John Mallee

Steve Krah – Elkhart Truth

John Mallee is the new hitting coach for the Chicago Cubs.  Mallee (pronounced MAY-lee) comes to his hometown after a stint as hitting coach for the Houston Astros.

Houston’s Jose Altuve won the American League batting crown in 2014 — and the Florida (now Miami) Marlins, where he worked with Miguel Cabrera and Mike (Giancarlo) Stanton. He also worked with the Toronto Blue Jays.

allee is a proponent of the computer-based Zepp swing analytics platform and uses it with batters on all levels.

What follows is a discussion with Mallee.

Q: Your analytical approach, is that something the Cubs have done before?

A: Baseball has gone to that. When (Theo Epstein) came over from Boston (to become president of baseball operations in Chicago), they had already been involved in that. I’m not bringing anything new to the Cubs organization.

Q: What you’re doing with the Zepp 3-D system kind of takes the guess work out, doesn’t it?

A: The Zepp analyzer measures bat speed, it measures the time from launch to impact, which means the first movement of the hands to the ball. It tells you how long is your swing. It measures the velocity off the bat. It gives you a gauge of where there is length in your swing and how to shorten it up.

Q: So you can take that information into the batting cage?

A: You take that information it kind of eliminates the guesswork out of what’s happening. The real-time feedback is the key. It helps players see their numbers and what they should be in regards to launch angle, vertical angle and attack angle. The average fastball comes in at a 6-degree decline as it cross homeplate. All the pitches are on a 6- to 14-degree decline. The attack angle means getting on-plane with that pitch. You want to stay through that pitch or on plane as long as you can. That’ll give you a positive attack angle instead of a negative attack angle. You can have too big of an attack angle and you’ll be hitting the ball straight up. It’s a fine line. You’re trying to line up the plane of the pitch with the plane of your swing.

Q: How many of these guys that you will be working with have been thinking along these lines?

A: They had a very good system that was in place prior to me getting here. I’m just adding to it and bringing some of my experience in working with other Major League players. I don’t think this is a revelation at this level to anybody nowadays. Once you understand the story of the pitch and what you need to do so it equates to a hit, it’s easier to understand what your swing should look like.

Q: I’m guessing different guys are looking at this in different ways. Some guys will want to know all they can about kinetics. Other guys will not want to go into it that deeply. For them, it’s ‘see the ball; hit the ball.’ How do you strike that balance?

A: It depends on who needs the information. A lot of the guys do a lot of this stuff naturally and they don’t need to know about it. (But) if there’s a chance to use any of these metrics to help me to get them to understand how this works and how I can make their swing more efficient, then I would use it. Generally, most of these guys do things naturally. That’s why they are where they’re at.

Q: How do you work with guys on a daily basis?

A: A hitting coach’s job is that when their swing gets out of whack, I’ve got to bring them back. He’s already got an efficient swing and majority of the time it’s not a mechanical thing, it’s an approach or a timing thing. How’s this guy trying to get you out? How are you going to try to counteract that move. What adjustments are you going to make from the last time when he got you out? Most of the time, a hitting coach’s job is making sure the hitters are doing what they need to do work-wise, that they remain confident and give them an idea of how the guy on the other side is trying to get them out whether it be a team concept or an individual concept.

Q: So you know what a hitter’s swing is supposed to look like when he’s going well?

A: Right. Some guys are too heavy on their frontside. Some can’t stay back. Some are having trouble getting started in time. It’s just about making suggestions to help shorten the movements up. The key for me going in is not to try to change anybody, but to just take what they do and make it more efficient.

Q: What made Jose Altuve as effective as he was in 2014?

A: He wasn’t afraid to change, No. 1. No. 2, he made some mechanical and some approach changes from the previous year. In spring training, he asked where I thought he could improve. I talked about strike zone discipline and being able to handle off-speed pitches. In doing that, we put in a little knee tuck and coil to load his hips that kept him off the ground as a timing device. The biggest difference between (2013 and 2014) was his batting average and OPS (on-base average plus slugging) on off-speed pitches.

Q: What is the most important thing for hitters in general?

A: The key to hitting is the ability to recognize pitches and stay back. If you can load your hips and lead with your hips, and keep you foot off the ground until your eyes tell you it’s time to swing, you’ve got a chance to react to what you see.

Q: I know you will be at the big-league level, but will you be talking to all the hitters in the Cubs organization, including those with the South Bend Cubs?

A: I’ll be giving some presentations. But the nice thing is that the Cubs have a minor league hitting coordinator (former Gary SouthShore Railcats player Anthony Iopoce) in place that was with me for a long time with the Marlins. We’ll have no issues about being Major League-centric.

Q: What is your plate between now and 2015 spring training?

A: I will continue to try to increase my education and study a lot of biokinetics stuff about how the body works. I’ve given a lot of presentations so far and I have one more at the (American Baseball Coaches Association clinic Jan. 2-5 in Orlando, Fla.). There will probably be 8,000 coaches (at the convention and Mallee is a first-day speaker).