Mark Loretta was a solid hitter over 15 big league seasons, and he was especially good in 2003 and 2004. Over that two-year span, the right-handed-hitting second baseman slashed .325/.382/.469 with 75 doubles, 29 home runs, and a 129 wRC+ with the San Diego Padres. Contact was one of his strong suits. The Northwestern University product had a 7.9% strikeout rate to go with an 8.2% walk rate in 2003-04, numbers largely in line with his 9.2% and 8.5% career marks.

His overall production was comparably modest. Loretta consistently put up high batting averages – they ranged between .280 and .335 during his 11 full seasons — but he went deep just 76 times and finished with a 100 wRC+. Those numbers came over seven-plus seasons with the Milwaukee Brewers, three with the Padres, two-plus with the Houston Astros, and one each with the Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers. Your prototypical “professional hitter,” Loretta debuted in 1995 and played his last game in 2009.

Now a special assistant with San Diego, Loretta sat down to talk hitting when the Padres played at Fenway Park in late June.

———

David Laurila: Looking back, what style of hitter were you, and did that change over the course of your career?

Mark Loretta: “That’s a good question. I would say that I was developed and came up as [someone who hit] inside the ball, hit the ball up the middle, hit it the other way, hit it where it’s pitched. I was very contact-oriented. I didn’t really sit on pitches or sell out for fastballs, I mainly liked to see the ball get deep.

“About halfway through my career I made a concerted effort to learn to pull the ball better, and more often. I think that’s when my career sort of took off. I was able to get to keep that contact-hitter, hit-it-where-it’s-pitched approach, but also handle the ball inside much better.

“My power — more doubles, more home runs — came when I pulled the ball. For a lot of my career, pitchers would pound me in, pound me in, because I hit the ball well the other way. I made a couple of adjustments with my swing and started looking a little bit more in when I was in hitter’s counts. I would lay off the ball middle-away when it was 2-0 or 3-1.”

Laurila: How much has hitting changed since you played? Read the rest of this entry »

Gino Groover is one of the most promising prospects in the Arizona Diamondbacks system. He is also one of the most intriguing. When profiling him for our D-backs list back in May, Eric Longenhagen wrote that the 22-year-old third baseman “was among the 2023 draft’s more volatile and exciting prospects.” Bullish on his potential, our lead prospect analyst added that “2024 might be a breakout season” for the right-handed-hitting North Carolina State University product.

Fate intervened. As Eric explained, Groover ended up having surgery to repair a displaced radius fracture suffered in a collision with a baserunner at first base, this after just four games with High-A Hillsboro. He missed three months, did a rehab stint in the Arizona Complex League, then rejoined the Hops on July 19.

He hit well upon his return. The former second rounder logged a 129 wRC+ over 175 plate appearances with the Northwest League club, and he followed that up with a 178 wRC+ over 55 plate appearances with Double-A Amarillo. Counting his eight games in the ACL, Groover finished the season with a .281/.367/.484 slash line, 10 home runs, and a 133 wRC+. And two other numbers merit mention: His strikeout rate was 13.6%, while his walk rate was 11.4%.

Grover is currently making up for missed development time in the Arizona Fall League, where he is slashing .370/.444/.389 over 63 plate appearances for the Salt River Rafters. He talked hitting prior to a game in mid-October.

———

David Laurila: How would you define yourself as a hitter? Also, do you feel that you’ve established an identity at this early stage of your career?

Gino Groover: “I mean, I think everybody is different, but finding yourself as a hitter — what your strengths are, and playing to your strengths — is something you don’t really want to deviate away from. I’ve always had a hit-first profile, letting my power come later as I’ve gotten bigger, stronger, and a little older.

