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MUST SEE: Brian Dozier Shares Hitting Insight


Parker Hageman

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Brian Dozier was on MLB Network yesterday and the Twins' second baseman -- in the midst of a 25-game hitting streak, by the way -- and demonstrating the changes he made in order to go from a puncher of a middle infielder to a a second base capable of bopping 40 home runs.

 

If you are a player, coach, instructor or just a fan curious to know the thought process behind Dozier's development, you have to watch this.

 

 

The overall segment could have gone smoother (or shorter) if Mark DeRosa did not keep interrupting or interjecting his thoughts and allow Dozier to talk. When Dozier did get to explain his methods, he shared one of the most critical parts about the swing: Hands are the enemy of the swing.

 

"Hands just hold the bat," Dozier tells DeRosa, which is something that the Orioles' Chris Davis told him. It's not the hands or arms that generate the power, it's the firing of his hips that drives the ball. Watch the clip of Gary Player explaining this exact phenomenon on the golf course This is definitely a truism in golf, where Dozier finally had his eureka moment, but it certainly applies to the baseball swing as well.

 

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I am more impressed with his change in attitude in about the last year starting to spread the ball around more. His pull happy slow pitch softball approach when he originally started putting up HR numbers really isn't that impressive. Few players could have continued to play every day during his late 2015-early 2016 streak while he refined that stroke. I just wish he would take all that power and get into the middle of the order, maybe replace RG? :). By all accounts he is insistent on leading off, which doesn't seem to make a lot of sense on this team.

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His pull happy slow pitch softball approach when he originally started putting up HR numbers really isn't that impressive.

 

 

I mean, he's still pull happy -- his pull rate is the 12th highest in baseball -- but that's a good thing. As he told me, the shortest distance out of the park is to left field.

 

But what did change for him is that he isn't trying to pull the ball on the outer-half (which he did more of in the previous years, inevitably rolling over to short). He drives that pitch occasionally the other way. 

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