Or you can keep believing what you wish. Whichever.

Maybe Lopez himself, in trying to make himself a more complete ballplayer, concentrated on it….but why not, he was having success early on.

Also, hitting behind Ichiro using traditional baseball tactics, means sacrificing at bats to move him over. That’s why I have no problem with Vidro being here, because it allows Lopez to move down in the order and work more on driving the ball, than getting Ichiro moved down to second.

Hargrove didn’t teach Lopez to think about hitting the other way. Lopez can, and always has, gotten his share of hits to the right side. My point was that having Lopez focus exclusively on it, to the utter destruction of his offensive game, did nothing for him, because now that he’s hitting for some power again, he’s exactly the same hitter he was before.

Perhaps…..Hargrove is smart enough to help him round out his game by getting him to concentrate early in his career to use the opposite field.

I do find it funny that when someone fails, it’s because of Hargrove. When someone succeeds, it’s in spite of him.

Kinda sounds like the crazy guy pointing fingers at everyone else, calling them insane.

And he’s never really shown any ability to do that, at all.

but that not only presumes that that is what has happened, which we have no idea about, but also absolves Hargrove of responsibility for trying to force the square peg into the round hole in the first place.

I don’t think it unreasonable for Grover to try; I do think it unreasonable to be happy trading 20-30 points in batting average for 80-120 points in slugging.

It was a discussion about whether, in 2005, Jose Lopez had any business being in the major leagues or not. Most of it had to do with his defensive shortcomings at shortstop, which is why he is now at second base, and pitch recognition/knowing pitchers. In what I read, him being primarily a pull hitter is mentioned very peripherally, if at all.

Maybe I missed something?

Discarding that for the moment, the salient point that has been repeated in this thread multiple times is that the recent improvement in Lopez’s hitting is that he has gone back to his prior approach of NOT worrying about hitting the ball to all fields, and instead doing what he’s always done well.

The only thing you could possibly give credit to Hargrove for would be recognizing that he was trying to force a square peg into a round hole, giving up on that, and letting Jose hit how he is naturally inclined to; but that not only presumes that that is what has happened, which we have no idea about, but also absolves Hargrove of responsibility for trying to force the square peg into the round hole in the first place.

That he made it from there to here, while spending most of the time on the big club, evidences some pretty good development work. You can believe Mike Hargrove’s management played a part, or you can believe it happened all by itself. I simply choose to give the manager some credit.

If Hargrove STILL wants Lopez to hit the other way, and if Lopez’s hitting pattern now is the same as it was in the minors, I can’t see how you can give the credit to Hargrove.

And the discussion you’re citing doesn’t have that much to do with the discussion right here.

That he made it from there to here, while spending most of the time on the big club, evidences some pretty good development work. You can believe Mike Hargrove’s management played a part, or you can believe it happened all by itself. I simply choose to give the manager some credit.