Swing Kings: The Inside Story of Baseball's Home Run Revolution

by Jared Diamond

"The best baseball book I’ve read in years." — Sam Walker • "An exhilarating story of innovation."  — Ben Reiter • " Swing Kings feels like a spiritual successor to Moneyball ." — Baseball Prospectus
From the  Wall Street Journal ’s national baseball writer, the captivating story of the home run boom, following a group of players who rose from obscurity to stardom and the rogue swing coaches who helped them usher the game into a new age. We are in a historic era for the home run. The 2019 season saw the most homers ever, obliterating a record set just two years before. It is a shift that has transformed the way the game is played, contributing to more strikeouts, longer games, and what feels like the logical conclusion of the analytics era. In  Swing Kings ,  Wall Street Journal  national baseball writer Jared Diamond reveals that the secret behind this unprecedented shift isn’t steroids or the stitching of the baseballs, it’s the most elemental explanation of the swing. In this lively narrative romp, he tracks a group of baseball’s biggest stars—including Aaron Judge, J.D. Martinez, and Justin Turner—who remade their swings under the tutelage of a band of renegade coaches, and remade the game in the process.  These coaches, many of them baseball washouts who have reinvented themselves as swing gurus, for years were one of the game’s best-kept secrets. Among their ranks are a swimming pool contractor, the owner of a billiards hall, and an ex-hippie whose swing insights draw from surfing and the technique of Japanese samurai. Now, as Diamond artfully charts, this motley cast has moved from the baseball margins to its center of power. They are changing the way hitting is taught to players of all ages, and major league clubs are scrambling for their services, hiring them in record numbers as coaches and consultants. And Diamond himself, whose baseball career ended in high school, enlists the tutelage of each swing coach he profiles, with an aim toward starring in the annual Boston-New York media game at Yankee Stadium. Swing Kings  is both a rollicking history of baseball’s recent past and a deeply reported, character-driven account of a battle between opponents as old as old and new, change and stasis, the establishment and those who break from it. Jared Diamond has written a masterful chronicle of America’s pastime at the crossroads.

Genres: Baseball, Sports, Nonfiction, Audiobook, History, Science

336 pages, Paperback

First published March 31, 2020

Reviews

[Ric · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a must read for any baseball fan. It was full of interesting stories about the relatively unknown masterminds that changed the game forever. Even if you don’t enjoy the shift in baseball towards the home run (I personally do), these stories of the men that changed the careers of Justin Turner, J.D. Martinez, and others are so good. Originally, I decided to pick up this book because I’m missing baseball during this quarantine and the mention of Aaron Judge piqued my interest. But as someone who genuinely enjoys the game, I had such a good time reading this. I’d highly recommend it.

[Lance · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ever since the days of Babe Ruth, the home run has been a cornerstone of baseball, both in terms of generating offense and also drawing fans to the game. In recent years, the proliferation of home runs in the game has been responsible for how the game is played and viewed. While there have been many reasons given why this has occurred – a livelier baseball, performance-enhancing drugs, watered down pitching – this book by Jared Diamond looks at a more basic reason, the way batters swing at pitches.

Several of today’s biggest stars in baseball are discussed in the book such as J.D. Martinez, Justin Turner and Aaron Judge. However, they are not the stars in this work. Instead, the book centers on the coaching these and other players received from coaches who were not employed by any baseball team and had little to no success in the sport. But these men – Richard Schenck, Craig Wallenbock and Bobby Tewksbary to name a few – had radical ideas on how to swing the bat that were far different than what many coaches had been teaching hitters for years. Their stories alone, without the addition of the baseball players, would make a great book. Reading about the “Teacherman” as Schenck is known as online and is hated in the Internet work, or the story behind Tewksbary being asked to pitch to Josh Donaldson at the 2015 Home Run Derby (and the subsequent end of their professional relationship shortly thereafter) was just as good as learning about their teaching methods.

