demonstrate, I want you to try the experiment I had you try before, but this time point your front foot towards the pitcher. What happens when you pick up your back leg? Your whole body rotates toward the pitcher. The more open you are with your front foot, the less you’re going to scissor. We see that in the guy we looked at yesterday, Dustin Pedroia:
(Pedroia lands more open so we will not see as much scissor action with the back foot)
Now that we have that figured out, what else does Altuve talk about? He was asked what he thinks about in terms of his hands. He responded by saying he doesn’t think about his hands at all. If he sets himself up correctly with his lower half, his upper half will take of itself. Each hitter is different in this area. Some feel like if they have control of their hands, everything will be okay. Others don’t think about them. It comes down to each individual hitter and what makes them feel comfortable and be good.
He ends the video by talking about approach. Altuves’ goal each at bat is to hit the ball towards the batters eye in center. I love this. Many guys, once they start thinking about hitting for power, or once they try swinging a little bit harder, will get overly pull happy. By focusing on the batters eye in center, Altuve can swing a little harder, as he said he has been trying to do the last couple years, and still have good direction into the baseball. Too much of one thing is never good. Too much focus on pull MAY (keyword may, everybody is a little different), cause you to start hooking balls too aggressively and conversely trying to go oppo all the time MAY cause you to slice the ball too often. By keeping his focus on centerfield, Altuve allows himself to find that happy medium.
That’s all I got for today. Hope you enjoyed it and learned a little bit. Stay tuned for installment 4 tomorrow!