Baseball Swing Guru Making Impact With Major League Players

DALLAS, May 15 /PRNewswire/ -- With the Major League Baseball cracking down on steroids, what will players turn to next? Maybe... Jaime Cevallos. Cevallos ("The Swing Mechanic") believes he has found the secret to the baseball swing and is pioneering an innovative approach to hitting that's improving players at the highest levels of baseball. "The numbers we saw from the Steroid Era will pale in comparison to what's to come in the 'Video Era,'" says Cevallos who works independently with Major League Players to improve their swing mechanics through a method that he calls "Micromechanical Video Analysis" and "Position Training."

Ben Zobrist (Tampa Bay Rays) worked with Cevallos in the winter of 2007/2008 and his improvement has been nothing short of astonishing. In 303 plate appearances before working with Cevallos, Zobrist had 3 home runs and a .259 slugging percentage. In 309 plate appearances since, Zobrist has 17 home runs and .520 slugging percentage. "The numbers before I worked with Jaime compared to after speak for themselves," says Zobrist.

Cevallos also worked with Drew Sutton (Cincinnati Reds) who had a .269 average and 9 home runs in 2007. After working with Cevallos, Sutton hit .317, 20 home runs, earning an All Star Team selection and team MVP honors in 2008. "He has made a huge difference," says Sutton.

Cevallos' passion for swing mechanics came in 1997 when playing Division 1 baseball. Cevallos had reached the height of frustration after finishing his freshman season batting .197 with just one extra base hit. He looked into the mechanics of the baseball swing on his own that summer and returned to hit .364 with four home runs and earned first team all-conference. Cevallos continued to study the swing by volunteering his time to film hitters in the dugout of college and professional teams during games. It would be ten years before Cevallos would teach. Zobrist was one of his first students.

Cevallos has turned hitting into an equation with a very clear formula. "Babe Ruth has the best swing I've ever seen. He scores a 474 on my CIR test," said Cevallos who has created a way to measure swing mechanics by drawing angles on video and plugging the angles into an equation. Cevallos believes he will be instrumental in creating the next .400 hitter and first 80 home run hitter. We shall see. One thing is for sure, the "Video Era" has come.

SOURCE Jaime Cevallos