Jake Lamb. Who is Jake Lamb?! This is Jake Lamb:
He is the best hitter you have never heard of. Through the All-Star break Lamb is hitting .279 with 20 HR’s and 67 RBI’s. Not too shabby.
Just two years ago not many people knew who Jake Lamb was, and for good reason. He hit .263 with 6 HR’s and 34 RBI’s through 107 games. However a lot can change in just a few short years, as is the case with Lamb. What happened?
Going into the 2016 season, an article was written about Lamb and how he was trying to be “longer through the zone” with his swing. Here is a snippet of that article, courtesy of azcentral:
So, how did Lamb’s new swing perform in 2016? Through 151 games he hit .249 with 29 HR’s and 91 RBI’s. That’s a pretty big jump in one year, especially true when we consider that it was only his second year in the league getting a substantial amount of playing time. Let’s take a look at these two swings.
2015:
And 2016:
The first big difference we see between the two clips is the way Lamb sets up. In the newer clip, his hands are much lower and appear to be looser. This is most likely part of his thinking on keeping the barrel in the zone longer. When his hands were higher, as they were in 2015, his swing was steeper. It started from a higher point and had more of a downward path through the zone. Now, with his hands lower, he is able to get on plane a little bit earlier and he doesn’t feel as if he is chopping down and through the ball. He also has a slightly bigger and slower leg kick in 2016. That in and of itself isn’t going to help him have a better year. However, it indicates to me that he understands his timing better than he did in the past. He now has a plan of attack with his swing, whereas he may have been feeling for it a bit in the past.
Lamb’s 2015 swing was not bad by any means. However at the highest levels, just a small improvement can lead to huge improvements on the field. I think that is what we see here with Lamb. He is now more comfortable with what he is doing in the box. He has chosen to take ownership of his own swing and that has paid huge dividends for him.
Lamb continues this trend in 2017. He has gotten even better than he was last year, hitting with more power and getting on base more often. I expect that trend to continue as he continually makes small refinements on his swing and also as he gets to refine his approach. In other words, I would not expect this All Star game to be the last one we see him participate in.
That’s all for today! Reminder that the Home Run Derby is on tonight! Should be a good one. And for the record, I called Bellinger first.
Stay tuned for installment 6 tomorrow.