Lance Berkman Scouting Report
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DaveKingman posted 5/22/2008 from www.dugoutcentral.com [flag] |
Tags:
MLB
Lance Berkman
Comments (3)
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BrianDaubach7 +1I think it's pretty clear that Berkman is one of the top offensive contributers in the game right now. He has the right approach to the game and he produces. Although his team is not very good, he's having a great year. -
Fred9964 I think he deserves more than 60 in "Contact" and "Average." In some years he's hit .330+ and he walks all the time. He's clearly a better defensive player than people think. He puts in the effort and he's steady out there. -
Phantom “As a right-handed hitter, Berkman pulls the ball more often. He sets up to pull the ball because he’s not as efficient as hitting the ball to the opposite field. He can get away with this because he is left-hand dominant…”
How do you know that he is “left-hand dominant”? Did you know that he writes with his right hand? He throws a baseball left-handed, but what else does he do left-handed? There are a number of MLB players who don't write with the same hand they throw with:
- Ryan Church
- Ken Griffey, Jr.
- Josh Hamilton
- Rich Hill
- Barry Zito
- Mark Mulder
- Ryan Howard
- Hideki Okajima
- Grady Sizemore
- Barry Bonds
- Babe Ruth
- Sadaharu Oh (I know not MLB, but the Japanese HR king)
“It’s the side of his natural power.”
Did you know he was “born” as a right-handed batter?
http://www.jockbio.com/Bios/Berkman/Berkman_bio.html
Here are some excerpts from the above link:
“Larry bought Lance his first plastic bat and began pitching to him around the age of two. He was alarmed when his son preferred to take cuts from the right side and not the left (there are relatively few players in the big leagues with this combination), so he decided Lance would become a switch-hitter, like his childhood idol, Mickey Mantle.”
“So he hung a tire from a tree, and told Lance to take 100 cuts—50 lefthanded and 50 righthanded—each day after school.”
“To sharpen his son’s switch-hitting skills, he would have him alternate at-bats from the right and left sides, regardless of the pitcher.”
“When he entered high school in Austin, Lance, a more consistent righthanded hitter, was starting to develop a power stroke from the left side.”
“Lance hit .330 with four home runs in 1993 for New Braunfels Canyon High, by now switch-hitting in the traditional manner. Because most of the pitchers he faced were righthanded, he got many more at-bats as a lefty, and over four varsity seasons he actually became a superior lefthanded hitter—so much so, that some scouts wondered whether he should abandon batting righty altogether.”