When the star players mentioned before, and other players such as Marlon Byrd approached these hitting gurus to get help with their hitting, the new ideas were first met with skepticism. But eventually with enthusiasm as they all learned a new basic thought – instead of swinging down on the ball and hitting more ground balls, one should swing the bat up on the ball and put the ball in the air. This concept sounds simple, but did not catch on right away. As Diamond notes, it is popular now as is the use of launch angle to measure a batter’s effectiveness.

While launch angle is fairly new, Diamond doesn’t dismiss some traditional methods of measuring a hitter’s success. When talking about the success of players such as Martinez, Turner and Judge, he cites their batting averages as well as OPS (on-base percentage + slugging percentage), home runs and launch angle. This was a nice mix of both traditional and new age statistics, which this reviewer believes is the best way to determine a player’s effectiveness.

One surprising aspect over the course of the book was how Diamond was describing the traditional teaching of hitting coaches at all levels of professional baseball. Of course, the swing coaches employed by the players all thought those methods were outdated and actually hurting the hitters. Throughout the book, Diamond notes how they and many hitters believed that these coaches were simply passing on what they were taught and those lessons were not as effective any longer. This read much like how traditional scouts were portrayed in the book and movie “Moneyball” as being out of touch with the way the game is played today.

One would not expect a book talking mostly about outsiders influencing the game and helping to create some of the biggest stars to be such an easy and entertaining read, but “Swing Kings” fits that description perfectly. Fans of today’s game, especially passionate ones, will want to read this book on an important aspect of why the home run is more prevalent than ever.

I wish to thank Harper Collins for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

https://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/20...

[Ben Landrum · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read the WSJ more often than not, and while it’s a little less zany and interesting than Jason Gay’s occasional baseball article, I enjoy Jared Diamond’s baseball coverage. Any of the chapters of this book would have been great standalone articles. It suffers however from an excess of very similar narratives describing essentially this arc:

Brock Hammerstein always loved baseball. His natural athleticism and freak strength got him drafted in the 50th round by the Mariners, and they put him on their High-A team the Nooksack Nutcrackers. After two seasons, he realized that if he was ever going to break into the upper echelons of minor-league baseball he would have to mix things up. To do this, he found an outsider hitting coach hated and feared by the establishment. In the batting cage he was told to do drills that “felt really weird” and required the removal of several ribs. But it all paid off. His OPS increased by a hair, and after a miraculous performance at spring training he was allowed to bat 9th for the Mariners for two games before a permanent demotion back to the minors. When asked about the experience, he was quoted as saying he “didn’t blame his hitting coach” and “was never built for MLB greatness anyways”.

There are probably a dozen or more of these narratives. The first two were informative, then all but one or two of the others were so forgettable that 10 minutes after finishing I couldn’t name a single player whose name I didn’t already know because they were famously good. A much better book is hidden in here, it just needs a more principled edit and some more carefully constructed long-range narrative, the latter shortcoming I blame on too much experience writing short form content.

Recommend if you’re patient and a bigger baseball fan than me.

[Danny Knobler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read for all baseball fans

Jared Diamond first told me about this book in one of our many chats at one New York ballpark or the other. It sounded intriguing, but I told him I worried it would get too technical as he tried to explain what these players had done to their swings. Turns out I never should have worried.

I should have known Jared would approach it the way he approaches his baseball stories for the Wall Street Journal, with enough detail to appeal to those in the industry and yet also enough color and personality to reach those who are much more casual fans. You don’t need to be a baseball nerd to read and appreciate Swing Kings, because Jared makes the story as much about the players and coaches and their lives as it is about how they changed their swings and changed the game.

If you want to understand those changes, you need to read Swing Kings. But what’s more important is you’ll enjoy reading it.

[Chris Jaffe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good enough, but I thought the organization could be tighter. It mostly goes chronological, but not always. Between the occasional detour away from chronology and the way it jumps between different swing coaches, the book felt a bit jumbled, especially about midway through. You get a good overview, but it doesn't quite gel the way I'd like it to.

Richard Schenck sounds like the MGL of swing gurus: nice enough in person, but an utter prick online (and most people only encounter him online).

