Cohen as Hitting Coach

[bulldogcountry1]

I played through JUCO, but never had the benefit of good hitting instruction. The extent of the instruction was "keep your head in there." I went to camp at State when I was about 14, but I don't recall many golden nuggets of hitting wisdom. It all seemed pretty rushed.

I guess I'm just curious about how Cohen goes about teaching hitting. When a talented guy is struggling, not progressing, or even regressing, it's easy to qustion what he's being taught. I've always wondered if Cohen's type of instruction is cookie cutter and restrictive. When I say cookie cutter, I mean teaching the same approach to everyone, no matter their strengths and weaknesses. When I say restrictive, I mean having set rules about taking pitches to get the pitch count up, bunting, and hit and runs.

To me, it seems, if these kinds of expectations are placed on a player, it would defintely make for a longer learning curve, but it also would just generally reduce the comfort level of a hitter. Having to think about so many things while in the box is never a good thing, especially with 18-22 yeard olds.

A recent example was on Tuesday night. You got Rea up there, who is 0fer April, and Cohen calls a hit and run. He proceded to chop one to short that would have been a hit for anyone else, but he didn't make it. Maybe Cohen was trying to get him to focus on just putting the ball in play instead of his struggles. I don't know. At the time, I thought it was a bit cruel.

It all seems a bit much to me. Baseball is hard enough on it's own. It just seems like Cohen is demanding too much, which is leading to too little.

[dawg1]

Having talk to someone on the team, Mingione is the hitting coach.

[RAYn_Man]

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[Todd4State]

I don't know- sometimes coaches think that doing something like a hit and run can get a guy going sometimes. The hit and run itself worked even though Wes was out.

I thought Wes's first couple of at bats were OK. He one to third that I thought might get through but the third baseman knocked it down and Wes is so slow he couldn't beat it out. He had a similar at bat but the SS bobbled it. His two K's- one at bat I thought he was trying to end the game with one swing which I don't totally mind given the situation even though it wasn't a good at bat.

[shoeless joe]

They teach the small ball method of offense. Call it whatever you want but gap to gap power and home runs are not the offensive approaches being taught. Don't forget that this method not only got us to the NC series it also won the whole thing for UCLA.

I completely understand the frustration of some after the lofty expectations but the reality of the situation is this is the type of team we have and how we have to play to be successful right now. Hopefully the development of some young guys over the next year or so and the new ball will change some of that.

[bulldogcountry1]

They teach the small ball method of offense. Call it whatever you want but gap to gap power and home runs are not the offensive approaches being taught. Don't forget that this method not only got us to the NC series it also won the whole thing for UCLA.

I completely understand the frustration of some after the lofty expectations but the reality of the situation is this is the type of team we have and how we have to play to be successful right now. Hopefully the development of some young guys over the next year or so and the new ball will change some of that.

I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that small ball got us the the NC series. Our pitching got us there. Our small ball offensive approach typically did just enough to get us wins more often than not and then clutch hitting and execution improved at the right time. I believe you can say the same thing for UCLA.

[dawg1]

Mingione is not the hitting coach. Just works with hitters. There is really no distinct hitting coach. But Cohen, Mingione, Wells all work with them

I'm just going by what a player told me when I asked who the hitting coach was.

[shoeless joe]

I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that small ball got us the the NC series. Our pitching got us there. Our small ball offensive approach typically did just enough to get us wins more often than not and then clutch hitting and execution improved at the right time. I believe you can say the same thing for UCLA.

Ummm...we played small ball last yr minus renfroe. We made it to the championship series. Last I checked that means our offensive approach got us to the championship series. Once in the series we then reverted back to lifting fly balls and we struggled. So saying our offensive approach didn't help us get where we got makes you look like a dumbass.

To your other point...yes the pitching was the biggest part of our success but we still had to score more runs to win. Something not done against UCLA.

[engie]

They teach the small ball method of offense. Call it whatever you want but gap to gap power and home runs are not the offensive approaches being taught. Don't forget that this method not only got us to the NC series it also won the whole thing for UCLA.

I completely understand the frustration of some after the lofty expectations but the reality of the situation is this is the type of team we have and how we have to play to be successful right now. Hopefully the development of some young guys over the next year or so and the new ball will change some of that.

We don't "teach" small ball. It's the reality of how we built the team and what we were able to recruit/get to campus on the front end. We've let our power hitters hit for power -- outside of Rea at times -- who has too many holes in his swing to hit for contact AND hit for power at this point.

If people would talk to Cohen for 15 seconds about this stuff -- they wouldn't be questioning him anymore on this topic independently. FYI, he was AGAINST changing the baseball on the front end -- because he said "It will take me 2 years to recruit the makeup of my team to match the new balls"...

We've already recruited more power. It's just young and isn't out there yet. Which is annoying as shit when you've got older guys that are pure singles hitters that aren't hitting for average when you expected them to...