White Sox slugger Davidson on Gellinger: He's the guy who changed my swing
The Chicago White Sox's clubhouse was abuzz on July 19.
Before playing the Los Angeles Dodgers at Guaranteed Rate Field, top prospect Yoan Moncada joined the 25-man roster from Class AAA Charlotte, bringing the media out in droves.
As Moncada's every move was monitored, Sox third baseman/designated hitter Matt Davidson stood in front his locker stall and had a long conversation with a very familiar face: Paul Konerko.
Stopping in to say hello while he was in town from Arizona, Konerko spent extra time with Davidson to talk about their common link: Mike Gellinger.
A 1982 Fremd High School graduate, Gellinger has spent 31 years in the White Sox's organization in a variety of roles. He has been a minor-league manager and coach, the team's assistant hitting coach, and a minor-league infield coordinator.
This year, Gellinger is working as the White Sox's minor-league hitting coordinator. With so many talented young hitters now in the farm system, it's an extremely wise choice by the organization.
The Palatine native and son of IHSA Hall of Famer Terry Gellinger, Fremd's head baseball coach for 30 years, Mike's skill and passion for teaching hitting meshed perfectly with Konerko's insatiable desire to perfect the craft. The two constantly worked together as Konerko blossomed into one of the game's most dangerous hitters during his 18-year career.
Before the 2016 season, Davidson was an impressive power hitter, but his alarmingly high strikeout rate threatened to halt his career at Triple-A.
Enter Gellinger.
"He's the guy who changed my swing," Davidson said.
After Davidson led the International League in strikeouts in 2014 and 2015 while combining to hit 43 home runs at Charlotte, Gellinger went to work.
"He was trying to stay back and see the ball and then react to it," Gellinger said. "As hard as these guys throw today, you really need to get yourself ready to hit, get yourself in a good, balanced athletic position. Matt had a good swing, the path of his swing, but he never put his body in a good position to actually take the swing.
"Now he has really good balance and direction. Certain things in the swing can direct him in the right area or take him off that area. He's done a good job of getting himself into a good position to take his swing and maintain direction."
There are still swings and misses for Davidson. While the big, strong right-handed hitter leads the White Sox in strikeouts this year, his first full season in the majors, Davidson struck out just 28 times in July, which is down from 33 in May and 42 in June.
He's also making a strong push to shatter Jose Abreu's franchise record of 36 home runs for rookies. Davidson had walk-off hits in back-to-back games last week and is looking more and more like a keeper for the rebuilding Sox.
"Very impressed," Gellinger said from Winston-Salem, N.C., where he is working with Eloy Jimenez, Zack Collins and other prospects. "His first full year in the big leagues has been outstanding. There are always things you can improve on, but for what he's done and the confidence he's building, it's been tremendous."
Davidson is very happy with his production this season, but hardly satisfied.
"It just proves to me that I'm on the right path and the swing works," he said. "Now, it's just getting myself more consistent, every at-bat, every week, every year. Just try to get better and better."
Continuing to work with Gellinger is only going to help Davidson. Ditto for continuing to talk with Konerko.
"I would love to spend more time with Konerko, for sure," Davidson said. "We can kind of bounce stuff off each other and it helps that we've have both worked with Gelly. Talking with Paulie the other day, it was about the approach and the swing and some mechanical things. I asked him about how he felt about how he was feeling in certain situations.
"Paulie was a very mechanical hitter and he thought a lot about his swing. Everybody is a little different with their swing. Some guys think about it a lot, some guys don't think about it - see the ball, hit the ball kind of guys. I would say I'm in the middle, maybe leaning more toward being mechanical. I believe in one solid way of hitting and you work toward that mechanically and once you're there you know you're in a good spot."
Is Davidson there? Not yet, but he's certainly on the right road.
• Twitter: @scotgregor
Cutting down the K's
Here's a look at Matt Davidson's strikeouts this season by month.
<b>At-bats / strikeouts</b>April: 49 / 21
May: 83 / 33
June: 88 / 42
July: 81 / 28
August: 1 / 0
Source: mlb.com