The accelerated education of one Joe Panik and the power of models

Just like in real estate, where it's all about comparables. Comparables, comparables, comparables!! Who is this guy like? It helps scouts to categorize and evaluate. It helps hitting instructors to evaluate and teach. It helps players to understand how to piece together and fix their game in order to advance.

All along the communication chain, the glue that holds everything together is comparables. It's like the scene in "The Graduate" where the old pro sidles up to young Dustin Hoffman and whispers the secret to success in the future: "Plastics". In the baseball version, he would whisper: "Comparables"

It also demonstrates the underrated power of mimicry in a player's development. Who is your model? Who do you mimic? Almost as much as the age-old "to be a champion, pick your parents well" mantra from the "It's in the genes crowd", in baseball which is not an athletic skill dominated sport, it's indeed more important to "pick your models well". JMO. Plus, you can't really well "pick your parents" but you can pick your nose and your models, that's for sure.

The commentators were fleshing out the story last night of how Panik picked Wade Boggs as a hitting model such that even though he did everything else right-handed, he hit left-handed and wondered aloud what might have been if he had modeled Derek Jeter instead. Well picked, Joe Panik. Well picked

This is, once again, a beauty from Grant Brisbee over at McCovey Chronicles.

from McCovey Chronicles:
The Giants won the pennant, and here's video proof - McCovey Chronicles:

Joe Panik

The transcendent story of how Panik hit the first home run was first relayed by Gregor Blanco after the game. Blanco said that Panik kept watching video of Bill Mueller demolishing Mariano Rivera's cutter. Look at that video, all grainy and 10 years old. Now picture Panik hunkered down in the clubhouse and watching it over and over and over again. What was he looking for? How Mueller's arms came in, or how he kept his head still? Here's a still shot of the homer:


from mlb.com:
http://m.mlb.com/video/v20284459/nyybos-mueller-hits-a-walkoff-homer/?query=bill%2Bmueller%2Bhome%2Brun




from mlb.com
http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/6479266/v36820485/nlcs-gm5-panik-hits-tworun-shot-for-21-lead



The Giants were having great at-bats against Adam Wainwright at one point. His fastball was up, and the Giants were hitting it hard. That slowly started to slip away, and after two quick outs, Gregor Blanco singled. That allowed Panik to channel that Mueller magic.

Reminder: Mueller is one of my all-time favorite Giants. He dabbled in Dodgers at the end of his career, but I still dig his early stuff. I still listen to my Police albums without feeling weird about it. And I've been screaming for as long as Panik's been up that he had Mueller's left-handed swing. I'm a stridently terrible baseball analyst, so I didn't expect anyone to listen, but it's all I could think of over the first two weeks Panik was up.

Someone in the Giants organization saw the same thing. Someone sidled up and told Panik that he had a Bill Mueller swing and it stuck with him. Or maybe Panik's known it for years. However it happened, it led to Panik watching ancient video of his forefathers to see how to hit a danged cutter.

That video helped Panik hit a dinger in the NLCS game that sent the Giants to the World Series.

'via Blog this'