At the quarter mark of the 2017 season, Giants catcher Buster Posey already has half the amount of home runs (7) that he had in all of 2016. Most encouragingly, Posey’s inflated power numbers have not come at the expense of his overall approach, with the former MVP posting a .378 average and an OPS of 1.040.
Giants general manager Bobby Evans told Tolbert and Lund on Thursday that Posey has made a couple mechanical adjustments to reverse some bad habits that restricted his power in recent years.
“I think he’s just taken a different approach,” Evans said “He’s trying to get to his power which is good. I think that he maybe got away a little bit from the way he swings the bat at AT&T, versus on the road and get maybe into some bad habits. I mean he’s still hitting .350 without the home runs, and now his batting average is up with home runs so, it’s hard to figure out. He’s obviously a great hitter. I’m glad to see him get to his power because we need it right now and he rose to the occasion, and got us some big hits with his power.”
Tolbert told Evans he noticed that Posey has altered his batting stance and that his bat doesn’t lay as flat when he’s waiting for the pitch.
“I think it is true,” Evans responded. “I think both those points are accurate, I mean he is making adjustments. I sometimes notice guys are making adjustments series-to-series or even pitcher-to-pitcher but in Buster’s case, he does stay pretty constant. So when he makes a change it is more noticeable because he’s carried that flat bat and that high leg kick and has an opposite way approach a lot of times. When you see him swinging at balls that are in the middle of the plate to pull, you know good for him, cause it obviously paid off.”
Listen to the full interview below. To hear Evans’ comments on Posey skip to the 3:00 mark.