Gary Sheffield was one of my all-time favorite hitters to watch. There was just something about him. Bat waggling, cheeks full, and intensity showing, every time Sheffield was at the plate it felt like something was going to happen. We have never quite seen anyone do it like Sheffield. Today I want to take a look back and remember the brilliance of Sheff, and figure out what he did that made him so good.
Here are some clips to get us started. This first one is Sheffields first career HR:
Interestingly we don’t see the bat waggle here. Here is another one, bat waggle in full effect:
I was curious about this switch. What made Sheffield start his “waggle”?
From an interview with Sheffield (you can read the whole thing here) we see what made him start. This is intriguing to me and something that presents us a huge lesson. Sheffield discovered the very thing that marks his career because he was struggling so he decided to “mess around” with something different. This is something many players simply don’t do today! They think a coach has to tell them to try something new. They often are afraid to think for themselves. Let Gary be your example. Try out different things and if something clicks, keep it! I also enjoyed the part where Sheffield said he used it to toy with pitchers. We often hear about pitchers doing that to hitters. Stroman, and others, using different variations of their windup is the modern example. We rarely hear about hitters doing the same thing to pitchers. I think it’s about time we change that trend.
Finally, I want to take a different look at Sheffields swing so we can see why he could use so much movement, which is often thought of as a negative, and still be successful:
(Credit to DetroitChaos7 on youtube for the video)
This view helps us get a better look at what the bat is doing in relation to the rest of the body. Here is the important part that I want us to focus on:
This is from max bat tip through contact. Even though the bat gets well out in front of Sheffields body at max tip, he still gets it back in a good spot to get behind the baseball by the time his actual swing starts to launch. In fact, the tip helps him with this. It helps him get some momentum going into the swing. Many of you have probably heard about a “running start” with the barrel. Sheffield does a very exaggerated version of that. He gets the bat moving out in front, but then still gets it back behind so that he can work behind the baseball. So in actuality, while his swing may look “long”, it is actually very short. By the time he goes to launch his swing, all he has to do is turn the barrel into the baseball. This is made even easier because his barrel already has a head start via the running start.
That’s all I have on Sheffield. That will be the last installment for the week. Look for #10 on Monday.