“I have my approach, and, especially at this level, you can’t be afraid to be wrong sometimes. You obviously can’t go up there and expect to hit everything, so you don’t want to deviate from your approach. If you do, you’ll get caught in between and won’t hit either heaters or offspeed. So, whatever my approach is, I stick to it. Sometimes I’m right, sometimes I’m wrong, and we go from there, playing it by ear with whatever I’m seeing.” Read the rest of this entry »

Tre’ Morgan is one of the most promising prospects in the Tampa Bay Rays organization. Drafted 88th overall last year out of LSU, the 22-year-old left-handed-hitting first baseman slashed .324/.408/.483 with 10 home runs and a 158 wRC+ in 437 plate appearances between three levels this season. Moreover, he’s only upped his profile by continuing to rake in the Arizona Fall League. As our lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen wrote on Tuesday, Morgan “is making a case to be elevated into the back of this offseason’s Top 100 list.”

Morgan — a New Orleans native with a well-deserved reputation for being both personable and thoughtful about his craft — talked hitting prior to taking the field for the AFL’s Mesa Solar Sox earlier this month.

———

David Laurila: Who are you as a hitter? In other words, how would you describe your style and approach?

Tre’ Morgan: “As a a hitter, I’m definitely contact over power. Swinging and missing is something that just shouldn’t happen too often. That’s how I was taught to hit, by my dad really. If I run into one, it sometimes goes pretty far, but I kind of stick to gap-to-gap, trying to play with the barrel.”

Laurila: What is your father’s background?

Morgan: “He played football, mostly — he played college football and had a couple of tryouts for the NFL — but he taught me everything I know about baseball. He said that he was better than me [at baseball] when I was growing up.”

Laurila: You said that the ball sometimes goes far when you run into one. What have you had in terms of exit velocities and distances? Read the rest of this entry »

The St. Louis Cardinals got more than just the 2023 Texas League MVP when they acquired Thomas Saggese from the Rangers as part of the five-player Jordan Montgomery deal at last year’s trade deadline. They also got a young hitter who is attuned to the mechanics of his craft. For Saggese — Texas’ fifth round pick in the 2020 draft out of Carlsbad High School in California — getting on plane with a pitch and driving it is the goal. The manner in which he positions his body in space is what allows him to do that.

A middle infielder listed at 5-foot-11 and 185 pounds, Saggese doesn’t look the part of a player who went deep 26 times in 2023 and another 21 times this past season. But regardless of his appearance, the pop is there, as is what our lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen has described as a “feel to hit [that] has been the lynchpin of his prospectdom since high school.” Moreover, Saggese has youth on his side. While his slash line with Triple-A Memphis was a humble .253/.313/.438, those numbers came at age 22 (he won’t turn 23 until April). The Cardinals clearly recognize his upside. Saggese got a big league call-up in September and logged 10 hits, including his first big league home run, in 52 trips to the plate.

Saggese — currently suiting up with the Glendale Desert Dogs — talked hitting following an Arizona Fall League game earlier this week.

———

David Laurila: How do you feel that you profile as a hitter? Looking at your numbers, I see more home runs than I might have expected.

Thomas Saggese: “I think my best swings just happen to be balls in the air. I feel like I get the ball in the air pretty well and can hit some homers. I don’t think it’s going to be anything crazy, but I would like to hit 20 a year — .300 with 20 homers every year. That’s kind of my goal.” Read the rest of this entry »

Colson Montgomery learned a lot about himself as a hitter this season. The result of that introspection? He’s going back to the approach that not only helped make him the top prospect in the Chicago White Sox system, but also has him ranked 17th overall on The Board. Striving for more pull-side power, the left-handed-hitting shortstop slashed a disappointing .214/.329/.381 with Triple-A Charlotte. And while the 22-year-old did hit a career-best 18 home runs, he also fanned 164 times while logging a 28.6% strikeout rate. With the caveat that the 2021 first round pick was one of the youngest players in the International League, Montgomery clearly underperformed expectations with the bat. A readjustment was in order.

Montgomery, who is currently doing some fine-tuning with the Arizona Fall League’s Glendale Desert Dogs, discussed his learning-curve season earlier this week.

———

David Laurila: What has the development process been for you in terms of your mechanics and approach?

