In the offseason, two MVPs got together and talked hitting.
Yes: 2022 NL MVP Paul Goldschmidt gave some advice to AL MVP Aaron Judge, now the captain of the New York Yankees, on how to hit with two strikes.
Goldschmidt told him about his two-strike approach in which he takes less of a stride and emphasizes contact.
Many hitters preach a more contact-oriented approach with two strikes because that’s where they see the most breaking balls, and inflicting damage goes from priority number to priority number two in many cases.
The primary goal at that point is make contact, at least for some hitters.
Judge tried Goldschmidt’s two-strike approach.
Well, he didn’t like it.
“Interesting note from postgame: Aaron Judge said that he’s abandoned the no-stride, two-strike approach that he toyed with this spring. He’d talked with Paul Goldschmidt about it. He said it felt good in the cages, but games were a different story,” Yankees insider Bryan Hoch tweeted.
Interesting note from postgame: Aaron Judge said that he’s abandoned the no-stride, two-strike approach that he toyed with this spring. He’d talked with Paul Goldschmidt about it. He said it felt good in the cages, but games were a different story.
—Bryan Hoch (@BryanHoch) April 9, 2023
Well, there you go.
Some things work for specific hitters, but not for all of them.
In the case of Judge, he didn’t feel comfortable and it was affecting him somewhat on the plate.
He currently has a 33.3 strikeout percentage, which means he has struck out in a third of his plate appearances.
We would say he is feeling more comfortable hitting now, because he had a two-homer performance on Sunday against the Baltimore Orioles.
He is up to four homers in the year.
When he returns to the recipe that gave him an MVP award and 62 home runs in a season, the power numbers will start to go up and the strikeouts will likely go down.
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