The Adjustable Brandon Wood

Since hitting 43 home runs and 51 doubles at Single-A Rancho Cucamanga in 2005, Angels fans have been waiting for the day Brandon Wood becomes a fixture in the Halo infield.  During the first half of 2008, Wood spent six weeks with the Angels, hitting a weak .125 in 64 at-bats, before getting sent down to Triple-A Salt Lake.  While he was down in the minors, I had read that Wood had worked on his swing in order to make improvements in making better contact and driving the ball.  Wood has always had good power, but it was his inability to make consistent contact that put a big question mark over his major league career. 

As shown in this video from 2005 (from calleaguers.com), Wood's starts his swing with his hands above his shoulders. While in the minors during the middle portion of the 2008 season, a slight adjustment was made to Wood's swing.  This small adjustment of lowering his hands to place them on the same plain as his swing provided Wood some positive results.

In this video from August of 2008, Wood's hands start lower and go straight forward.

Here's another view from April of 2008.  As you can see, as the ball has already left the pitcher's hand, Wood drops his hands and then sarts his swing.

And here in August of 2008, with his hands on the same plain as his swing path, Wood has a shorter path to the ball giving him more time for pitch recognition and location.

One last look at before and after:

I'm not a hitting coach, but it seems like this small adjustment made a difference.  Here are Wood's split stats from 2008:

Not great, but it is a big improvement.  He reduced his strikeout frequency from once in 3 at-bats to once in 4 at-bats. I'm predicting an Evan Longoria season from Wood in 2009, in the range of .260 -.270 and 25 - 30 home runs, which would be great from the shortstop position.