Providing Insight on Estevan Florial’s Swing Mechanics

There is something there. Here’s how it might be brought out.

I’m sure you would call me crazy if I said that Estevan Florial truly being a 30-hr threat in the Guardians lineup is more realistic than you think. Well, he might just be.

Acquired by the Guards in December for righty reliever Cody Morris, Florial was a long but forgotten relic in the New York Yankees farm system. From being regarded as the best prospect in the Yankees’ system in 2019 to not even getting an extended look at a starting spot, Estevan has had little to no chance of finding his footing in the bigs. But Chris Antonetti and the rest of the Guardians brass took a shot on him and gave him a spot on the Opening Day roster over Rule 5 Draft pick Deyvison De Los Santos (much to my dismay). It has taken me a while to get a grasp on the nature of this decision, but as of a few days ago, I am starting to see the vision with Florial.

Right now, it probably goes without saying that Estevan doesn’t pass the eye test. His swing as a whole is unbalanced, he is flinging his head out frequently, and he almost reaches down with his swing, leaving him susceptible to being beaten by a high-and-outside pitch. From a strictly mechanical standpoint, Flo’s swing is very flawed. However, there is a lot to like about him. His power and his approach are just two things that are so good, that he has been able to hold his own for the most part.

But, back to his swing: There is one huge flaw that I think is causing all these other problems to surface. What I am seeing is that Estevan is over-rotating his hips. Now, I’m sure many would inquire why you’d want your hips to decelerate when you are trying to create as much power as you can. Well, yes, you want to create as much power as you can when you open your hips, but in order for that momentum to transfer into your bat, you must stop them. It’s like a catapult, where your body is the mechanism and the bat is the projectile. In order for the catapult to work, it must stop at some point so that the momentum can transfer into the projectile and it can fly. Same goes with you and a baseball bat. Your hips must stop once they’ve fully opened up so that you can maximize your power potential once you’ve transferred the momentum. Furthermore, eliminating such over-rotation will keep you from other weaknesses such as lunging at the ball, letting your head fly out and susceptibility to the outside pitch.

Before I go into the next section of my argument, I’d like for you to guess whose swing this is. He was a Fresno Grizzly in 2019 and is now one of the league’s premier power bats. If your eyes serve you well and you guessed correctly, this would be Yordan Alvarez. During his tenure as a minor leaguer, Yordan shared so many similarities with what Estevan is going through right now. And this clip right here just goes to show how Florial can follow that path as well. Believe it or not, I’d tend to believe that Estevan is almost an exact clone of the Cuban mammoth. It’s just that Flo hasn’t figured out what Yordan has.

This comparison was first brought to my attention by a Guardians fan page on Instagram, named Guardians Realm. He showed me a side-by-side comparison of both Yordan’s and Estevan’s swings right now in the present.

Pay close attention to the upper body movement, those motions during their swings are practically identical. Where they differ heavily (and the reason why Yordan has so much success as opposed to Estevan) is what the lower half does. You can notice Estevan’s hips over-rotating in these two clips, but Yordan shows that he doesn’t do such a thing.

Which brings me to my next point: how Yordan keeps his hips from over-rotating. Again, if you watch closely, Alvarez has a scissor kick in his swing. At the point of contact, he drives his back foot backwards. What this does is act as a counterforce to your hips. As the hips are being launched, that driving of the back foot backwards is taking away the hips’ ability to over-rotate by giving it less room to do so.

If you want to do a quick but optional exercise, stand up and drive off your back foot as if you were taking a swing. More importantly, do it first with your feet parallel to each other. Then do it secondly, but this time with the scissor kick. You will feel that there is much more tension acting against your hips when you try to kick back your back foot as opposed to when you do not.

For a guy with Florial’s archetype, adding in this scissor kick may prove crucial to him taking his next big step as a major leaguer. If I was Chris Valaika, I would have a chat with him right now about what I am seeing and set forth a roadmap for how Estevan could improve. These are some glaring issues as well. Before I became privy to this knowledge, I was ready to get rid of Flo for someone better, but now I see the vision and I believe that there is a path for him to become a premier bat like Yordan.