Puig Has Joined the Merry Band of Fly-Ball Revolutionaries

Perhaps the best athlete, to date, is joining the revolution.

Said athlete is Yasiel Puig and said revolution is that of the fly-ball. It seems more and more batters are pushing against traditional coaching orthodoxy and endeavoring to lift the ball in the air.

Exhibit A from Thursday afternoon at Dodger Stadium:

According to MLB.com’s Austin Laymance Puig has been working with teammate Justin Turner on adding loft to his swing. And Puig is off to a tremendous start this season, having hit three home runs in four games.

“What I think about is putting the ball in the air,” Puig said via interpreter, “or else I’m going to have no money in my pocket.”

Turner, of course, is one of the key agents of the fly-ball revolution. If not the protagonist, he’s at least played an important supporting role. After a mediocre start to his career, Turner sought the help of outside hitting instructor Doug Latta, who believes that the ideal swing path is one that launches balls into the air. Turner’s mechanical adjustments turned him into a star. And now Turner is approaching players whom he believes can benefit from getting more balls into the air. The Puig-Turner relationship could perhaps be another example of the power of word of mouth, the power of peers to push a movement towards a tipping point.

I spoke to Latta earlier this year while examining whether we’re likely see more MLB hitters get off the ground. And the FanGraphs team has since tackled the subject in detail, as you can find here, here, and here.

But what’s interesting — or, at least interesting to me — is that many of the hitters who have benefited from this shift in thought and action have pursued their new swings mostly as a means of survival. Their objective has generally been simply to remain on a major-league roster. Consider that neither Turner nor other converts such as J.D. Martinez, Daniel Murphy, or Marlon Byrd were what you’d characterize as star players simply looking for an edge. The last of those, Byrd, is another Latta client — and arguably the forefather of this modern movement. Byrd reinvented himself as an extreme fly-ball hitter in 2013. Another early adopter, Josh Donaldson, was never considered an elite prospect.

While Martinez doesn’t proselytize in the Detroit clubhouse, he does explain his beliefs and the benefits of his swing to those curious teammates who approach him. He said more teammates have expressed interest. After some digging, it seems Turner sought out Puig to share his swing.

Turner understood that, even without an ideal swing plane, Puig produced an above-average exit velocity last season (91.6 mph). Puig’s two homers on Thursday left his bat at 107 mph and 110 mph, respectively. What he needed to address was his average, turf-churning launch angle of 9.9 degrees. Turner was a more productive hitter last year with a slightly lesser exit velocity (91.0 mph) due to his average launch angle of 17.8 degrees.

Consider these visuals from BaseballSavant:

I’m told Puig has only been working on his new swing for a month, and gained great confidence after this swing on March 5:

So what happens when Puig, considered one of the game’s premium athletes, adopts the philosophy of getting on plane with the pitch?

The upper end of possibilities includes an uptick in demonstrative-bat-flip frequency, and spectacular production. It could also, perhaps, accelerate the adoption of a new swing plane by other players who no longer think the fix is just for desperate players and/or those lacking elite tools.

For the Dodgers, it means the best team on paper and spreadsheets, according to projections, could enjoy a significant offensive jolt.

I’m not a professional swing instructor or expert swing analyst, but last season Puig’s bat plane appeared flatter and his swing seemed more upper-body dependent…

By comparison, consider the loft and lower-body involvement in his first home run Thursday…

And his second home run of the day…

What does this all mean? Puig, once one of the game’s most promising young stars, might be getting on track with a new look. There will be bat flips.