Braun's Stance/Swing

[chuckcrim]

Does anyone else think his stance is different when compared with his first few seasons? His bat doesn't seem to be angled back over his shoulder but more upright. Additionally, he doesn't seem to be following through completely on his swing. It almost looks like JJ Hardy when he had the same problem until Prince corrected him during BP. He hasn't looked like this all season - only the last 6 weeks or so. Take a look at video of him hitting from seasons past and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about. He looks like a completely different hitter.

[Invader3K]

His stance does seem to look slightly different. I'm not sure about the swing, though.

[tyguy20204]

All I know is that he's become increasingly worse as the season wears on.

 

His slash line right now is: .295/.351/.825. Combine that with his terrible defense, and he's really not having a good season at all.

 

Here are his monthly splits:

 

April: .355/.430/1.011

May: .286/.348/.834

June: .264/.299/.708

 

Here are his home/away splits:

 

Home: .226/.272/.656

Away: .352/.414/.961

 

Here are his lefty/righty splits:

 

vs. Lefty: .259/.333/.721

vs. Righty: .308/.358/.862

[owbc]

I think he's just due for some mental adjustments. He has a great swing.

[brewmann04]

I think it time to call out Ryan Braun just like he done in the past.

[BrewCrewForever]

His stance does look a tad different from when he came into the league in 2007. But not a big dramatic change.

 

Braun is probably into the worst funk of his career. But he is too good of a player to stay this bad, I'm sure he will go on a hot streak and his numbers will rise and be back to his career norms by the time the season is over.

[Baldkin]

http://images.yuku.com/image/jpeg/e43150958163529aad9a3a4b50d95ee283021eb.jpghttp://images.yuku.com/image/jpeg/bdf35c5792c280e56b2f5eac9350607bd6bdca5.jpg

2009 vs the Cubs compared to 2010 vs the Astros

I can't go frame by frame, just did a copy/paste from pausing video on MLB.com.

 

It looks to me like his bat is a bit more vertical this year, and his stance is more open but the biggest difference is his entire body is more vertical when he coils to swing this season as well.

 

For a guy who came into this season with nearly an 1.100 OPS vs lefties for his career, who's now barely over .700 on the season, it seems as though something may be wrong.

 

 

[TooLiveBrew]

Honestly this might be as simple as: Braun has a really long swing, got beaned on the elbow, & just isn't healthy & able to generate his normal bat speed.

[BREWCREW5]

It could be as simple as this...

 

What are his stats pre elbow strike...and his stats post elbow strike?

[pitchleague]

I honestly believe that his home woahs will be solvvd once they put the ivy back in the batter's eye instead of that bland blah black paint job.

[FVBrewerFan]

I think it's as simple as having the Corey Hart disease. (Something Corey has largely cured for the time being.) Which is, very simply, chasing too many balls out of the strike zone- especially outside pitches.

[brewmann04]

I think the above poster is correct that Braun has lost his batting eye,and still believe there something when he got plunked .

[JohnBriggs12]

I think it's just another symptom of the incredible amount of tightness that has enveloped this team.

 

They know they are better than this. Macha knows his job is slipping away. That's not a combination that makes for an atmosphere of peak performance.

 

They need to put Macha out of his misery.

[brewmann04]

Sorry but sometime it comes down to the palyers to produce at the level they are capable of,however Braun aug has been on a free fall since his hit on the elbow. Well i guess if Macha goes so must Dale and Willie cause Hitting had been bad and the defense and base running has been bad.

[crewcrazy]

Braun's swinging at a few more pitches out of the zone than he did last year, but it's still far below the rates he swung at those pitches in his first two years. He's also making more contact on those pitches out of the zone than he ever has in his career. IMO, the problem just comes down to him not centering up on the ball and hitting it hard as much -- his line drive percentage is nearly 2% lower than it was last year, and his HR/FB is 7% lower than it was last year.

 

I don't completely buy the injury excuse -- it's been 50 games now. If it's still bothering him, that's a huge issue and he had no business playing in those games.

[greeg35]

Seems to me that something is going on league-wide offensively driving stats (particularly HR's) down. I have a hard time believing it is less PED use (conspiracy theory: maybe that's what they want us to think), so maybe they wound the balls looser again or whatever and it seems to be impacting players differently. Just looking at league-wide era's and hr #'s tells me that something is going on. Braun/Fielder might have gotten used to crushing golf balls a mile and are having trouble adjusting their game. So there's my conspiracy theory.

[Ennder]

Could be as simple as he is slumping too. He has had an OPS under .700 for a full month before back in 2008. Heck in 2008 he had 3 full months with an OPS of .784 or lower. Could be a combination of things like the injury slowed him down and caused his hitting mechanics to get a little out of whack and he hasn't gotten back from it yet. Could be all kinds of things.

[pebadger]

Not only could it be all kinds of things, it probably is all kinds of things. Injury, mental approach attributable to what is happening baseball-wise, mental approach attributable to non-baseball factors in his life, mechanical variances in his swing, eyesight, opposing pitching strategy, opposing pitching execution, luck.

[Baldkin]

Clearly he's just too tired from moonlighting as a cook at his new restaurant.

[JohnBriggs12]

Clearly he's just too tired from moonlighting as a cook at his new restaurant.

You jest, but his business could well be a distraction. This entire team seems distracted. Fielder's thinking about what Howard got. McGehee's got a new baby at home. Counsell and Edmonds are thinking about which contender they'll be with in a month. Gomez is wondering why he can't beat out a 40 year old. Escobar's probably wondering what that nut running his homeland will do next. Losing will cause guys to lose focus. This team right now is so fragile mentally it's ridiculous. When they swept the Twins and won the opener against Seattle, it looked like they would go on a role, but a loss here to Seattle and a couple to the Astros seemed to take the life right out of them.

[MilwaukeeCounsell]

I think it's as simple as having the Corey Hart disease. (Something Corey has largely cured for the time being.) Which is, very simply, chasing too many balls out of the strike zone- especially outside pitches.

That might work, except his O% for 2010 is lower than his career averages.

 

He's actually swinging at more pitches in the zone this year than last year.

[Invader3K]

I think he has some kind of injury. Macha never giving him a day off probably isn't helping, either.

[Lurker II]

having his name on a restaurant is clearly going to his head

 

kidding.

[TooLiveBrew]

I don't completely buy the injury excuse -- it's been 50 games now. If it's still bothering him, that's a huge issue and he had no business playing in those games.

Fortunately the Brewers' medical staff has an impeccable track record

[TooLiveBrew]

Braun since May 11th (beaned on the elbow by Tommy Hanson May 10th):

 

.249/.285/.412/.697, 247 PA

 

This doesn't include today's game. If you look at Braun's game logs on Baseball-reference, the only phrase that comes to mind for me after May 10th is "freefall". Part of the problem is certainly his discipline/patience -- just 12 walks since getting drilled, compared to 18 in just 146 PA before getting beaned. However, something else is wrong, and the correlation with the HBP is too convenient to just be a coincidence imo.

 

I really think Braun is hiding or playing through an injury. This is easily the worst stretch of his career, and it's getting to the point where it's hard to just write off as a slump. For comparison's sake, Carlos Gomez's line on the season is .239/.293/.368/.662 (230 PA). I hope the Brewers are taking this seriously & doing everything they can to make sure Ryan isn't hurting himself in the future by playing through this now.