Basil, you've forgotten more about hitting than I'll ever know, so I thought I'd ask: It looks to me like Gomes is trying to pull everything. Teams have it figured out, and pitch him outside, and he flails miserably at it. Is their any merit to this amateur viewpoint?
Why are they struggling so much against left-handed pitching? @ShortSideOption has mentioned that he doesn't like how Erstad sometimes focuses too much on matchups. Is it that simple? What's going on there? I'm only a casual baseball fan, but it seemed clear that they were regularly baffled by strikeout pitches that were breaking late. Is that a valid observation? If so, is that a batting coach issue? Is that a young guys need to develop discipline thing?
I think you're right about Gomes. I didn't watch their swings that closely; I'd have to see them from the side to get a better idea on it. Gomes looks sooo close, but having that discipline to let the ball get deep and hit it off your back hip is really hard. I was talking with a guy the other day, hitting coaches say "You can hit to power to all fields;" That's true, but not a lot of guys can do that, the ones that can, sure as heck aren't playing the Big 10. Gomes reminds me of Eric Gordon, Alex's brother, in many parts of his games. Tall, has a cannon, and versatile. I'm excited about him and can see him having a Matt Hopper like career (hopefully better).
I'm not sure what's going on with the lefty thing. That is weird. I'll have to think about that. A lefty is generally effective in one of two ways: 1) Getting as close to first base as possible on the rubber and throwing sinkers away with soft stuff away, getting hitters on their front foot all day long; 2) if they have some velocity, working plate outside early/inside late and finishing righties off with four seamers under their hands or sliders at their feet.
In the games we were hitting during the tournament, the color guy made a passing comment about the other team's pitchers leaving the ball over the plate. He was right. We punished those pitches that were left over the plate. But I'm thinking back to guys like Dan Johnson, Jamal Strong, Adam Shabla, Cole, Stern, Cowan, Liese, Ledbetter before he was eaten by the guy wearing his jersey now, and others that hit pitches that were quality pitches, not fastballs that scream "hit me" as they come in at 85 mph.
Part of that is we have some young hitters. They a) aren't strong enough yet and b) aren't good enough yet to do that sort of thing. And let's not forget, hitting is really, really hard.