A-Rod, J.D. Martinez, and the Problem with Universal Hitting Advice
Alex Rodriguez recently posted a hitting video that immediately sparked one of those debates baseball people seem to have every few months. In the video, A-Rod talks about avoiding excessive back-shoulder drop and uses a golf analogy to explain the swing. His point is that hitters should not turn the bat into a “lob wedge,” but instead work more down through the baseball.
Predictably, the responses started almost immediately.
“A-Rod knows what he’s talking about.” “He hit 696 home runs.” “This is what hitters need to get back to.”
What makes this conversation so interesting is that about eight years ago, J.D. Martinez sat down with A-Rod at Fenway Park and explained the swing changes that helped completely alter the direction of his career. Martinez had once been taught a much more direct, hands-to-the-ball, swing-down approach. Then he started studying elite hitters, realized his swing looked nothing like theirs, and began rebuilding the way his barrel worked through the zone. In that 2018 ESPN conversation, Martinez explained that transformation directly to A-Rod himself.
The contrast is a great example of why hitting instruction cannot be reduced to one universal phrase, cue, feel, or thought.
Martinez has been very open about what he used to believe. In a 2015 FanGraphs interview, he said he had always thought, “Hit down on the baseball.” Then, while injured in 2013, he started studying Jason Castro, Ryan Braun, Miguel Cabrera, Albert Pujols and other elite hitters. He realized their swings were entering the zone differently than his. Martinez described the new swing as almost feeling like an uppercut.
In February 2014, MLB.com reported that Martinez had spent the offseason studying slow-motion video and comparing how many frames elite hitters kept their bat in the hitting zone. Martinez estimated that, even at his best, he had often been in the zone for only two or three frames, while some of the hitters he studied were there for five, six or even eight. His conclusion was simple: if the barrel stayed in the zone longer, he had more margin for error.
The Astros’ hitting coach at the time, John Mallee, described the problem in similar terms. Martinez had been too sloped and was cutting across the pitch plane. The goal was to get him on plane sooner and stay there longer so he could square the baseball in more parts of the swing.
A few years later, when Martinez was with the Red Sox, Alex Speier wrote one of the best breakdowns of his swing for boston.com.
The article explains that Martinez had spent much of his earlier baseball life in what Speier called the “hands-to-the-ball school.” He was trying to take a direct path to the pitch and swing down toward impact. After the 2013 season, he rebuilt the swing with Craig Wallenbrock and Robert Van Scoyoc.
What makes that article especially useful is that it does not describe Martinez’s new swing as some giant uppercut. There was still a downward component to the move.
A hitter can work down with the hands without the barrel traveling down through the entire hitting zone. A hitter can feel like they are staying above the baseball while the barrel is ultimately working upward through contact. A hitter can be direct without being steep. These are examples of the difference between what a hitter feels and what the bat is actually doing. That is one of the biggest problems with hitting debates on social media. We hear an elite hitter use a cue and immediately assume the cue is a literal description of the entire swing. Sometimes it is. Often it is not.
A cue is a tool. A feel is a tool. A thought is a tool. It is something a hitter uses to create or prevent a movement. The value depends entirely on what problem the hitter is trying to solve or what movement the hitter needs to create.
If I have a hitter who is excessively collapsing the rear side, losing posture and dumping the barrel underneath the baseball, then some of what A-Rod is talking about may be exactly what that athlete needs to hear. A cue about staying above the ball, being more direct or feeling like the hands work down could help clean up the movement.
But what if the next hitter has the opposite problem?
What if that hitter is extremely steep into the zone, cuts quickly across the pitch plane and struggles to create any depth or adjustability? What happens if I give that hitter the exact same instruction simply because Alex Rodriguez said it? I may make the problem worse.
The question isn't whether you should listen to A-Rod or JD. The question is "What does this hitter need?"
Martinez’s story makes that point particularly well because he was once doing exactly what coaches had told him to do. He was swinging down, trying to hit low line drives, and eventually reached the conclusion that the movement was not playing the way he wanted it to in games. So he changed. He described his swing as “taught, not natural.”
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/j-d-martinez-debunks-conventional-wisdom-thinks-a-tipping-point-is-near/
It is not “swing down.” It is not “swing up.” It is not that A-Rod is wrong. It is not that J.D. Martinez discovered the one correct way to hit. It is that two elite hitters can think about the swing differently and be successful.
Sometimes a hitter may need to feel like they work down. Sometimes they may need to feel like they work up. Sometimes they may need to create more depth. Sometimes they may need to get the barrel on plane sooner. Sometimes they may need to keep the barrel from dumping underneath the baseball.
A-Rod can know hitting. J.D. Martinez can know hitting. Both can offer valuable ideas. And both can say something that helps one player while hurting another. Hitting cues / feels are often personal - not universal.
Great hitting instruction isn’t taking what worked for one MLB hitter and prescribing it to everybody. It’s understanding the swing well enough to identify the athlete’s actual problem and give them the feel, movement, constraint, or cue that helps their swing.
The best hitting method isn’t the one a Hall of Famer said. It isn't one size fits all. It’s the method, or combination of methods, that helps the hitter in front of you move better.
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