I'm not impressed with the Schwanke dude, Doc.
So his philosophy for good hitting is to 1) hammer the hanging curve and 2) get your pitch? Man, Ton Hanks as Jimmy Dugan, said stuff like that. Leo the Lip and, before him, Abner Doubleday, likely did, too. Sure it's true, but it isn't real (cutting edge) teaching. Home Run Baker did that stuff. Bah....Nostrums! (But I do like his philosophy of limiting your swings during any one batting cage session)
He calls a three pitch collegiate AB (ball in the dirt, called strike on the FB and a 2-run homer on a hanging breaking ball) an "amazing AB." Wouldn't any homer on a 1-1 pitch be just as amazing? And he said that taking the FB strike was needed so the batter could time the FB......but his 1-1 homer was on a bendy pitch. Why, pray tell, was timing the FB so "amazing" on that AB?
He uses an Astro win and a Marlin win over Greg Maddux as his definitive case-in-points in defeating an ace by pointing out that they "made"
Maddux throw a lot of pitches in those games. Yet without data about how many pitches in the strike zone that each team acually took, or swings made at pitches out of the zone, it is just as likely that Maddux struggled to find the zone in those games. Maddux gave up 10 hits and 4 walks in the 1st example, for example. That doesn't sound like vintage Bulldog.
And Maddux, in the 78-pitch complete game Schwanke mentioned as why you need to get patient against Maddux, DID NOT get to too many 2-0 or 3-1 counts......or he wouldn't have a 78-pitch CG. Bet'cha he had a huge number of 1st pitch strikes. If Maddux saw 30 batters in that game, he threw 2.6 pitches to each. That isn't very much below the "amazing" AB Schwanke lauds.
Et cetera.
Patience and discipline at the plate are indeed skills to teach and cherish. However, I'm not sure Schwanke's wrtings are anything more than cliche's and cherry-picked accounts.
But then I cherry-picked the above points, didn't I?
But it isn't that he's not making a valid point (ask Jimmy Dugan), it is that he's not making it very well.