[Jami · Rating 4 out of 5]

I try to read at least one baseball themed book at the start of each season. I learned a lot from this book, so I was happy with that. However, it was slow in some parts and felt repetitive at times; in audio format, it was a little bit hard to keep track of who is who at first. Overall, I’m glad I listened to it and it gave me a better understanding of the hitting side of baseball. The epilogue was fun; will the author finally hit his dream home run after training with the trainers and using the techniques he wrote about?

[Evan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve come to rely on Jared Diamond’s baseball reporting as some of the very best in the business. Swing Kings is similarly must-read material for modern baseball fans. This is a long form essay of sorts into the story of how outside analytics caught up with MLB hitting, a bastion of tradition. Diamond’s personal narrative and quality relationships with the subjects makes the book riveting and intimate.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’d recommend this to any baseball lover. I’ve definitely been a fan lamenting the “home run” age but this book helped me to put it in perspective and really see what’s happening behind the scenes with the athletes. It was also a reminder of how big the baseball machine is in this country (and others)—so many minor league and independent coaches, players. So many people working so many hours for so little pay and recognition. Kind of amazing how much commitment there is to sport.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

Diamond’s book follows the now well-worn path of baseball books about scrappy outsiders using their unique insights to transform the game. Because it’s a familiar one, you might think it wouldn’t be so interesting, but the story of marginal also-ran players using these novel approaches to swing mechanics to become superstars, or at least highly productive players, is undeniably compelling. Diamond’s personal attempts to implement these coaching concepts are an enjoyable touch.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Could have called this one “The Swing” because it’s basically “The Arm” but for batters. Some information comes up that you might know/remember from other baseball works from recent years such as Big Data Baseball but overall it was a pretty good listen

[Parker Hageman · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are not too many books that inspire me to purchase them months in advance but when word of Jared Diamond’s forthcoming Swing Kings set a late March release date, I swung by Amazon and reserved my copy.

Player development, to say the least, is my jam. Any written word on the industry is an open invitation to take my money.

The previous year it was Ben Lindbergh and Travis Sawchik’s very worthy MVP Machine, a dive into the changes in the player development side of the game that made me get off my wallet and wait patiently for the pile of dead trees to arrive.

While the Lindbergh-Sawchik number dropped in June 2019, I’ve found that the months leading up to and into the season are a perfect time to consume baseball content, particularly in Minnesota, where the ground is still rock hard and covered in ice. In 2018, I took in Russell Carleton’s The Shift (released in April 2018) and Tom Verducci’s The Yankee Years (a nice pick-up at Half Price Books for cheap). Through his use of “gory math”, Carleton’s book (a 4 out of 5 on my #SickReadingBrag scale) challenged me to think differently about the structure of the game while Verducci’s 10-year-old book (a 3 on my scale) was a solid visit through Joe Torre’s Yankees teams. It was a nice balance between deep thinking and a stroll down memory lane.

So Diamond’s story -- which as the subtitle suggests, promised to provide the inside story of baseball’s home run revolution -- should be an excellent kickstarter to the 2020 season.

Alas.

The book opens with a recap of the J.D. Martinez career reclamation project -- a story that was previously told in Lindbergh and Sawchik’s MVP Machine (as well as Ben Leiter’s Astroball and Alex Speier’s Homegrown, for that matter). Diamond details Martinez’s struggles once he reached the Astros and his subsequent eureka moment watching Jason Castro’s swing, one that prompted him to seek out Castro’s no-name independent hitting coach that worked out of a small facility in Santa Clarita. The chapter weaves in the plight of Justin Turner and Marlon Byrd, and how those two hitters reached a point of desperation in their respective careers as well.

