DENVER – It's become a routine observation about Andrelton Simmons: The Braves' Gold Glove shortstop hits a home run, then takes a mighty cut and misses a pitch in an important at-bat in the next day or two, and fans and reporters then say that hitting the homer was bad for Simmons because he's now swinging for the fences.
The problem with that is, Simmons always looked like he was swinging for the fences. Whether he just hit a home run or not.
“I always swing hard,” said Simmons, who hit a grand slam in Tuesday’s 13-10 win against the Rockies. “I swung hard my whole life. I wasn’t strong when I was younger; that’s where I get the full-effort swings from. Not saying that I’m strong now, but I always had to put a little extra to get the bat around. It’s just how I swing.
“Sometimes my swing feels better and I’ll hit better. But it’s not like I’m trying to do anything different.”
He says he can’t change overnight and start taking more controlled cuts every time he swings. But Simmons, a tireless worker who spends as much time as anyone does with Braves hitting coach Greg Walker and assistant hitting coach Scott Fletcher, has listened to their advice and begun to control the aggression in his swings somewhat.
“It’s a life habit. I’m trying to get better at it,” Simmons said. “Sometimes I can do it. It’s easier to slow things down a little bit sometimes. But, I mean, I try to stay true to myself. When I try to be a completely different hitter you get stuck in the middle of nowhere, because you’re not the hitter that you want to be and you’re not doing what you normally do. So you’re in the middle. That doesn’t work out sometimes either.”
In his first full season in the majors in 2013, Simmons hit .248 with 50 extra-base hits and just a .296 on-base percentage, despite striking out a mere 55 times in 606 at-bats. (He doesn’t strike out much, nor walk much.) His 17 home runs were most surprising, since he hit six in more than 1,000 plate appearances in three minor-league seasons.
He’s gotten bigger and stronger since his minor league days. The former skinny Curacao Little Leaguer stopped needing to swing so hard years ago. Simmons, 24, realizes that, and Walker said he’s making progress toward developing into the hitter that Braves officials believe he can be.
“He’s a high-effort guy with his swing, at times to a fault,” Walker said. “And that’s something that we’re trying to ratchet down. But you are dealing with a kid that that’s the way he’s done it. He’s learning. We’re trying to get him to have the effort level where he can still be dangerous and not over-swing, not max-effort swing every pitch.”
The stats say he’s doing about the same thing this year as last, batting .259 with 16 extra-base hits (five homers) and a .295 OBP in 60 games before Thursday, with 12 walks and 23 strikeouts in 220 at-bats. But what those numbers don’t show is the increase in opposite-field hits and outs to right field.
That’s big for a right-handed hitter who’s always tried to pull everything, Walker said.
“He’s hit more balls hard to right field this year and got more hits to right field than I bet at any point in his career,” Walker said. “So he’s making progress. But we can’t just…. It’s a process. You see stretches where you say, oh my gosh, he’s got it. And then he’ll kind of revert back. He’s taking steps forward.
“We know that you can’t be a dead-pull hitter in this league and hit for (high) average. And we’ve talked about it. You’ve got to make a decision on what type hitter you want to be. Do you want to be low-average guy, a power guy, and deal with a lot of failure? Because if you’re going to be a dead-pull hitter you’re going to hit into a lot of double plays, you’re going to pop some home runs – and that’s kind of what he was last year.
“Our goal this year was to take a step forward and hit the ball to right field and use all fields. And it gets frustrating to him because that’s now how he’s been his whole life. He’s been a dead-pull hitter, and that just doesn’t hold up at this level. Guys know how to pitch you and attack your weaknesses better at this level.
He’s made a huge step forward in his ability to hit the ball to right field. Is he there yet? No. But the effort is there.”
Still, Simmons knows there is that perception out there in some quarters — that when he hits a home run, he gets away from his approach and tends to slump for a while. He was 8-for-39 (.205) with six walks and six strikeouts in his past 11 games before Thursday, but nine of those games came before the grand slam.
“When I hit a home run, or I hit doubles, singles, nobody says anything (about the hard swings),” Simmons said, smiling. “When you’re struggling and not hitting they’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, he’s doing this too much now.’ I always swung hard. You can check. Whether I hit a single or not. Whether I swing and miss or I hit it, I’m still swinging the same.”
The big swings tend to get attention when he misses, but it should be noted that Simmons put the ball in play on 52.5 precent of his swings, third-best rate in the National League before Friday. And his strikeout rate of one every 10.2 plate appearances was third-lowest in the league.
But after striking out just three times with a .280 batting average in 93 at-bats in his first 25 games, Simmons had 20 strikeouts and a .244 average in 127 at-bats over his past 35 games.
“We’re trying not to let him be affected by some bad at-bats he’s had this year,” Walker said. “We’re trying to get him to have quality at-bats, not just one at-bat hacking. Have a plan, pick pitches that you can dangerous on early in counts, value not striking out, because that’s not who you are. You’re one of our guys who can put the ball in play. Don’t let other people’s game infect your game. And we’re just trying to get him to grow as a hitter. But it is a process.”