Colson Montgomery: “Earlier in your career, it’s kind of an experiment of who you are as a hitter. You don’t really know yet, because you probably haven’t faced adversity or failure. Also, when you’re a lot younger, you aren’t facing the best arms. The sooner you can go against the best of the best arms is when you can learn a lot about yourself. Read the rest of this entry »

Anthony Santander might be the most underrated hitter in the American League, at least from a national perspective. Overshadowed by the young talent on his own team, the 29-year-old Baltimore Orioles outfielder has 102 home runs and a 123 wRC+ over the past three seasons. This year’s numbers are especially impressive. A reliable cog in manager Brandon Hyde’s lineup — he’s played in 145 of the team’s 151 games — the switch-hitter from Margarita, Venezuela, has hit 41 homers while putting up a 129 wRC+ and a club-best 95 RBI this season.

The degree to which he remains under the radar is relative. Santander enjoyed his first All-Star selection this summer, and he is currently getting increased attention due to his forthcoming free agency. Accolades have nonetheless been in shorter-than-deserved supply, and that includes our own coverage here at FanGraphs. As evidenced by his player page, Santander’s name isn’t in the title of any piece we’ve published prior to the one you’re reading. As good as he’s been, that is something that needed to be corrected.

Santander sat down to talk hitting one day after smacking his 40th home run of the season last week at Fenway Park.

———

David Laurila: How did you first learn to hit, and what has been your development path from there?

Anthony Santander: “My dad introduced me to baseball when I was 4 years old, and when I was young I was a pure right-handed hitter. I didn’t start switch-hitting until I started working to become a pro when I was 15 or 16. That took a little bit, because it was new for me.”

Laurila: Why did you start switch-hitting? Read the rest of this entry »

Statistically speaking, Joey Loperfido has gotten off to slow start in his major league career. Over his first 222 plate appearances, the lefty-hitting outfielder is slashing just .229/.281/.371 with four home runs and an 86 wRC+. Those numbers are split fairly evenly between two organizations; the 25-year-old Loperfido was traded from the Houston Astros to the Toronto Blue Jays shortly before July’s trade deadline as part of the four-player Yusei Kikuchi deal.

He’s projected to produce more than he has thus far. The Duke University product put up a .933 OPS in Triple-A prior to making his major league debut at the end of April, and as Eric Longenhagen explained in mid-June, Loperfido “has done nothing but perform since breaking into the pro ranks.” Our lead prospect analyst assigned Loperfido, who was selected in the seventh round of the 2021 draft, a 45 FV while ranking him third on our 2024 Astros Top Prospects list.

Loperfido sat down to talk hitting when the Blue Jays played at Fenway Park in late August.

———

David Laurila: Let’s start with one of my favorite ice-breaker questions in this series: Do you approach hitting as more of an art or as more of a science?

Joey Loperfido: “I think it’s somewhere in between. When you look back at it, you can see the parts that would be considered more of a science. But when you’re doing it, and as you’re feeling it, a lot of it is an art. There are a lot of calculated actions and movements, and for me that’s kind of the question of feel versus real.”

Laurila: How has that perspective evolved over the years? When you’re a kid, you’re basically just up there swinging a bat… Read the rest of this entry »

Eleven seasons after making his big league debut, David Peralta might best be described as a professional hitter. As clichéd (and definitionally daft) as that label is, it’s pretty much what the 37-year-old San Diego Padres outfielder is at this stage of his career. A reliable left-handed bat now with his fourth team — the bulk of his time has come with the Arizona Diamondbacks — Peralta is slashing .268/.327/.439 with six home runs and a 118 wRC+ in the current campaign. His career numbers are actually somewhat similar. Over 1,200 games and 4,492 plate appearances, the Valencia, Venezuela native has a .279/.334/.449 slash line to go with 123 home runs and a 109 wRC+.

Peralta talked hitting when the Padres visited Fenway Park earlier this season.

———

David Laurila: How different a hitter are you now compared to when you reached the big leagues?

David Peralta: “I’m different now, because every year, every day, you learn something to get better, how to approach the game, how to approach pitching. That’s especially true now. When I first got called up, in 2014, you didn’t see that many guys throwing 99-100 mph. Now that’s normal. So, it’s a different approach that you have to have.”