This springboards Diamond into the burgeoning industry outside of the game. If you have been paying attention to the game’s subculture over the last six or seven years, all of the characters should be familiar. If not, you will meet coaches like Craig Wallenbrock, the Oracle of Santa Clarita, who, from the fringes of Los Angeles among the dusty industrial warehouses, quietly impacted the game. There’s Doug Latta, Wallenbrock’s protege, who worked with Byrd and later, Turner. There’s a historical look at why the game was so resistant to change and how Ted Williams’ preaching of hitting the ball in the air took over 30 years to be embraced. You will be introduced to the abrasive (online) personality of Richard Schneck -- who goes by the moniker Teacherman on Twitter and combats any and all who question his methods -- who was propelled into the mainstream based on his work with Aaron Judge. Twins fans might find the chapter on Chris Colabello, Josh Donaldson, and their swing coach, Bobby Tewksbary, to be interesting, to say the least (according to Diamond, Tewksbary scoffs at the Twins’ prior practices).

It’s a wonderful introduction to the collection of baseball misfits who, never truly experiencing any success within the game only to gain notoriety by helping others.

If there was one element of the book I didn’t enjoy, it was the George Plimpton-Paper Lion-esque style of writers injecting themselves into the game or practice to show how difficult or challenging it is. In MVP Machine, Lindbergh documents his experience working with Latta and how he could make swing changes. Similarly, Diamond writes about being on a video call with Latta and going over dry swing drills in preparation for the New York-Boston annual media game. On one hand it gives the story some personality, or relatability to the author, but to me, it was a weird disruption of flow. It often comes across as a strange brag* (Diamond talked about making a play at first base in the media game) or forced self-deprecation (he got blisters on his hands because this isn’t his craft). Books don’t always need to be written from the perspective of the omnipresent observer but in this case, it came across more like a disruption than an addition.

Within the game itself, we still hear former players on broadcasts saying things like the “launch angle swing” which leads to the assumption that all players are just dropping their back shoulders and trying to hit the ball into the sun. First, as Tewksbary points out on his personal website, there is no such thing as a launch angle swing. All swings, when contact happens, have a launch angle. It’s like saying a velocity pitch. When pressed, these pundits describe a one-dimensional, uppercut swing that is designed to do nothing but lift the ball in the air. What the story of Swing Kings drives at is that baseball has been insular when it comes to hitting development, while outside of the game as people like Wallenbrock, Latta and Tewksbary and others eschewed convention and created ways to optimize players’ swings -- all of whom reached the same conclusion that hitting the ball in the air provides the best value. In fact, Diamond quotes former Twins catcher Jason Castro who summarized the movement thusly: “Saying guys are trying to hit the ball in the air is wrong. That’s looking at the outcome instead of the beginning. It’s looking at it backwards.”

There’s a larger theme in play than just putting the spotlight on the guys who worked for years in the dark. If you participate in Twitter or spend any time in forums that discuss the state of baseball, then you’ll undoubtedly encounter debates about new school versus old school approaches, each one of them often digging in to protect their side. As detailed by Diamond, the old school followers -- at least those embedded in the game -- dismissed the outsider ideas that grew in the private cages and backwater colleges on the sport’s periphery. They kept those people and ideas at a distance. Now those forward-thinkers have penetrated the game in coaching and front office roles bringing with them their new methods. What it all boils down to is that the real antagonist is the closed-minded. And, to be clear, the closed-minded can lurk in either of the new school or old school camps.

Overall, it’s a good read. A quick read and one that satiated my baseball thirst, especially in a time when the whole world is on pause. If you are unfamiliar with the trend, I recommend this book as a primer. On my personal #SickReadingBrag scale, I gave it three out of five stars. Diamond, Wall Street Journal’s national baseball reporter, does a good job of presenting these different story lines into one narrative, however, most of the stories are well-worn and have been circulating for a while. The story behind the home run revolution just wasn’t that revolutionary for me.

[Matt Ely · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fans of baseball cannot help but hear about the fly ball/ home run/ launch angle revolution over the last five seasons. Batters have increasingly retooled their swings to focus on uppercut motion, matching the plane of the ball's approach, and keeping the bat in the strike zone longer. This book explains some of those responsible for that shift.

If that seems a little niche, it is. The book is for fans of the game who want to understand a phenomenon that is ubiquitous but simultaneously hard to see unless you're looking for it.

