Brandon Belt

Excellent season for the kid. Glad to see Belt continue to succeed at The MeatGrinder that is AA. Should finish his season in the AFL. Will be interesting to see what 2011 holds for Belt as the Giants organization could use a power hitting LHH.

I haven’t seen him, but there has been a lot of talk about his revamped swing. It’s really hard not to get excited about him, especially considering how many Giants hitting prospects have just immediately hit the wall when promoted to AA.

As the system looked to be a bit barren for hitting prospects once Posey eventually was promoted and with our other main hitter prospects starting out stone cold in AA this season. He’s our top position prospect now, I have to think (assuming we leave out players like Bowker who are no longer rookie eligible).

Could there be something like the reverse of Coors, where the air lets ball travel farther, where the New England air deadens the ball? I noticed that some of the young hitters who started out cold in April and May, started heating up in June and July.

I too heard about the revamping of his swing, on DrB’s blog. Sounded like the Giants used basic Science of Hitting training, swinging for power with an uppercut swing, instead of slapping at the ball. Basically what Andres Torres apparently learned to turn himself from AAA player to MLB starter. Seems like every speedy player is taught to slap at the ball (Torres, Belt, and I have to assume that is Burriss’ problem as well), I wonder how many careers that has killed.

I’ve been keeping an eye on him this season.

His swing to start the season was a mechanical mess. My comment to my colleague at the game was simply “That is the ugliest swing I’ve ever seen.” He had a huge hitch, and was lifting his back arm very high when he started to wind up his swing.

He’s made a lot of changes during the season, though. He’s starting his hands higher, and while his starting position for his swing is higher than is considered technically preferable, he’s made it work for him. The shortening of the swing has come naturally, and he’s shown a good ability to get the bat on balls inside. He still fouls them off more often than not, but he keeps a few fair.

One of Belt’s advantages is that he has an uncanny way of keeping his bat in the zone for pitches, making him able to turn on fastballs but do a good job of hitting the other way. His first home run in Richmond was a moonshot the other way that hit halfway up the foul pole, not an easy task in Richmond. It helps that the former pitcher has been able to turn his ability to throw pitches into recognizing them.

My one worry about Belt was that he only had one game at home before a roadtrip to a couple of the Eastern League’s better hitter’s parks, but he’s been getting his money’s worth. His 3-for-4 performance coming out of the break at home, with another home run, this one pulled, is very encouraging. He has gotten a bit aggressive in Richmond, but that is working for him so far.

His speed is not going to be a big part of his game. In our interview with him in April, he said that his running game was about watching pitchers and taking advantage of the ones who paid him no eye, considering his size and lanky build (6’5", 195 lbs to start the season). He himself said that when pitchers start getting wise, the stolen bases will stop. The lack of attempts in Richmond against more experienced pitchers seems to attest to that.

One note: Belt was originally an outfielder. He was moved to first with Texas out of need more than anything. A move back to the outfield (probably left) remains a possibility though it is not in any plans I’ve heard about.

Belt has a lot of ability, but it is hard to get overly excited after a little more than a half season. Very hard. But boy, it’s been good to watch so far. And one has to wonder…have the Giants found a way to build raw hitting projects into prospects?

Another guy to keep an eye on in that regard is Luke Anders: One of the Giants’ coaches developed a tool for Anders to keep his elbows in to stop him from throwing his hands too far at pitches. Anders is far less of a prospect between age, performance and level, but Anders’ initial power in one of the minors’ worst home run parks at Augusta was more than a little eye-opening, even as he’s cooled down lately while focusing on other parts of his hitting.

Brandon Belt (Richmond): How did I only make the team photo? Am I a top 100 prospect?

Ben Badler: Definitely top 100, for me. I’m a big, big believer in the bat.

Robert Goldberg (Lyndhurst, NJ): Brandon Belt is having a phenomenal year thus far, and while he’s not Mike Trout or Dominic Brown, every day that he hits in AA, he’s looking more and more like the real deal. I realize his last week wasn’t that stellar (for him), but is he in the conversation for Minor League Player of the Year?

Ben Badler: Yes he is. I really, really like Belt.

It really does seem that it’s getting tougher to downgrade Belt for his problems in college, if he’s truly altered his swing mechanics to take advantage of his raw strength.

With his combination of athleticism, strike-zone judgement, power potential and now the statistical performance, along with some positive feedback on the guy’s swing, I think he’s really moving into the upper tier of 1B prospects.

I’ll admit that I was probably a tad wrong about Belt early in the year. I was skeptical about the numbers, but I’m starting to buy into this guy a lot more.

John, I watched Belt play at least 6 games on TV during the NCAA Regionals and World Series last year, and I’ve seen 2 clips of him from his San Jose tenure this Spring. IMHO, if you look at the changes he’s made between his last year at Texas and now, the shortened swing is not the main thing that stands out. The big change that he’s made is in how he gets a full hip-turn in his swing now, without going too far and “flying-open” on his front side. This allows him to pull the ball to RF with power generated mainly from his hips and lower body, while the shortened swing and the way that he keeps his weight back still allows him to hit line drives to the Left-Centerfield gap with authority.

At Texas he started his swing with a very closed stance and then strided, and threw his hips, toward left-center. He just didn’t rotate or pop his hips to get any of his lower body into his swing. Basically, all of his power had to come from his arms and shoulders. Even though he’s a big guy, this robbed him of his natural power and turned him into almost a slap-hitter.

While I understand and agree with the idea of not getting too caught up in the excitement of SSS stats, there is really no comparison between what Anderson did at Lancaster in the Cal League in 2008, versus what Belt did there in San Jose this year. Let’s look at the stats:

Bran. Belt: .377/.488/.626/1.114 … BB-rate=17.5%, K-rate=15.1%, 1 HR every 3.8 ABs
Anderson: .317/.408/.513/.921 …. BB-rate=13.2%, K-rate=18%, 1 HR every 4.2 ABs

This was all done with Anderson playing half of his games in the band-box, hitter’s paradise ballpark in Lancaster, while Belt was playing half of his games in the slightly pitcher-friendly confines of San Jose’s Memorial Stadium. A clue that Anderson’s numbers were likely a product of the famed “Cal League Effect” while Belt’s were not, could be found by examining Anderson’s road splits versus Belt’s home splits:

Bran. Belt (home): .382/.506/.573/1.079
Anderson (away): .286/.371/.468/.839

As you can see, Belt suffered almost no dropoff in the pitcher’s park where he had the majority of his ABs, while Anderson had a big decline across the board to relatively pedestrian numbers (for the Cal League) when he left the friendly confines of Lancaster. Of course, the big allowance that you have to give Anderson is that he was playing in the Cal League starting at the age of 20.6, while Belt started out there this year at the age of 21.11.