Avg and OBP

Very interesting, especially since growing up we were always told to hack away. DON'T coach your kids to hack away. They need to learn plate discipline.

Two decades passed in between the Twins producing a 30-homer hitter and the David Ortiz saga provided a glimpse into why that was the case, as the team tried to take a young hitter with tremendous power potential and essentially mold him into just another slap hitter. Back in 2004, when Ortiz was putting together the second of what is now five straight (and counting) 30-homer, 100-RBI seasons for the Red Sox, he said the following about his time in Minnesota:
When I first came to Minnesota, that's when I was told, "Stay inside the ball, hit the ball the other way." I always was a power hitter in the minor leagues. Everything changed when I went to Minnesota. I would take a hard swing and my first manager would be in the dugout, saying, "Hey, HEY, what are you doing?"Beyond the apparent lack of interest in encouraging slugging and inability to develop power hitters, the organization also repeatedly makes it clear that they care little about plate discipline, acquiring players who struggle to control the strike zone and seemingly refusing to coach them differently. When told last week that Delmon Young had chased more pitches out of the strike zone this season than any other hitter in baseball, Ron Gardenhire said:
I watched Torii Hunter for like 10 years. You think Torii hasn't swung? You know what? There's nothing wrong with swinging. That's why they give you a bat. This kid's 22 years old. He's got everything ahead of him. So let it fly. Learn as you go. He'll learn the strike zone.To start telling a guy to just "take, take, take," sometimes that's just not human nature. You don't get to the big leagues, and you don't become a big league player, by "take, take, take" and get walks.Some people are paid to drive in runs. You think David Ortiz goes up there to walk? He's paid to drive in runs. He walks because we walk him. On purpose. And that's what's going to happen to Delmon as he goes along, too. Right now, they know he's going to chase a little bit, but that's OK. I'll take my chances with him letting it fly.Gardenhire acting like he knows what makes Ortiz a great hitter while dismissing his outstanding plate discipline is amusing given what Ortiz has repeatedly said about the Twins stifling his development. Torii Hunter is a fantastic all-around player and succeeds offensively despite lacking plate discipline, but possessing that ability is fairly unique and pointing to him as the model for Young hardly inspires confidence given Hunter's lowly .325 career on-base percentage and unspectacular .795 OPS.Beyond that, in Gardenhire's mind why are the only choices for a hitter to "go up there looking to walk" or "swing at everything"? What happened to being disciplined, showing patience, working the count in your favor, and putting together a good at-bat? How many seasons in a row does the Twins' offense need to rank in the bottom half of the league while everyone in charge downplays the importance of plate discipline before people do the math? The Twins have failed to draw an above-average number of walks every year since 1988. On average during the 20 seasons since then they've ranked 10th in walks, never placing higher than seventh. So far this season they rank dead last in walks and on-base percentage, plus second-to-last in homers and runs. Oh, and as usual they also rank fifth in batting average, for all the good that does them. As for Young, he's "let it fly" to the tune of .265/.306/.314 this year and .290/.317/.407 for his career