The text is very readable and the narrative aspect keeps things moving. There is a lot of overlap between the stories and philosophies of the coaches profiled, so they sometimes can blend together. But ultimately, it is less about the innovators themselves and more about the process of innovation into an industry that doesn't want you. Also, the author subjecting himself to a similar training regimen was a good way to tie together the disparate coaching tips in the book, and I loved the epilogue.

The book probably could have been 50 pages shorter as much of the information and stories tend to run together. Sometimes it feels like there are anecdotes there just for the sake of being anecdotes without adding to the arguments.

Overall, if you're someone who has wondered about the surging home run rates in MLB since 2015, you won't regret the read.

[Joe Gersbeck · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great history of the most poorly taught and least understood skill in any sport

I've been a student of hitting my entire life, since I bought The Art of Hitting .300 over 30 years ago, at the age of 15. I've always been a believer that hitters can be made with hard work and the right instruction. But where to find that instruction? Diamond does a great job of conveying how just about everyone who plays the game - both mere mortals like most of us and those few talented enough to play pro baseball - all pursue the holy grail of maximizing our potential as hitters. And that sadly, up until a few short years ago those in power in the pro ranks (not to mention high school and college) had very little idea of how to teach the swing properly, undoubtedly ruining far more hitters than they helped. Luckily due especially to high speed video and data analytics, perhaps this is finally changing - and thanks to the influence and increasing acceptance of the swing kings, there may be a day when young hitters can benefit early on from proper and consistent instruction grounded in truth and facts rather than hyperbole and ignorance. - Joe Gersbeck, author of 1970s Baseball

[Paul Miller · Rating 2 out of 5]

A single AHA - the recent rise in home runs has been from a change in the swing NOT a new rush to PEDs - that would’ve been a fine article but has been stretched into a book. Unless you love it when managers switch pitchers constantly extending games beyond what most humans can endure, take a pass on this one.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s okay. Poor organization in the service of a story and overly long too. Plus, it was entirely too recent. So Babe Ruth and Teddy Ballgame were the only old timers to swing uppercut? Highly doubtful! All good players did, even those that didn’t understand what they were doing and parroted the groundball nonsense.

[Reid Mccormick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was a young boy during the steroid era of baseball, so I was naïve. I was very happy turning on SportsCenter every night and watching McGwire and Sosa hit baseball likes they were swatting golf balls. It was fun. Unfortunately, I grew up, the baseball world got serious, and the curtain was pulled back. Everyone was juiced. Everyone turned a blind eye. Everyone knew it was happening and no one did anything. After Jose Canseco spilled the beans, things changed and baseball cleaned itself up. Everything was right again.

And then the homers started happening again. It seemed like every day some new hitter I have never heard of was hitting homers at an exploding rate. Jose Bautista hit 13 home runs in 2009 and then 54 home runs in 2010. JD Martinez went from a struggling outfielder to a powerhouse seemingly overnight. Even my beloved Dodgers were not immune: Justin Turner, a solid bench player for several years, suddenly became an MVP candidate.

My first thought was very skeptical: they all found a new, untraceable performing-enhancing drug. But in fact, their drug was choice was knowledge (oh yeah, that was cheesy, I own it).

These new home run kings started looking at the data. Well, actually, these independent hitting coaches started to look at the data. They threw away old-school advice and techniques such as “swinging down to the ball” and “squishing the bug.” They watched video on noticed the best hitters in baseball did not practice what they preached; when they hit the ball far they actually swung up to the ball.

Fortunately, a few talented players who were on their last resort looked for something new. Desperation searched for inspiration, and now the game has changed. Balls are flying out of the park constantly. Some people say it’s ruining the game. I understand this critique, but I bet when your team wins the World Series you won’t be complaining.

This is a great book about the home run revolution. It gets a little scattered at times, but it’s still interesting. I highly recommend it for all baseball fans.

[Zach Koenig · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the early 2000s, the Oakland Athletics (led by their General Manager Billy Beane) revolutionized the game of baseball with their "moneyball" approach of better evaluating talent. Of course, by now ever Major League Baseball team does the exact same thing, rendering little to be gained from a competitive aspect. The next revolution in baseball? The re-shaping of the major league swing, which is what Jared Diamond zeroes in on here.

