Jake Seiner of the Associated Press talks to players and coaches about modifying swings to cut down on ground balls. As some point out, this is nothing new. Here is coach Bobby Tewksbary talking about the issue:

Tewksbary is on a mission to make hitters better by debunking the axiom against swinging up. He felt his own career was hindered by the hitting instruction he got as a young player — he was always told to “swing down” on the ball.

“Johnny Little League coach says to swing down, get on top, and hitters will literally swing down,” he said.

Tewksbary thinks the terminology does more harm than good — and he’s not nearly the most famous dissenter of that baseball adage.

In his book The Science of Hitting, Ted Williams bemoaned that hitters “always heard that the ideal swing is level or ‘down.'” The Hall of Famer advocated a “slight upswing” because it “puts the bat flush in line with the path of the ball for a longer period.” That is, if the ball is traveling down from the pitcher’s hand to the catcher’s glove, the best chance at solid contact is to swing the bat on the same plane — up toward the pitcher’s release point.

“For years and years, people have disagreed with the greatest hitter of all-time,” Tewksbary said.

I will also note that there was a time when putting the ball on the ground, swinging down on the ball, was a very good idea. In the early days of baseball, fielding was terrible. Putting the ball in play gave a batter a good chance of reaching base, since the grounds were poorly kept, the gloves fielder wore were poor, and defense just had not evolved much. Once errors became a minor way of getting on base, hitters should have shifted away from grounders, but old ideas die hard. A solid line drive provides the best results, and Williams was right on how to produce that outcome.