By all accounts, his D improved a lot over the course of last year.

i think it was primarily that his defense was bad and the fact that 1B was a necessity just made them make the switch sooner rather than later.

the couple times I actually saw him (twice in person), he had a great arm but his range was limited and balls hit at him would eat him up a bit.

I dont know that range at 1b really has that great of an effect. Tex was on the gold glove side so from him to bad might hurt you, but from an average defensive 1b to a poor one... obviously im just rambling and dont really know, but I wouldnt guess that its that important.

Range-wise anyway, needs to be able to pick throws though...

do you take requests? I like to see what you come up with for Hank Blalock. people seem to think that the 2004 home run derby really messed up his mechanics. obviously, this would be probably only be interesting to rangers fans but I'd like to see some video comparisons made of old hank, 06 hank, and hank right now (assuming that he's better). this is a guy that use to have one of the fastest swings through the zone (supposedly).

of these articles is scap loading.

You can get a really good idea of a hitter's scap load by reading the article I link below. It is written by Carlos Gomez and looks at the scap loads of Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds...and Ruth had a HUGE loading process.

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-four-greatest-home-run-hitters-of-alltime-a-video-analysis/

And I wrote an article recently for THT, and the first guy I look at is Chorye Spoone, in the Oriole organization and you can see a real nice shot of his scap load in the animation.

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/pitching-prospects-to-watch-in-2008/

I think everyone has thought for a long time that it would be great to have him here. However, with Hamilton, Davis, Blalock and possibly Murphy as regulars, adding Dunn would make you awfully left-handed. It looks like a RH slugger would make more sense.

In pitching the scap load is a more a product of pinching the shoulder blades together to generate power. In hitting it's more of loading your shoulders and the blades back towards the opposite direction of the pitcher to load for the swing. Is it only power? No, there is a timing to it to just as there is a timing to getting your foot down and locked.

Believe it or not, the 'secret' for distance + accuracy in golf has more to do with midsection strength than scap or arm position. Only your hip rotation combined with midsection 'release' permits you to accelerate at impact. Old as I am, my typical drive tops 280+. My son (several years as a professional) can launch 330+ but tries to never fully load (accuracy). Watch Tiger's "late" hip and midsection release, and the difference between his 'stingers' and his full out launches. Bottom line, it optimizes the shaft length + arms extension unconsciously, and prevents deceleration at the bottom of the swing. Otherwise, hitting harder only makes the ball go higher, not farther (given an upright plane). Then when you get comfortable with swing acceleration, get fitted with shafts that match for accuracy.

“Get your foot down.” I always wondered of all things for a hitting coach to preach, why that? Well that was until I became a baseball trainer and applied it to my own swing. It’s everything to get your front foot down and locked. It effects your power tremendously to have a foot locked to pivot on. It also effects the flight of the path of your bat because if that front foot spins out, you’re screwed because your body is now tailing off away from the ball.