"Swing Kings" first looks at the history of hitting through baseball history. For 100+ years, the same old axioms basically held: level swing, hit the top of the ball, value contact over power, only large individuals generate power. However, with the advent of easy video analysis over the past 10-15 years, certain hitting gurus discovered that all the "old wisdom" might be wrong.

Diamond chronicles how a few luminaries in the field (most notably Craig Wallenbrock) discovered that the greatest hitters (Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Albert Pujols, etc.) instead swung the bat on an upward trajectory, creating a launch angle, of sorts, and producing powerful lines drives in the air instead of balls hit on the ground. Of course, going against 100 years of thinking on any subject will be difficult, so Wallenbrock and his disciples face ridicule and often outright banishment from the MLB community. Until a year or so ago, when now the "new swing" has produced success rates (home runs, lines drives, etc.) in unprecedented numbers.

Diamond also looks at the topic through the eyes of certain key MLB players who had their entire careers saved or revitalized via a completely overhaul of their swing, including J.D. Martinez, Marlon Byrd, Jason Castro, and Justin Turner. The success stories of those players are so closely tied to swing changes that one can't help but see the cause-and-effect relationship.

Overall, "Swing Kings" is a great look at the "next wave" of baseball forward-thinking. Diamond does a solid job of looking at the topic from many different vantage points and crafting somewhat of a narrative through the historical context as well.

[Lindsay Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read a review of this and thought it sounded interesting, so I picked it up on Audible. First of all, the author isn't Jared Diamond the Guns, Germs, and Steel author. This Jared Diamond covers baseball for the Wall Street Journal. He starts off recounting his experience playing baseball as a boy, when he unexpectedly hit several home runs in a game. It was a great experience, but he was never able to replicate it. As an adult baseball writer, he starts investigating batting swings.
We all remember how home runs increased in the steroid era, but this is about how some batters changed their swings with an aside about changing ballpark dimensions and surfaces made hitting grounders less practical and hitting homers more so. Many coaches teach players to swing down and attempt to hit grounders. Diamond found several private hitting coaches who had looked at how successful hitters swung and discovered their real mechanics and copied it. In addition to the mechanics of the swing, they pioneered the use of video which revolutionized coaching. Word of mouth spread about them, but they still had problems being accepted by the old guard, who were repeating techniques developed in the dead ball era at the turn of the last century.
The author introduces us to several of these hitting coaches and some of the players who benefitted from hiring them. Along the way, he asks for help with his swing as he prepares to play in a media game and writes about his own experience interspersed with the larger story. Sometimes it could be a bit confusing as there are many coaches and players mentioned. Lucky for me, several of them have at some point played on my local team, the Nationals, so I already was familiar with them.
I found this to be very interesting, but probably not for anyone who isn't already interested in baseball.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

For some reason I thought I had read my baseball books this spring, and then I remembered that I read a football book in February. Not a baseball book! I need my spring baseball books. The season already started!
This was OK. I was kind of confused by it. I mean, it makes sense that this matters, but it seemed like a lot of the examples used in the book were players who didn't really amount to anything. I mean, besides J.D. Martinez and Josh Donaldson. There are all these other players that Diamond mentioned that were bad, and then worked with these independent hitting coaches and got...slightly better. Like enough to start in college, or maybe get a taste of pro baseball. But that's it. And the whole conceit of the book is that somehow these independent hitting coaches knew something that no one else did, but what about all the MLB players who were hitting really well at the time? I mean, the old hitting coaches must have been doing something right with the majority of the players. There were also too many people to keep track of in this book. I couldn't remember which hitting coach was which.
I mean, as a Red Sox fan, I do appreciate that J.D. Martinez figured out how to hit good. But what about all my favorite players from 2000-2013 or so? The good hitters were just not listening to the hitting coaches? Or they thought they were swinging one way but really they were swinging another way? I'm still confused.

