New Hitting Coach: Dale Sveum

"This is something I've always wanted to do," Sveum said Saturday. "This has been a passion of mine, and I'm glad Ken is giving me the opportunity to do it."

2006: 3rd Base Coach
2007: Bench Coach
2008: 3rd Base Coach/Manager
2009: Hitting Coach

Does this make Dale Sveum the coaching equivalent of Bill Hall?

about 1 year ago TheJay 17 comments 0 recs |

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Well I always thought Dale was a terrible third base coach so yes each can do lots of things and it is questionable just how good they are.

by pjpaulus on Nov 1, 2008 9:02 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Bill James had a theory that coaches would have an affinity for players that were similiar to themselves….Phil Garner would have a special connection to scrappy second-basemen, Mike Sciosica would have a connection with tough-minded catchers who would take a pitch, and so forth.

If that is at least partially true, is Dale Sveum a good fit for this team? The #1 problem this team has is being patient. They have a team full of hackers, leading to a poor OBP. Sveum had a career OPB of .298.

If he did not have any sense of plate discipline as a player, is he going to be able to address this dire need as a hitting coach?

by badgermaniac on Nov 2, 2008 10:14 AM CST reply actions 0 recs

a poor OBP and a poor BA

It seems odd to me. I suppose there have been plenty of good to great teachers in a variety of disciplines who were poor as performers. Its an old debate whether great players make good coaches and there are plenty of examples of gross failures. Most people were against Yount for instance. I wonder how Singletary will work out?

I would say though that the hacktastic ways of many of the Brewers doesn’t necessarily convict the hitting coach. If he provides information and the players ignore it, its more a condemnation of the manager, at least to me.

by ol Pete on Nov 2, 2008 10:57 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Actually...

“plate discipline” is better measured by OBP – BA, or walk rate. Sveum’s career OBP – BA was .064 … to pick a random year from the middle of his career, league average in 1992 was… .066. Sveum’s bigger problem as a hitter was that he wasn’t very good at hitting.

To play devil’s advocate, one could argue that once players hit the big leagues, they are usually more or less the types of players they’ll turn out to be. Some of the current Brewers have poor plate discipline, but make up for it in other ways. Plate discipline is a lot easier to preach about than it is to learn (as evidenced by the legions of incredibly talented athletes who suck at it) … as this argument goes, better to have a coach who can help the players become better versions of the players they already are. Better than that having a coach try to change everyone’s approach, like getting Prince to take more balls the other way, or whatever.

I don’t feel that strongly either way, though.

Also, cheese.

by Jeff Sackmann on Nov 2, 2008 2:02 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

yes and no

I do agree that you can’t usually turn a player around once he reaches the majors, but I believe you CAN make incremental improvement.

You aren’t going to turn Ryan Braun into Adam Dunn in terms of taking pitches, but can you at least get him over .350? I think you can.

The issue with Sveum isn’t just the .064…it is that he really never got better at it. His lines were very consistent throughout his career. That speaks to a player that didn’t realize the value of pitch selectoin and/or refused to change his ways.

As I noted, I don’t want Ryan Braun to be a guy that takes 5 pitches every at bat. He doesn’t need to change the essence of who he is. I would like to see him not swing at the pitches over his head or in the dirt however, as I think it will make him a BETTER version of what he is.

I thinkt he right coaching staff can make those small tweaks.

by badgermaniac on Nov 2, 2008 4:56 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

And just to clarify...

…this is just a hypothetical since I have never seen any hard and fast data about the connection between playing skills and coaching skills. I was just going off of the James hypothesis/thought experiement.

by badgermaniac on Nov 2, 2008 4:57 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

one last thing

Judging only by his comments/actions as a manager, I don’t know that he really buys into the whole plate discipline thing either.

by badgermaniac on Nov 2, 2008 5:01 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

a few miscellaneous tangents

Perhaps another way to look at plate discipline is percentage of swings at non-strikes or something like that. I guess even that would be negatively affected by fouling off close 2 strike pitches, but I wonder if there are alternate ways to look at “plate discipline” although they’ll probably all lead to a measurement that rates the Brewers as bad

While looking for something else, I came across an old Brewers prospect list. It described Ryan as having good plate discipline. I was a bit taken aback at that. Using the OBP-BA formula, he went from .041 to .062 in his time in the minors. In the majors, .046 to .050. I’m not sure what if anything to conclude from that.

Before the World Series, Scott Eyre talked on Chicago radio about the Moyer game in Milwaukee. I wish I could remember the actual words, but he described how Moyer was thrown off by the fact that the Brewers didn’t chase a lot. He also described the “whole dugout” as being shocked at the Brewers. I have to believe that there was a team strategy to lay off of certain pitches and it paid off. I would think that that could be reproduced to some degree again.

by ol Pete on Nov 2, 2008 5:57 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

very true about that game

It really surprised me. That is a great example of how the simple desire to be more discipined can make it so.

Nowadays, we have swing data and so forth, though that info isn’t available for players of Sveum’s era (at least publicly) that I am aware of.

by badgermaniac on Nov 2, 2008 6:04 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

i wanted dale back, more so for nostalgic reasons

and I understand the players like him, but as a hitting coach? the move bothers me even though I thought he was wild at third and didn’t always agree with his moves I’d rather see him in either of those two positions.

I untuck my shirt!

by Michael M on Nov 2, 2008 12:17 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

the second position i was referring to was bench coach

I untuck my shirt!

by Michael M on Nov 2, 2008 12:25 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

I'd rather have him as bench coach than hitting coach as well,

but I’m thinking this means Macha has an idea of who he wants as his bench coach. I’m guessing he wants somebody he’s more familiar with.

by tcyoung on Nov 2, 2008 4:46 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Bullshit.

by HRF on Nov 2, 2008 3:35 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

Uh oh.

Remember what Fielder said about Sveum soon after Dale met with the players post-Yost-firing?

“He told us that the game was hard for him, so he understands how hard the game is,” Fielder said. “And he didn’t care whether we make errors or swing at balls at the dirt or strike out, he just wants us to play hard.”

This certainly gives me pause.

"I will agree that the attitude [at BCB] is ridiculous and they have done so much to instigate animosity and then block us from responding. Real mature!"

by roguejim on Nov 2, 2008 5:53 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

And he batted Bill Hall second, don’t forget.

by HRF on Nov 2, 2008 7:30 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Maybe a positive?

I would agree that Dale doesn’t seem like the obvious choice for hitting coach, but maybe there is a positive. I’m sure everyone here can recall the times we heard Skaalen on FSN talking about plate discipline and so forth, yet the hitters never seemed to actually put that into practice. Either Skaalen was lying on camera or the hitters didn’t listen. Maybe with a guy like Sveum, whom the players all seem to like and have built a relationship with, they might be a little more inclined to follow his advice.

also, I have to believe that Sveum won’t be making the call all by himself on what to tell the hitters, I’m sure Macha and all the technology they have will have an input as well. I think getting a guy in there that the hitters will listen too is just as if not more important than getting a guy in there who has all the solutions.

Congrats 08 Crew on a fine Wild Card achievement! What do you say we keep the next postseason drought to something a little shorter than a quarter of a Century.

by MadJimiBrewha on Nov 2, 2008 10:19 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

It's only a positive if he gives them good advice.

Eric Gagne DL time: May 23-June 29 Brewers record in that span: 20-9

by NoahJ on Nov 2, 2008 10:48 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

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