LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – Joey Terdoslavich isn't sure how or why the bat waggle – or flip, as he calls it – showed up in his swing a year ago, but he and the Braves agree it contributed plenty to his nightmarish two months in Triple-A.
The extraneous bat movement is gone now, and Terdoslavich again looks like a legitimate prospect this spring, playing in the outfield for the first time since college and hitting .579 (11-for-19) with a double, a homer and one strikeout before Thursday night’s game against Detroit.
“He got rid of some movement and his base has gotten a lot more solid, too,” Braves hitting coach Greg Walker said. “He’s figured some things out. There was a lot of looseness to his swing last year that really hurt him. We loved his talent last year, just too many inefficiencies in his swing.”
After gaining notice at high-A Lynchburg in 2011, where he hit .286 with 20 homers and an .867 OPS and broke a 65-year-old Carolina League record with 62 doubles, Terdoslavich was bumped two levels to Triple-A Gwinnett to begin last season. And after playing first base in 2011 he was moved to third, where he’d played 39 games during his first two pro seasons.
The thought was that if he could build on his 2011 success, he might be ready to take over third base for the Braves after Chipper Jones. But that idea was quashed when Terdoslavich hit .180 with just eight extra-base hits, a .515 OPS and International League-worst 22 errors in 53 games at Gwinnett and was sent down to Double-A the first week of June.
“I don’t think (pressure) had anything to do with it,” Terdoslavich said. “Hitting and defense are two different things, and you have to separate them. I struggled on one side and I’d take it out to the field. If I struggled on the field I took it to the plate. I just wasn’t quite prepared to play that position. And my swing wasn’t where it needed to be.”
Terdoslavich has an idea why the bat waggle appeared.
“I came into (2012) camp eight to 10 pounds lighter than the year before, just to play third base,” he said. “I felt like I needed to be a little lighter and a little quicker. And I didn’t quite have the oomph there, that extra pop that I’ve always had. I tried to generate more power, which was something that I didn’t need to do, and I created that bat flip that kind of ruined all the work I had done that offseason. So this offseason all I did was work on having no bat flip.”
He began the process while at Triple-A, with Gwinnett hitting coach Jaimie Dismuke, then continued at Double-A with Mississippi hitting coach Gary Ingram and Braves minor league hitting coordinator Don Long.
Terdoslavich turned around his performance quickly after the demotion, batting .315 with 29 extra-base hits (five triples, five homers) and an .852 OPS in 72 games, including 68 at first base. He said his offensive turnaround was rooted in the swing change, not the position change.
“I started to get (the waggle) out of there when I was at Triple-A, and when I got sent down I got it out of there and was able to focus on hitting,” he said. “It wasn’t 100 percent out of there, but enough where I could wait on pitches and wasn’t missing pitches I should hit. And then I just worked on it with my dad all offseason.”
He said Joe Sr., worked countless hours with him, putting balls on a tee and reminding Joey to keep the bat quiet.
“All I worried about was not moving my bat, just making sure my bat was in position, that I got my hands in a good hitting position,” he said. “That’s all I did all offseason. Every single day. Now it’s completely out of there and it allows me to let the ball travel longer, allows me to see the ball and react better and not miss pitches that I shouldn’t miss.”
Until going 0-for-2 against the Yankees Tuesday, Terdoslavich hadn’t had consecutive plate appearances without a hit, sacrifice fly or walk. He’s come off the bench as a mid-game outfield substitution most games and misread only one ball despite not playing the outfield since a season in the Cape Cod summer league.
“What we’ve seen this spring is what the reports have been on him in the past -- that this guy can really, really hit,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. “I’ve been impressed by how well he’s been able to pick up the outfield positions, right and left field, for a guy that I think the last time he played it was in college.”