[Oliver Bateman · Rating 5 out of 5]

picked up this book at browseabout books in rehoboth and read it from cover to cover in six hours. as these books go - and i've read a lot of them - this one is up there with travis sawchik's big data baseball and michael lewis' (overplayed but revelatory and extremely readable when it first dropped) moneyball, and far ahead of similar books about the sandy alderson mets (truly a weird if interesting read), the baseball prospectus book on the '04 mets, the book on the tampa bay rays, et al. really well-written, briskly-paced stuff. this isn't meant to be some great masterpiece, but it deserves more play than it has received.

diamond (no direct relation to the other jared diamond) injects just enough of himself into a fully reported work (he's trying to improve his high school swing for use in the annual NYC "media game") that closely examines the lives of the outside-the-biz/box batting instructors who fixed the swings of players such as marlon byrd, josh donaldson, chris colabello, j.d. martinez, justin turner, aaron judge, and others. diamond trains with folks like doug latta and richard schenck (follow that guy on social media; what a character) and has just enough understanding of baseball fundamentals (having played briefly in HS) to explain how these swing adjustments worked.

[Matthew Wentworth · Rating 4 out of 5]

The history behind some of the individual players' success is very interesting and the book is worth the read solely for that reason.

In terms of actual hitting analysis, it seems as though the thesis of the book is that "MLB players have hit more home runs in the past four seasons than any other time in history and it is because players started swinging like the 'swing kings' taught them". However, the author then amends that thesis with about fifty asterisks.

*One of the coach's two biggest success were popped for PED's.
**There are just as many, if not more, players whose production was not improved by working with these coaches.
***The balls being used now in the MLB are different and lead to more home runs.
****This type of swing is really only going to help you if you can physically hit home runs (so really not useful for the average high school hitter). And don't tell me that the book mentions "undersized MLB players" who become home run hitters; those guys are all around 6'0'' tall and are elite athletes.

I would have appreciated it more if the main thesis were "coaches shouldn't just teach skills the same way that they've always been taught". Innovation is key in any sport, but that point was only presented periodically.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love a good book on the game. I enjoy a variety of biographies of players, histories, and sometimes on analytics. Swing Kings follows the recent trend towards changing swing mechanics, resulting on the power surges (and career rescues) of several MLB stars.

Purists may roll their eyes at the focus on exit velocity and launch angle, but these terms are simply metrics that reflect the new trend in baseball-- get the ball in the air. Most of MLB's greatest hitters have done it, yet classical wisdom encourages hitters to keep the ball down.

So in the past decade, a variety of independent swing coaches have helped the likes of Josh Donaldson, Aaron Judge, and JD Martinez transform into monster sluggers. They were swimming against the tide of conventional practice, though now are being incorporated into the game.

This book is a worthy descendant of Moneyball, though it lacks the comprehensive and innovative power of that work. Still, it follows the same theme of outside-the-box baseball minds finding value where no one else could see it. Diamond's writing is enjoyable and accessible. Though the structure sometimes results in a repetitive feeling, overall it is an enjoyable and thought provoking read.

[Ty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though there has not been a baseball season yet, I decided to go ahead with my tradition of reading a baseball book for the season opening. "Swing Kings" is a bit esoteric, but I found it interesting and entertaining. The author, who currently covers baseball for the NY Times, digs deep into the recent evolution of hitting from art to science. He believably connects the spread of the new theory of hitting the baseball up in the air to the recent rise in averages, home runs and scoring. We get a lot of fun stories about players who worked with the new breed of hitting "gurus" and re-made themselves, sometimes rising to be good college players and sometimes scoring $100M contracts in the MLB. The writing is good and the way the author interweaves his own baseball dreams makes the book an interesting story. Recommended for baseball fans.

[Kyle Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tremendous read. Easy. Entertaining. Compelling. Fun read. It was so enjoyable and interesting learning little bits and pieces about the guys that have helped to "revolutionize" hitting. If you want to learn about the actual swing, swing mechanics, data, or the application of the aforementioned, this is not the book, however, it's interesting to get into the minds (even if only briefly) of the guys that have had a huge impact on educating players and organizations on what is actually going into the swing.

