At times last season, Diamondbacks prospect Pavin Smith was so consumed with tinkering with his swing, so focused on mechanics, that he almost would forget what he was doing at the plate in the first place. He can recall times when he would get a hittable fastball but wouldn’t be able to pull the trigger.
“Trying to think about your swing while you’re hitting,” Smith said, “is almost impossible.”
It was one of a handful of lessons that Smith took from a rough first full season as a professional, a year in which he thought he did too much tinkering, too much panicking and not enough swinging.