Tony gwynn season swing and miss professional#

Gwynn also had a career high in RBIs with 119, after never exceeding 90. In 1997 he posted his arguably best season by hitting. After conversations with Ted Williams (he of pull everything mentality) Gwynn began trying to pull the ball more, especially on pitches on the inner third. Late in Gwynn's career he had a slight shift in his hitting philosophy. Here are a few more stills of Gwynn at contact.Įven Gwynn's statue outside Petco Park illustrates his technique. Gwynn decelerates his shoulder rotation to allow the bat to cast out and remain open to hit the ball the other way. As I pointed out in this article, hitters adjust the angle of the bat to hit the other way by limiting the amount of shoulder rotation. Really focus on the rotation of the shoulders. If you are looking for an example of a simple swing, it is Gwynn. Video pre-2000 is hard to find and often low quality, but I found a couple swings that we can use to get a feel for his approach for hitting. It is really a shame the data for hitting to all fields wasn't tracked during his time, because I would love to see how many of Gwynn's 2378 singles were to left field. He used his refined left-handed stroke to slice balls in the '5.5' hole for countless singles. Gwynn is famously known for his ability to go the other way. He will surely be missed.īut this post isn't an attempt to try to put his achievements into perspective rather it is an attempt to explain how he racked so many hits.

Tony gwynn season swing and miss professional#

Gwynn is also viewed as nothing short of a consummate professional as well as a kind gentleman. Gwynn also excelled out of the batter's box by collecting five Gold Glove Awards and swiping 315 bases (the vast majority in the first half of his career). Gwynn leaves behind a legacy as one of the game's greatest hitters, amassing over 3100 hits with a career batting average of. Baseball lost one of the good ones this week when Tony Gwynn lost his battle with cancer.