Hit coaches making

It was Earl Weaver, the managerial sage of Baltimore, who maintained you have to wait until Memorial Day to truly determine what kind of a ballclub you’ve got, and while that has always been a wise cautionary rule of thumb, I’m going to take a leap of faith with this Yankee team that has so surprised us this young season.

I’m looking at all the things they’re doing, particularly on the offensive side of the ball, where they’re second in the majors behind the Nationals in runs, on-base percentage and OPS and likewise second in the majors in walks, and I can’t help being reminded of the formula for success Gene Michael preached with a similar bunch of kids back in the mid-nineties. I admit, I have always felt batting coaches, with the possible exception of Lou Piniella or the late Charlie Lau, are over-rated in that − as opposed to pitching coaches, who have proven to be able to turn mediocre pitchers into very good pitchers simply by changing their game preparation or teaching them a new pitch − they aren’t able to be difference-makers. You can spot flaws. You can work on mindsets. You can watch film ’til you’re bleary-eyed, but in the end you can’t turn .220 hitters into .300 hitters.

Or can you?

Aaron Hicks has been a contact-challenged .223 hitter his entire career, except for possibly 2015 when he hit a fairly respectable .256 with 11 homers in 97 games for the Twins and piqued the interest of Yankee GM Brian Cashman. Yet this year, after losing out for the right field job to Aaron Judge in spring training, Hicks has undergone a total transformation, hitting the ball with authority from both sides of the plate, at .338 with more walks than strikeouts and an unworldly 1.098 OPS. It’s been the same with Judge whose mighty struggles making contact in his brief 27-game cameo last year had Yankee officials concerned whether he could ever make the necessary adjustments that would allow them to keep his brute power in the lineup.

But it goes beyond Hicks and Judge. Starlin Castro, who’s carried a 4-1 strikeouts-towalks ratio (5-1 last year) throughout his career, is showing a similar more disciplined approach and is off to the best start of his career, as is Chase Headley. There’s no other way to put it. Yankee hitting coaches Alan Cockrell and Marcus Thames are, uh, clearly making a difference. With Hicks, they have worked on shortening his swing a bit so as to get to the ball quicker. Same with Judge, who also