Dom Gatti pulls out an iPad and opens up a video editing program that has the swing of every prominent Major League baseball player.
“Let’s look at (Jose) Altuve,” he said to me. He opens up two videos; one from his rookie season in 2011 and another from 2017.
He begins drawing lines with his finger pointing out the subtle differences in the length between his feet in his batting stance, his leg kick, the angle his back leg forms at the point of contact and where Altuve’s bat is in regards to the “hitting window”.
The words flow with confidence, as if Gatti has been preaching this his entire life.
Gatti represents a new flock of hitting gurus that subscribe to the new theory of creating launch angle that is conducive to higher OPS and average distance.
When you’re told that everything you’ve been taught your entire playing career is wrong, it’s not an easy pill to swallow. Many Major League hitters, however, have embraced completely altering their swing that allowed them to play professional baseball in favor of a radical hitting approach that is designed to negate hard throwers and stout infield defenses.
The two faces of this in Major League Baseball are Justin Turner and Daniel Murphy, players that were productive enough to make a living playing baseball but suddenly made fundamental changes to their swing, and it paid off with flying colors. Both have signed lucrative extensions; Turner just led the Los Angeles Dodgers to their first NL Pennant since 1988 and Murphy was NL MVP runner-up in 2016 behind Kris Bryant.
Gatti noted that both of these guys sought out the help of independent hitting instructors to re-structure their swing path.
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The motivation behind this is two-fold.
- Pitchers are so talented in 2017 that it is extremely unlikely that you will string together three consecutive hits in order to manufacture a run.
- Infield defenses and data have made ground balls exceptionally difficult to escape the infield.
How do you counteract this?
Rather than swinging on a downward plane looking to hit the top-half of the baseball and drive a ball through the middle, batters are attempting to hit climbing line drive that will be extra-base hits (doubles, triples, home runs).
Many old-school coaches cannot stomach the idea that their hitting philosophies are wrong. After all, if you invested decades of your own blood, sweat and tears into refining your craft, would you feel useful if that theory was proven incorrect?
A few coaches, notably former Adelphi All-American Dom Gatti, have made a second career in preaching these new-age philosophies into young ballplayers.
To know the story of how it began, let’s go back to New Hyde Park HS in the late 1980s.
Dom Gatti was the reigning Nassau County MVP. He was the consensus best hitter and was on his way to a consecutive MVP. He wound up finishing second in the voting by one coach. Surely this type of player was being recruited by all the top schools in the region.
He was not. According to him, the main reason was his height, 5’10” left most teams uninterested.
Gatti made the schools regret their decision. He chose to attend Adelphi University and by his sophomore year he was All-American and was invited to play in the Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League (ACBL). He was on the same team with players from all the big-time programs.
Despite being undersized and playing in a Div-II, Gatti was named League MVP which garnered interest from the local powerhouses.
“I was offered full rides to St. John’s and Fordham,” said Gati. When Adelphi got wind of this, they offered to match and he chose to stay for his final two years.
“Those guys were my family,” he said.
Understand that in those days, Adelphi did not have the same allure that it does today. Not only did this pre-date their run of excellence (four College World Series appearances in he 1990s), they also didn’t have a baseball field on campus.
“We played our home games at Garden City or Baldwin state park–we didn’t even have our own field,” he said.
He noted that a big factor in his decision was wanting to continue to play for legendary coach Ron Davies, who coached Adelphi for over 30 years. He called Davies a “wonderful guy.”
In his senior season in 1993, Gatti caught fire at the plate from day one and did not cool off at any point of the season.
He entered the final day of the regular season against Stony Brook leading the nation with a batting average of exactly .500–his goal entering the season.
“Some people asked if I should sit out to preserve the batting average but we needed to win the game to get to regionals,” he said.
Entering his final at bat, the Panthers were trailing by one run in the last inning with a man on first and he was 1-for-3 on the afternoon.
What happened next was straight out of a movie, as Gatti drove one over the fence in left field for a walk-off two-run shot. Not only did it send Adelphi into the NCAA regionals but he finished the regular season with a .500 AVG. He slumped a bit in the postseason to send his average “down” to .466, which was third in the nation (88 hits in 189 at bats).
Following the season, Gatti was garnering interest from Major League clubs; specifically the Texas Rangers, who held a workout for him at Adelphi. Their staff featured Larry Izzo and former New York Mets GM Omar Minaya.
He performed well enough that the Texas Rangers drafted him in the 38th round of the 1993 MLB Draft. Gatti was assigned to the Butte Copper Kings (Montana) where he hit .289 with a .397 OBP.
In 1994, he was moved up to the New York Penn League and played with the Hudson Valley Renegades. He performed even better; batting .294 with a .425 OBP but he broke his wrist on a play at the plate that cut his season short.
Unfortunately, he came back too early and it hurt his offensive production.
“I wanted to be back out there, I didn’t want to go home,” he said. That decision caused his batting average to slip to .230 in 1995 while playing for the Charleston River Dogs of the South Atlantic League.
He was released by the Texas Rangers that season. He had the opportunity to play in Italy, but he chose to pursue his degree in physical education instead.
From that point, he began coaching baseball and starting an organization called the Bull Dogs. He also opened up Cove Sports Academy in Glen Cove.
While his passion is the game of baseball, what he really enjoys to do is analyze the swing. He also enjoys coaching his eighth grade son who will be playing on the Oyster Bay HS team next season.
You can visit his webpage at Gattibaseballcamps.com !
Follow the author on twitter @V_Messana