Laurila: Have there been any notable changes over the years?

Peralta: “I’ve always been more simple and short, but I tried one time in my career to change my mechanics. It worked for a little bit and then stopped working.”

Laurila: This was when?

Peralta: “In 2022, in the offseason, I started doing something different with Michael Brantley. I started hitting the way he does. Again, it worked for a little bit, but then for some reason I came off of that and couldn’t find myself again. I ended up going back to my mechanics. You have to know what type of player you are, what type of hitter you are. I know that I’m not a home run hitter. I’m a line drive hitter, so I have to work on things that way.”

Laurila: Brantley hasn’t been a home run hitter either. What was he doing that you were trying to emulate? Read the rest of this entry »

The Toronto Blue Jays’ Matt Hague is earning a reputation as one of the best young hitting coaches in the game. Promoted to the big league staff this year after a pair of seasons spent working at Double-A, followed by a year in Triple-A, the 38-year-old former first baseman is one of the team’s two assistant hitting coaches. (Hunter Mense, who was featured in our Talks Hitting series in July 2022, is the other, while Guillermo Martinez is the lead hitting coach and Don Mattingly serves as the team’s offensive coordinator.)

Hague’s playing career included several strong seasons in the minors, but only a smattering of opportunities in the majors. The Bellevue, Washington native logged just 91 big league plate appearances, 74 with the Pittsburgh Pirates and 17 with the Blue Jays. And while what he experienced over 11 professional campaigns influences the approach he brings to his current role, what he’s learned since is every bit as important. Like most coaches who excel at their jobs, Hague is not only an effective communicator, he embraces modern training methods.

Hague sat down to talk hitting when the Blue Jays visited Fenway Park in late June.

———

David Laurila: You last played professionally in 2018. What do you know now that you didn’t know then?

Matt Hague: “Oh, man. That’s a really good question. I think the how. As a coach you’re kind of forced to unfold things that you thought as a player, but didn’t necessarily go really deep into, or didn’t have the chance to go as deep into. The importance of certain things shift on what you want to emphasize. That’s because you’re looking out for a whole group, even though it’s an individual plan, or an individual mover — a certain trait that an individual person needs to develop and continue to get better at.

“There are a lot of different pathways on how to bring out certain stuff, and the more you evolve as a coach, your perspective shifts. You try to find understandings on the mentality side, the game-planning side, the technical part of it. So yeah, I think it’s that you’re just forced to find out more. You’re forced to have a broader perspective than you had as a player.” Read the rest of this entry »

Spencer Horwitz is hoping to show that what he did in the minors can be replicated in the majors, and so far, he’s off to a strong start. Displaying what my colleagues Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin called “a patient, contact-driven approach at the plate,” the lefty-hitting Blue Jays utilityman has slashed .310/.430/.479 with an equal amount of walks and strikeouts over 86 plate appearances since being called up from Triple-A in early June. By comparison, his numbers down on the farm include a .307/.413/.471 slash line and roughly the same number of strikeouts and free passes over parts of five professional seasons. The extent to which Horwitz can continue having this level of success against major league pitching remains to be seen — last season’s 15-game cup of coffee yielded lesser results — but his skillset and upside are promising.

In the latest installment of our Talks Hitting series, the 26-year-old Horwitz discussed how he’s learned and evolved as a hitter over the years, from watching Manny Machado flicking the barrel to challenging himself with high velocity off of machines.

———

David Laurila: Let’s start with one of my favorite ice-breaker questions in this series: Do you view hitting as more of an art or as more of a science?

Spencer Horwitz: “Oh, good question. I would say a blend of both. I’ve been blessed in a lot of ways with some hitter-ish things that I can’t explain, but I’ve also learned a lot through the science of hitting.”

Laurila: When did that learning start?

Horwitz: “I think it started when I was in high school, not really knowing what I was looking at, but watching really good hitters and trying to emulate them. Later, I was able to put some true numbers to the data that I was collecting in my mind.” Read the rest of this entry »