What the A’s saw last year from Danny Valencia was a right-handed hitter with power, with some of the power, 11 homers in 47 games, attributed to the addition of a leg kick in his swing.
For that Valencia thanks another slugger, Toronto’s Jose Bautista. The two became close during Valencia’s 53-week stay in Toronto from mid-2014 to mid-2015 when the A’s picked him up.
“We started talking hitting a lot during the time I was there, and even after I came here, we’d text all the time,’’ Valencia said. “I’d tried a kick before, but it never worked right for me.