I don’t think that hitting coaches are much of a factor. They probably help some guys, hurt some guys, and have no impact on others. If you were to fire the current guy, his replacement would likely do the same, only the guys and how he impacts them might change.

This game is all about failure. Pujols and Bonds were the best hitters of the last 25 years and they still walk back to the dugout over half the time go to the plate. The key for a hitting coach is to make sure that players are comfortable, prepared, and have their mind right.

Yogi Berra said “90% of this game is half mental”, and even though that doesn’t make logical sense, it does make sense when you think about the game itself — you can have all the physical tools in the world, but if you’re not a confident hitter and don’t think you’re going to do well, it has a significant impact on your ability to play well.

The best hitting coaches out there are guys who are able to relate to players on a physical and mental level. I think this is why most good hitting coaches are former players, and not necessarily the most gifted players, but the players who had their own struggles and had to find ways to work out of them. I think that Hal McRae is one of those guys. You can scout all you want, but you can know what pitch is coming and where it’s going to be and still not get a hit 5 times out of 10. It’s just the nature of the game itself. If a coach can spot a bad habit of a part of your swing that might have changed and point it out, that’s helpful, but it’s just as important to keep guys in the right frame of mind and keep them moving forward, especially when they’re mired in a slump.

Similar to a golf swing coach really: You can hit a golf ball in many different ways and be successful, but the great golfers are those to drill every day, have repeatable swings, and are confident that they’re going to hit the ball where they want to every time. Ernie Els probably has the sweetest swing in tour, and Jim Furyk probably has one of the worst mechanically, but both have been very successful doing what they do. Julio Franco was a very successful hitter in the majors for two decades, despite having the absolute worst fundamental batting stance I’ve probably ever seen. Some guys have noisy bats and noisy hands (like Ludwick) and some guys don’t (like Pujols), but one thing nearly all hitters have in common is that their hands stop at the same point in time right before they’re ready to swing, similar to a golfer being at the exact same impact point regardless of the ugliness of the backswing or follow through.

Hitting a baseball is probably the toughest thing to do in all of sports, so you have to be able to accept a high failure rate in order to be any good at it.

What the hell is signifagance?

This is a funny topic guys on 670 the score out of Chicago make fun of White Sox fans who call wanting to fire Greg Walker (Sox hitting coach)…. If you have not noticed the White Sox offense has been god awful…. Last year the sox made the playoffs and early in the year the fans were going after Greg Walker.

It is not beginning to trickle over to the North Side and a few fans call into the score and speak of firing Gerald Perry. The north siders generally lay off the hitting coach but some recent struggles have made them go after Perry, probably just because they hear so many south side fans going after Walker.

If you have good players they will hit. Like Soonerfan said the hitting coach is just another set of eyes. He does not help every single guy all the time.

It all depends on getting a player to play to his strengths.

As Moneyball detailed, Scott Hatterberg was hurt by the Red Sox, who insisted he use a much more aggressive style of hitting than worked for him in the minors. If you a young player and are a “take and rake” hitter, an organization/coach/manager preaching a more aggressive style could be in real trouble if you don’t have the skills for it.

Meamwhile, if a player is not playing to his strengths, the staff can help him. As Whitey Herzog argued pretty convincingly, he had a positive impact on many fast players by getting them to be groundball/turf hitters instead of swinging for the fences.