Phillies new hitting coach Greg Gross told David Murphy of Philly.com that he had figured out the problem which young outfielder Dominic Brown was having with his hitting stroke. Brown struggled last year when he came up and finished the season with a .210 batting average.
Gross says Brown was holding his bat too high which made it more difficult for him to get his bat on the ball.
“The good part about it is it didn’t have anything to do with his swing,” Gross said. “It was just the position he was in to get started – and that wasn’t that bad, either. It was just the timing of when he got to the place where he was ready to swing. Then [his hands] would drop even more and he’d be late.”
I hope it’s that simple.
Who do you think is going to be the answer in rightfield? Will it be Brown, Ben Francisco, John Mayberry, Ross Gload or somebody who isn’t on the roster, yet?
I hope Brown can earn a spot and contribute for a few years.
We need some small ball players and less strikeouts.
I think Fransisco is better suited as a backup as is Gload.
Heres a question. What about Jermaine Dye??….
Now all he has to do is figure out everybody elses… They couldn’t hit a ball to save their lives last post season. Ryan Howard was terrible.
Maybe they should all have contracts dangled in front of their faces because the only person that was swinging a bat like they meant it was Jayson Werth.
2011 Phils Stats for the regular Season
#1) J Rollins — .240 Average 12 HR 44 RBI and 100 + Strikeouts
#2) P Polano — .279 Average 8 HR 54 RBI and highest batting avg on the team out of the regular players
#3) C Utley — .268 Average 23HR 72 RBI, more injuries, clearly on downside
of his career.. will be rumored in many trade talks
#4) R Howard — .264 Average 42 HR 109 RBI, big with 175+ Strikeouts
#5) R Ibanez — .255 Average 11 HR and 43 RBI’s, loses his everyday player status by July and becomes mostly a pinch hitter down the stretch in which he bats much better and comes up with key hits
#6) S Victorino — .272 Average 14 HR and 52 RBI, has a better season at the plate using some bunts,small ball to help the team and his average, cuts down on the Strike Outs and Pop Ups..
#7) C Ruiz — .260 8 HR and 55 RBI’ s another typical solid season from
Ruiz
#8) D Brown — .225 2 HR and 8 RBI’s is sent down to the AAA to play everyday since he clearly is not ready at the Major League level
#8-A B Francisco — .250 8 HR 37 RBI’s , strikes out way too much,
and is also not an everyday player..
#8-C R Gload — .265 11 HR 34 RBI’s , good contact hitter, hits the ball hard in puts into play.. Problem is he is a defensive liabilty and cannot get to balls
The best batting average you have is 279? Are the Braves going too win the division again Paulmandomis.howards strick-outs went down last year…so they’ll spike again? Doub it.
Are you discounting are dominant pitching staff which is going too put opposing pitchers in a tight spot nightly?
Dom will be a role player and cosistent producer by June.Sent down?
J-ROLL 240!! Dude…i know we lost in a crushing defeat at the hands of the Superbowl CHamps…but stop brosiff..stop.
Yes on all accounts EROCK,
I think even with a very good PItching Staff, the Phils Offense will continue to struggle for they are too undiscplined and don’t put the ball into play collectivley enough as a team..
I think the Injuries,HGH,Steroids has caught up to plays like Rollins,Ibanex,Utley and Polanco and that they are all on the downside of their careers… D Brown is a big ?? and probably needs another 500 bats under his belt and play everyday at the AAA level then come up and the end of the Season and have some success and be ready for 2012, I don’t think he’s anywhere close to being aready from what I saw last year. Francisco,Gload, & Mayberry would struggle to make many MLB Rosters
The NL East for 2011 Season
#1) Braves
#2) Phils
#3) Florida
#4) Washington
#5) Mets
(this NL East is probably the weakest Division in the Major leagues in 2011
from top to bottom with Florida,Washington and the Mets not very good teams at all)
Runtheball….Werth didnt have a meanigful hit for a 3 month stretch and looked like crap in the p-offs too.
