More Old-school

White Sox hitting coach Frank Menechino said some interesting things yesterday. Because he employed a dash of salty language, different media outlets are reporting it with a slight twist, ranging from using brackets to ellipses. I’ll proceed with brackets. In talking about rookie left fielder Andrew Vaughn, Menechino said “[fornicate] the homerun, let’s hit .300.” (from today’s The Athletic, sans brackets) This is an eye-opening, even bold, rejection of the launch-angle mania now gripping baseball. It takes a brave hitting coach to talk batting average and, by extension on-base percentage, in an age of fast and furious long balls. I guess this makes Menechino old-school, if not exactly my ideal type. I prefer hitting and pitching coaches who have career numbers to back up their approaches. In comparison to Walt Hriniak, Menechino did have a HOF career spanning seven years; 302 hits; 36 homers; 149 RBIs; and a .240 BA. Compare that to 25 career hits over two big-league seasons for Hriniak. Still, give me the late and lamented Bill Robinson or the recently fired Chili Davis. Now, those were guys with stats to back up what they were preaching. But hats off to Menechino, at least so far. The Sox are tied for first in all of baseball for batting average; second by a point in on-base percentage; and fourth in runs, just five out of first. And, for you new-stat fans, the Sox lead all of baseball in run differential. So, Menechino must be doing something right. Given how much Sox starters have dominated the last month or so, ditto pitching coach Ethan Katz, he of the thirteen career wins in four minor league seasons. The gravity belts are a little too New Age-y for me, but anything is better than Don Cooper, and Katz has certainly been that with the starting rotation. Some relievers—Matt Foster, Codi Heuer and Evan Marshall to be specific—look lost, but I’m not putting that on Katz. I just want to see if he can fix them. One other thing about Menechino. A few hours after his comment about the homerun, Vaughn hit his first. Neat karma there.