The sections on Craig Wallenbrock and Bobby Tewksbary were by far my favorites, but the information on the other swing "gurus" was great as well. Jared Diamond does an excellent job of tying his personal story into the mix. I recommend this book highly to anyone that truly loves the game of baseball.

[Ken Heard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who would have thought a book on a radical redesign of a baseball swing could be so interesting? Jared Diamond has done a good job of making this one pretty reader-friendly by offering tons of anecdotes and by writing well.

One thing that I think Diamond did well was show how players who took the training of the swing gurus dealt with major league coaches who for years trained players to swing down on the ball to create ground balls. Swing modifiers like Richard Schenck and Craig Wallenbock taught players to actually lift their swing and "snap it" to hit balls with more trajectory.

Aaron Judge, J.D. Martinez and Justin Turner are all baseball players fans recognize. All underwent the swing design and Diamond shows how their results changed their careers.

An interesting read, especially now that there's no baseball to watch this season.

[Scott Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent account of the men who were behind the efforts to refine and perfect the modern baseball swing. Most of the men the book focuses on hardly had any time in the majors, but they were obsessed with the concept of the baseball swing, and used their unorthodox methods to help the careers of many ball players. Some made a major-league (pun kinda intended) impact, particular J.D. Martinez, Justin Turner and Aaron Judge. However, others, who made some improvements, just couldn’t really make the success last for a long time. Still, it does offer insight into a key, underreported part of the game of baseball. No doubt, more analytics and video analysis and theories will still impact the future of the game. However, while it had its interesting parts, I didn’t find it near as enjoyable or insightful as it could have been. Still, not a bad read for a baseball fan.

[Bex · Rating 5 out of 5]

I fell in love with baseball only two years ago after attending my first ever Dodgers game. Jared Diamond's writing in the Wall Street Journal was one of my main sources of reading material while I scoured the Internet trying to feed my new fascination; he has the deep understanding and knowledge of the sport and the culture I wish I had and is able to diffuse it in such an approachable way that someone like me with no head for stats is still able to follow along and enjoy. I loved this book and loved Diamond's ability to incorporate so many touchstones and personal stories into a narrative of rebels and outsiders taking risks and ultimately changing the game forever, even when the establishment worked its hardest to reject them. If you liked Moneyball you'll love this book!

[Zac · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author has a great synopsis early in the book: If Moneyball was about finding undervalued talent, this is about finding undervalued skills and maximizing the talent available.

Overall, I would say this is the best baseball book that I’ve read since Moneyball. It is a great read for fans of baseball that delves into the players and hitting coaches working behind the scenes to alter their approaches and swings leading to the current home run revolution. As someone who was always taught the value of hitting singles the other way, I viewed the current trends as bad for the game of baseball and disliked the players who embraced this approach. After reading though, I wish I would have known about this as I was playing and would have loved to revamp my swing and be able to hit for power.

[Tyler Odell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I couldn’t put this book down once I started it. As a college coach that is wanting to dive more into the private hitting sector, I was enthralled by the stories told. Tewks and Teacherman were already two great hitting minds that I drew inspirations from, but learning of Latta’s and Wallenbrock’s touch on the movement took it up a notch.

If you’re a young hitter, you need to listen to the concepts with an open mind. I’d give anything to be able to go back and know the things that I know now, rather than the traditional “squash the bug” and “throw your knob at it” stuff. If you’re a coach, I hope you’re also taking these ideas in with an open mind so that you can genuinely help hitters get better.

5/5

[Walter Nashert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought overall this was a very good book for people who enjoy baseball. If you do not play or understand I feel that the book would be very hard to follow but if you do than it is one of the most interesting books I have ever read. From the ideas that started so long ago to how they are affecting players right now like Aaron Judge and Justin Turner. It had very good connections to real life examples and I thought that that was very cool and interesting to learn about. Also all the science behind their Ideas made a lot of sense, I thought it was interesting how resistant the Major League coaches were to the new ideas at first, and how long it took them to accept. Overall I thought this book was very interesting and I feel that I learned a lot from it!