I get a feeling more players will step up next year, seems they've been reshaping instruction up and down the system, which explains the coaching changes, those who couldn't get with the program are gone.
I like what Mallee's supposedly doing, teaching players to wait for "their" pitch, the pitches the staff have identified they can handle, and don't swing at anything else - if you look at hitting charts there's a huge difference in success for hitters for pitches in different quadrants of the strike zone (and out of it). Teaching hitters to recognize and attack only the pitches they can make good contact on should improve them as hitters, higher BABIP due to higher exit velocity, independent of swing angle. The idea isn't to work a count for walks, but to avoid chasing bad pitches and making weak contact on pitches out of a hitter's "sweet zone." Walks and deep pitch counts are a byproduct, not the goal.
But changing an organizational approach is not going to bear immediate fruit, there will be those who adjust quickly, probably because someone like Rhys was already doing that, some who pick it up after a few months, hopefully that's what we saw with Franco, and some who need a year or two - and those who don't adjust after a couple years have to be weeded out as "uncoachable."