Polanco was onthe regular player to consistently make contact in last years playoffs, I expect this Season’s Offense to be even weaker and struggle to score runs than previous years… This teams needs to be beuild around small ball and speed on the basess with J RO/Victorino/Utley/BRown, but this is not Managers Manuels’s coaching philosophy.. He typically does not want to take the bat out of a batters hand.. If this team was funddamentally sound, they should win 100-110 games this season, but they are not and can go thru long stretches where they really struggle at the plate
This Season offense comes down to J-Ro/Victorino/Utley/Ibanez
If 2 of these 4 players play to their career averages, then they are fine
If 3 of the 4 players play to their career averages, they run away with it
but if only 1 out of these 4 player hit their career averages , then they will struggle and be in trouble as an Offense which is what I think will occur,
Man get out of here with those stats… What you have listed is an average line-up. The Phils are far from average and will definitely exceed those mediocre numbers. And Brown will be the everyday starter. Go Phils!!!
Why are you bringin up HGH,steroids,and such when you use Rollins,Utes,Polanco,Ibanez? Rollins went a decade without any D.L. problems now Philly fans are typical overreacting cybabies about his health and work ethic.
Paulman every year your full of total sh1T when it comes to baseball predics. So we’ll stick with that knowledge.
They won the most games in baseball and didnt hit?So they just signed another stud pitcher and guys are one year wiser in the p-offs.
Dont you live in the mountains? Saw every game? If you did he sat and was inexperienced and was cold when they went too him. So what you saw last year is a young kid tryna act like he belongs up at the show.
Your whole predic is suspect and full of negativity as usual. You put some work into it though.
I hope that Gross is right…and I hope that Brown turns out to be the 5-tool star that everyone has predicted…but it doesn’t change the fact that it adds another left-handed bat to the line-up.
I bring up HGH/Steroids for once the rumours of Ibanez using in 2009 and especially once after JC Romero got busted , many players have little by little started to underperform and start coming up with these goofy “oblique muscle tears” and “hip problems” & “upper leg muscles issues and tears”, etc,etc… I think many of these players stopped using whatever is was they were using, once Romero was busted and suspended and these players have not been the same since, also they have played in a lot of games over the years and their bodies are starting to breakdown..
On Domonic Brown, he needs to get as many as at bats as he can to develope his stronke and confidence.. SItting on the Phils bench basically from July thru October didn’t help him at all in my opinion, he has too long,looping of a swing at a this point.. He may be the best prospect for the Phils, but he looks nowhere ready to me… He’s 23 and best if they let him play everyday now in the miros to hone his skills
rollins is in a contract year this season so i expect him to have a very solid year….he wont have anything close to the mvp type season he had a few years ago but this is his last chance for a nice payday so he will def play a big role this year…lets hope he can stay on the field….i hope that brown will soon become the everyday rightfielder but man will our lineup be lefty heavy if thats the case….i kno raul is an important part of the lineup but hes clearly struggled recently, tho he did come one a lil in the 2nd half last year…i duno if francisco is the everyday answer but possibly a deadline deal to ship off ibanez to a team in the AL lookin for a rental player and get a righthanded bat/ bullpen help to platoon with francisco in LF for the remainder of the year….i duno fellas but i cant wait..,..this should be a very entertaining year….
What muscles do you use too swing a bat? Obliques are one of them.My training knowledge tells me roids make you more pron too ligament issues and arm muscle tears.Specially in baseball players. Rumors too…garbage. Our baseball team is clean. Personally i could care less about hgh…its useful to what these guys endure. They should legalize it. Dont criticize it.
Sorry dude…Braves….im done.
And your making coments about his swing. The title of the article is that the hitting coach has diagnoses it as well. Relaz Paulman…they’ll be stomping the Braves in the division by june. No need to panic.
Paul, it is irresponsible for you to make a charge of steroid use against these players, you have no evidence, none, not even well – founded conjecture with rollins, utley
Your right Jakedog, I apologize and have no proof…
Let’s just say their overall perfomance and health has declined in the last 3 years which coincides aroud the time the JC Romero was suspended for using HGH/Vitamins complex or something against Baseball rules and was
also around the time that Ibanez had a lot of questions surrounding him too..
One thing that is ironic is that all these players have not been the same since (Romero,Ibanez,Rollins and Utley) in performance on the field and with injuries these lingering,pesky type of muscle pulls that they have all had over the last couple of seasons…
Wow, I can’t believe people continue to buy into the BS that Paulman is an actual Philly fan. In every sport he predicts that our teams won’t win. He makes stupid ridiculous claims as saying that we have several players using steroids, HGH or was using them. Dude is from Carolina, he is probably a Braves fan. Braves winning the East? LMAO.
