Rozner: Cubs' Maddon preaches more contact
Joe Maddon does not care what you think.
Really, he doesn't care whether you like his opinions on just about anything.
Some of it might be the generational wealth handed to him by Tom Ricketts and Theo Epstein, but more likely it's his personal background and a baseball life spent getting to this time and this moment.
It's refreshing, to be certain, at a time when sports are filled to the brim with NFL speak, where all you get is eternal spin, ground through the mind-numbing corporate filter and spit out ad nauseam, day after day, game after game.
In baseball these days, it's embrace every new trend to the letter or risk getting shouted down by the thought police, who determine the groupthink of the day.
Maddon doesn't care. He's more interested in winning.
And now that means asking his players - when the situation merits - to make contact, rather than trying to hit 500-foot home runs every at-bat.
That's not a very popular sentiment in baseball today when launch angle and exit velocity are all the rage, dominating every broadcast and drowning every conversation.
But using the entire field to drive in runs, especially when Wrigley Field is playing so big in cold weather with the wind blowing in, has been working for the Cubs.
It was especially evident in sweeping the Brewers.
"I think it speaks to the whole-field approach," Maddon said. "I stand by that."
The Cubs are getting great pitching and have been playing better defense. They scored only 9 runs in four games against Milwaukee, but it was enough to get the job done.
"We're playing an entire game of baseball right now," Maddon said after they took out the Brewers. "I don't think I've seen anybody going up there with just this heavy pull mode, trying to hit home runs kind of philosophy we've had over the last several years."
The Cubs became heavily dependent on the longball last year, not that there's anything bad about hitting home runs. But there has been more situational hitting over the past week or two, and it has been necessary with winter refusing to depart Chicago.
"We're going to hit a lot of home runs this year. I still believe we can do that and we're going to do that," Maddon said. "But I like this swarming offense.
"And I like guys who hit the ball out of the ballpark. I don't understand why you can't have both."
Of course, both are necessary. Still, watching Anthony Rizzo grab half the bat and poke a ball into left to drive in a run is starting to catch on.
"I don't understand why choking up is a lost art," Maddon said. "Moving the baseball by getting your top hand closer to contact helps provide for these positive situations, too.
"You want the ball moved in situations. You want more action on the field. There's nothing wrong with choking up, hitting to the opposite field, using a shorter swing under these circumstances.
"All those things have been tried and true for years."
It is even happening with guys like Javy Baez, whose long swing has been cut down at times this year, and he seems more willing now to go the opposite way or take a basehit up the middle with runners in scoring position.
Maddon pointed to hitting coach Chili Davis when discussing an old approach, which suddenly feels new on the North Side.
"If you talk to him, I'm sure he's not going to glorify the launch angle," Maddon said. "Everybody likes exit velocity. That's called line drives. Who doesn't want to hit a line drive?
"So that part (launch angles), I think, is kind of overemphasized.
"It's kind of cute to (put in lights) on a scoreboard, but to me real hitting is about angles and presenting the bat head in the strike zone at the proper angle at the proper moment.
"Exit velocity doesn't help a hitter in the batter's box."
So while strikeouts in the game are soaring as a result of the desire to swing up on the baseball at all times, the Cubs are rolling back the calendar a bit, asking the players to bunch hits and score runs.
It doesn't mean they won't hit home runs. They will hit plenty. But there's a time and a place and a wind direction, and that's all Maddon is saying.
Baseball thought police, be darned.
brozner@dailyherald.com
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