Chris Swauger looks to be one of the hidden gems taken in last year’s draft. Drafted in the 26th round out of The Citadel (a military college), the slugging outfielder was only the second player in school history to record 300-plus hits. He also leaves with the school record in triples (16), second in doubles (71) and third in home runs (38). In his first pro season, he overcame a slow start to hit .291/.348/.469 and helped Batavia win their first championship in 45 years. Chris was nice enough to take some of his time and talk with me about how he developed in his first few months as a pro.
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Many of you will remember Jeff’s excellent columns at the Baseball Analysts, where he was a regular contributor. He provided fascinating analysis using slo-mo video analysis to break down the hitting (and sometimes pitching) mechanics of several all stars and prospects, and it got a lot of people talking. He also owned and operated swingtraning.net. Jeff has worked with high school, college and minor league baseball players doing training and video analysis before getting hired by the St. Louis Cardinals to be the Muckdog’s hitting instructor. He is doing a good job so far, the ‘dogs are third in the league in OPS and are a half game back from 1st place in their division.
A couple years back, Jeff was nice enough to help me understand Jon Jay’s hitting mechanics back when I was contributing at Viva El Birdos. Naturally, I was thrilled to hear the Cardinals had hired him this off-season. Recently I had the chance to catch up with Jeff to see how the new gig is going and ask about some of his students.
Q and A after the jump.
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