Kevin Long and His Hard-Hit Ball Chart

Apparently Kevin Long isn't too concerned with Cody Ransom's awful start to the '09 season. Why? Because of his hard-hit ball chart, which Long uses as a tool to keep players' confidence up. Here's some more from Marc Carig:

Long keeps his own tally during games and frequently shares the data with players, especially those who need to hear it, like Ransom. From the chart: Robinson Cano, who has been on fire to start the season, leads the Yankees with nine hard-hit balls. Derek Jeter is second with eight. Not surprising.

But guess who's also tied with Cano for the team lead? Cody Ransom.

"When you look at that, it doesn't concern me at all," Long said. "I thought he was swinging the bat better than his numbers. He probably pressed a little bit because he wants to get a hit the last couple games. Before that, I thought he was doing fine and thought he had a little hard luck."

Long admits he's not the most subjective in his count. Sometimes, he rewards effort just as much as the results. The point, he said, is to keep positive thoughts flowing for players even when the hits aren't falling.

"If it's a soft lineout, I'll give them a hard hit," Long said. "I'm a little more lenient obviously. I'm looking at how did he handle a certain pitch. Maybe it was a tough pitch and he was able to stay on it and through it long enough to line it to right. Not scorched, but hit good. I like to pound that quite a bit."

I think this chart is good idea and it has probably has helped many players, but at the same time I think Long should be a little more subjective with what he determines is a hard-hit ball. I've watched every at-bat Ransom has had this year, and there's no way he's hitting the ball well. He's 2-for-24 and he's struck out 8 times in 24 at-bats. He's also not doing the little things, last night in a game that was already over, he failed to drive in a runner from third with less than two outs. Really, I can't see how it's possible that he is near the team leaders in hard hit balls.

As Carig points out in the article "Much of success as a major league coach hinges on mastering the art of reassurance," and there's no doubt about that. But isn't another major job of a hitting coach to find and fix problems with a players' swing?

What do you guys think?