Also want to point out to everyone that keeps talking up Werth…… He batting in the 100’s with RISP. He batted .328 with 18 HRs when no one was on. Only 9 HRs when someone was on, and only 4 with RISP. Like I said, he batted .186 with RISP, and .255 with runners on. The fact that he still ended the season with 85 total RBIs is a testament how many players he had on base when he was batting. If he actually did well eith RISP, he would have probably had close to 130 RBIs if not more.
I am from South Jersey SB who happens to live in NC (by my choosing by the way)
I predict realistically and tell it like it is.. just like last year when the Phils were not going to win it and I predict they won’t win it again this year.. When Philly teams are Crowned Winners before the Season starts and everyone has high epxectations, they flounder and disappoint.. I think the local media & naive fans have a lot to do with it going over the top of building up their teams and players..but that’s a fans rite if they choose too.. I rather look at numbers,tendencies,injuries,the coaching staffs, when determining the favorites. Phils should win 100-110 games playing in a very weak NFC East this year, but they won’t.. They are not as fundamentally sound as they used to be, they lost a great 1st Base Coach in Davy Lopes which will come back to haunt them, they cannot play small ball or move base runners over at a efficient rate and with this Pitching staff, if they could master the art of “small ball” and PLAY solid defense, they would be very tough to beat.. but they are weaker defensively in the OF, IF Polano/Rollins/Utley are all another year older and though Howard is improved at 1B, there are many balls and situations that he hurts you in defensively.. They will make the playoffs and lose out to the Cinccinnati Reds 3 games to 2 in the Wild Card Round
As far as the Eagles go, I don’t ever think they can win a Super Bowl under Coach AR, I’ve said this for about 3-4 years now, It doesn’t make me less of an Eagle Fan, but I truly believe that Coach AR’s System won’t win a Championship and not one player (Vick) or a D-Jax is going to change my mind on this.. His Philosophy of gadget plays, outsmarting his opponent works on crappy teams but doesn’t work agains the good teams and the
good coaches as we have seen year after year…
I just don’t buy into the local Philly Kool-Aid like a lot of you do since I don’t live in the area anymore, so I can them from afar and call them as I see them
Dominic Brown should be an every day player, but I would put him at the bottom of the lineup. Give Brown a chance to get used to major league pitching without putting too much pressure on him.
You predicted the Eagles would finish last in the East last year, I believe. You throw enough of your stupid predictions out there, that you are bound to be right with some of them. Why not point out all the one you got wrong? I bet they far outweigh the right ones. You are like a bad fortune teller, who gets something wrong then hurry up and jumps onto something else so that their victim doesn’t remember the bad ones and only remember the ones they got right. That is why for like a week or so before Castillo got hired, you kept announcing that you predicted Trgovac would be the choice. Didn’t come true, by the way. It isn’t “drinking the kool-aid”, because someone believes that their team will do good when they have shown over and over again that they continue to be good. It is giving the management a benefit of a doubt that they know what they are doing instead of thinking that some loser on a computer knows more than professionals. Maybe you should go to either one of the ownerships and show them your resume’ of all the predictions that you got right on the internet….. I am sure they will give it some serious consideration.
You dont watch the baseball team nightly like the rest of us and it shows when you make predictions.So because others arent giving b.s. predics that the Phills are gonna finish 2nd,we’re Kool Aid drinkers?
Players slump and drop off because teams figure them out or play better.Doesnt mean there taking drugs or anything else.
If you were in touch with how things were in the D-Valley…you would know that the majority of the fans DONT drink the kool-aid and form opinions based on knowledege of the game. Experiences.
Come on P-man…theres always a positive spin on one or two of your predics.
Negativity is a path to the darkside….Stomp teams early and often the Phills will…
LOL, Erock
I probably know more about the Phils teams than 90% on this board Erock,
I do follow them and catch many games on my Sports South and Midwest Cable Channels (All the Braves,Reds,Marlins,Cubs,& Orioles games I get)
and whenever “National Games” on Espn, MLB, Fox Channel
Believe me, just like the Eagles, I follow them on a daily basis..
I thought and stated that the Bullpen would be their achilles heel last season during the playoffs and low and behold, they pitched as well as they can and it was the hitting that let them down.. Also Uncle Charlie got out-managed
big time by Giants Bochey all series long..
Should have been “followed the Phils more than 90%”
Also, we are all true Philly fans thru and thru we wouldn’t be on here..
I am psyched about the upcoming Phils Season and the off-season for Eagles
i think we should start brown so he gets AB’s, but i was wondering if J.Dye could be a possibility at RF