CLEARWATER, Fla. — Phillies prospect Darick Hall comes into his fifth season of pro ball with one big goal.
“Good plate discipline,” the 24-year-old slugging first baseman said. “I want to add that to my tool shed.”
Hall isn’t just giving the idea lip service.
He’s giving it eye service.
Literally.
Since reporting to his first major-league spring training camp last month, Hall has been using an eye-training product from a company called Slow The Game Down.
“I think it’s helped me,” Hall said. “It seems my eyes are ahead of schedule. I don’t think I’ve swung at more than two pitches outside the strike zone since I started using it.”
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The eye-training tool that Hall is using isn’t some big, bulky machine tucked off in a corner of the weight room. And it certainly isn’t the lit candle that Shoeless Joe Jackson used to stare at to improve his vision. It’s actually just a rectangular white sticker on the handle of the bat he uses for batting practice. On the sticker are two black dots that look like eyes and some red and black lines that look like bullseye targets.
In the Phillies’ Grapefruit League opener Feb. 22 against the Tigers in Lakeland, Hall entered the game in the sixth inning as a defensive replacement for Rhys Hoskins. In the eighth inning, he smashed an RBI triple to deep center field. In another spring training park in Florida, it probably would have been a homer. Joker Marchand Stadium in Lakeland measures 420 feet to center field and the wind was blowing in that day.
Minor-league prospects like Hall who are in their first big-league camps often don’t get into games until the late innings. While sitting in the dugout, Hall will often grab his practice bat, lock in on the sticker on his bat and do some vision exercises. That’s how he kept his eyes sharp that day in Lakeland. He also has an app on his phone that allows him to do the exercises before bed.
“I can even do them when I’m on the bus because sometimes your eyes get lazy on the bus,” Hall said.
The exercises help with convergence, which is something the eyes naturally do when a hitter tracks a pitched ball, and focus.
“It gets your eyes ready to go,” Hall said. “If you talk to hitters, sometimes you hear them say they’re just not seeing it well. Some days, I think our eyes don’t work as good as other days so this is just a way to get your eyes warmed up in a way.”
Eye-training tools aren’t for everyone. Nick Maton, another young prospect in big-league camp, sits at the locker next to Hall’s in the Phillies’ clubhouse. He looked over at the sticker on Hall’s bat and said he’d tried it but ultimately it wasn’t for him.
Slow The Game Down has a long history in the game and counts Hall of Famer George Brett among the list of players that it has helped.
It can be difficult to quantify exactly how much impact any training device has on a player, but in a game like baseball, and with a skill like hitting, you can bet that a player is going to continue dedicating himself to a training practice if he has success with it. The mental aspect of sports, particularly confidence and the way it is built, is fascinating and real. Sometimes the mind leads the body and if it takes a bullseye-looking sticker on a bat handle to get a player feeling like he’s on top of his game — bring it on.
Hall started using the sticker and the app on the advice of Dan Heefner, his coach at Dallas Baptist University.
“It gets my mind and eyes ready,” Hall said. “Your mind and your eyes are connected.”
Hall, who hails from southeastern Arizona, was selected by the Phillies in the 14th round of the 2016 draft. He has an intriguing baseball background. His grandfather, Bo Hall, played in the Giants system and is in the Arizona Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame. His uncle, Shane Hall, played in the Red Sox organization, and another uncle, Ladd Hall, played at Arizona State and was drafted by Seattle, Montreal and Houston but did not sign.
What makes Darick Hall intriguing is his power bat. He’s 6-foot-4, 248 pounds and swings from the left side. Over the last three seasons in the Phillies system, he’s hit 75 homers. He was the South Atlantic League MVP in 2017 and an Eastern League All-Star last season at Double A Reading. He led the league with 38 doubles and 59 extra-base hits and was second in the league with 20 homers.
Hall will likely get to Triple A this season and will go as far as his bat will take him. To get where he wants to go — the big leagues — he needs to become a better overall hitter and that starts with improved selectivity and plate discipline. He hit just .235 last season and struck out 134 times, but he walked 60 times, nearly double his total from the previous season.
“Elite hitters have great swings, but they also swing at good pitches,” Hall said. “You have to know the strike zone. When you hit in the middle of the order, there are times they won’t pitch to you and you can’t help them by swinging at pitches out of the strike zone.
“I feel like I improved on that last season and now I want to take it a step further. It’s something I’m really dedicated to doing.”
The sticker on his bat is proof of that dedication.
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