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Jaime Cevallos is known as the swing mechanic (it's true he has a website). Cevallos describes...

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Jaime Cevallos is known as the swing mechanic (it's true he has a website). Cevallos describes himself as "a lifelong below average hitter" who worked hard enough to earn the starting shortstop job at Division 1 Mount Saint Mary's University in 1996. However, the results were not there. He hit just .197/.277/.211 and had only one extra base hit. That off-season he decided he would become a hitter or just quite baseball all together. "Instead of listening to what others taught about the swing, which I had always done, I decided to study the mechanics of the swing on my own" he said. "Back then I only had Sports Illustrated pictures of players so I tore them out and studied them. I posed in the positions that I felt through my swing, compared them to the pictures and began to make some changes." The results were clear as Cevallos improved to a .364/.466/.523 hitter with four home runs in 1997, which earned him first team all conference honors and a scholarship. "I took one look at his swing and knew that I was going to help him. Not that it was really bad, I just saw opportunity." After Zobrist's time in the cage was up, the two were introduced and Zobrist agreed to workout with Cevallos. The two would meet up a few days later and begin the process. Zobrist also brought along Drew Sutton, who was a former teammate of Ben's in the Astros Organization and is currently in the Cincinnati Reds system. As part of Cevallos's system, he filmed the players from both angles as both Zobrist and Sutton are switch hitters. From there Cevallos gathered the information needed and went to work. "I took the video home to analyze and we met again a few days later" he said. "I broke down their swing the way I do. They had never seen anything like it. I gave their swings a rating and showed them how they can improve the number." That rating is called CIR or Cevallos Impact Rating. "The swing rating scale measures how consistent and powerful a player is" Cevallos explains. "With the right mechanics, you will increase power and consistency at the same time. They really compliment each other, but the misconception has been that you sacrifice one for the other." Initially, Zobrist scored a 287 on the CIR scale.

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