Breaking Down Pittsburgh Pirates Swing Mechanics – Part I

Mar 21, 2014; Tampa, FL, USA; Pittsburgh Pirates helmets and bats lay in the dugout prior to the game against the New York Yankees at George M. Steinbrenner Field. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

Every Major League Baseball player has to learn how to swing the bat from somewhere right?  Whether it be playing with a stick in the backyard, having your dad teach you, or just imitating your favorite major league player.  It all starts when your younger.  This article is going to be a two part article (starting infielders and outfielders) breaking down each players swing. All baseball players get their swings tweaked as they move up the ranks from little league to high-school to college and then the pros. Swings are an everyday project for major league ballplayers, they practice their swing constantly. They are studying film trying to break down their swing if they are in a slump or looking for what is making them drive the ball more. Now a days with technology breaking down a swing is a lot easier but you sometimes take out the human eye out of the equation and that can never be replaced. I’ll be breaking down the Pittsburgh Pirates swing mechanics, starting with the infielders.  Let’s get started.

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Josh Harrison – 3B

Josh Harrison is a pretty short player but he stands tall in the box before the pitch is thrown. You can see he uses the bat bobbing back and forth as his timing mechanism along with a decent front leg kick. His head is still and on the ball throughout the whole process of his swing. As he picks up his front leg you will notice that his hands get into hitting position rather quickly, and then when his foot hits the ground he throws his hands at the ball and gets the barrel of the bat through the zone rather quickly. Josh uses his hips well to drive the ball to the gaps which is part of the momentum from his leg kick.

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Jordy Mercer – SS

Jordy Mercer has a decent swing for such a tall ball player. First thing you will probably notice about his swing is how he sort of bends over, next you will probably notice that he always chokes up on his bat. First lets talk about why he bends over, Jordy bends over because he is relatively tall and  wants to get the barrel of the bat through the hitting zone as quick as possible. By bending over his hands are lower and closer to the zone. This works in toe to why he chokes up on the bat as well, when he chokes up on the bat he reminds himself to shorten his swing and get the barrel to the ball to drive it. He also does a leg kick to help with his hips, it forces him to drive his hips through the swing.

Neil Walker – 2B

For the sake of this article lets look at Neil Walker from the left side of the plate. From this side of the plate Neil Walker looks like he doesn’t even belong in the batters box let alone the baseball field. You can see his two feet are very close together before the pitch is thrown and he jiggles his legs around like he is scared. But as the pitch is being delivered you see his legs come apart and he does a little toe tap with his front leg as his timing mechanism. As he picks up his front leg his hands start to drop into a hitting position, to some players this may be difficult to handle two different movements in different directions. Neil Walker has mastered it and gets his hands into perfect position at the right time. His head is also very quiet throughout the swing letting him stay on the ball longer. I don’t know how he makes this work but he does.

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Francisco Cervelli – C

Francisco Cervelli is the new catcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates so I haven’t seen that much footage of him hitting yet. In the video above you can see that his swing is very simple and easy to repeat. It looks like he went with the “KISS” method of keeping it simple, stupid. He starts the bat in a relatively flat plane which you usually don’t want to do because it will take longer to get the barrel around. As you can see he quickly drops his hands ever so slightly to get the bat into a better position for contact. Cervelli doesn’t have a leg kick per say but he does have a slight timing belt with him turning his front foot in as the ball is in coming in. This slight foot turn helps remind him to use his hips and core muscles and not his arms.

Pedro Alvarez – 1B

Pedro Alvarez…that’s all I have to say! No, but seriously his swing is right on the money. Pedro keeps his hands in a hitting position at all times throughout his swing. Pedro transfer all his weight to his back leg before unleashing it all into the swing. His leg kick has come down over the years which is good because his head used to come out of his swing for an off-speed pitch. When Alvarez’s front foot comes into contact with the ground you see the weight get sifted and his front leg then becomes locked as his hands go through the zone. Pedro has been working on letting the ball travel deeper into the zone which has been evident by his opposite field power.

Next: So Which Infielder Has the Best Swing?