James Jones, a fourth round pick out of Long Island University this year, has turned a lot of heads since being added to the Seattle Mariners’ farm system.  But Jones isn’t the polished college bat that dominated Seattle’s 2009 draft.  He was picked more for his physical tools than his current skills and the Mariners will be banking on his upside.

I caught some video of him recently in Keizer, OR that can be found on the Pro Ball NW YouTube channel.

Let’s isolate his lower half:

Again, Jones is going to be a bit of a project, so it would be unfair to expect a perfect swing.  But I wanted to point to a couple of things.

Upon first seeing him I couldn’t help noticing the way he transfers his weight.  He sways, keeping his front toe on the ground at all times.  This isn’t something that you’ll often see.  Just about every big league hitter is going to pick their foot up off the ground in some way.  I’m sure there are others, but off the top of my head I can’t think of any other hitters doing this.

Is this a problem?  By itself, perhaps not– but it seems to set off a chain of events that hold him back.

Watch Jones’ front knee through the point of contact.  For most big league hitters and especially power hitters you would expect to see that front knee locked at this point.  Just look up photos of any prolific power hitter at the point of contact.  Jones’ knee starts to straighten up, but goes wobbly as he transfers his weight to his front leg.  This is, as I understand it, what scouts refer to as a “soft front side.”

While it seems simple enough, correcting this power-zapping flaw isn’t always easy.  Some players have to fight their instincts to keep that front leg anchored well after the inefficiency is spotted.  While it’s not as simple as tweaking this or tweaking that, if I was Jones’ hitting coach I might have an idea on how to help keep him from going soft.

If Jones was to transfer his weight like he does without some sort of timing mechanism, he’d find himself out in front or late more often than not.  While it looks like he’s just swaying back and forth, there is a definite timing mechanism in there.  You’ll notice that as he pushes forward, he bends his front knee and moves his heel towards the pitcher, keeping that toe on the same pivot point.  This appears to be what keeps his timing in order, but I believe it could also be contributing to his going soft.

I think that if Jones was to stride a couple of inches, he could avoid this problem.

Albert Pujols also pushes his heel forward in a similar fashion.  But instead of pivoting on the lead toe, Pujols picks his foot off of the ground and strides several inches.  In order to keep his balance, Pujols isn’t able to continue pushing his heel forward, and pivots so that as his heel touches the ground, his foot is pointing up the first base line.  After contact, Pujols’ foot is pointing up the middle.

Jones currently plants his heel with his foot pointing towards the third base dugout.  As he rotates through his swing, his foot turns slightly so that it ends up angled up the third base line.  With his foot planted perpendicularly to the direction of his momentum, it makes it extremely difficult to lock his front leg.  Doing so would cause a tremendous amount of strain in his right knee.  If Jones added a stride he would have too much forward momentum to stop himself like this without losing balance.  He would be forced to naturally angle his foot down the third base line to keep better balance.  Planting at that angle would allow him to anchor his front leg without going against his instincts.

This would add a bit of consistency and power to Jones’ swing.  There are other things that could use tweaking, but I would definitely start with that.

It will be interesting to watch his swing progress.

Some of this was difficult to explain without visuals, so feel free to ask for clarification.  Also, don’t be a afraid to act out what you’re reading.