<
>

Wright, d'Arnaud to visit new hitting coach

NEW YORK -- David Wright plans to visit Kevin Long in Phoenix in early January to work with the new hitting coach, Long indicated Wednesday.

Long, who lives in Arizona, said he also has an upcoming appointment to work in person with Travis d'Arnaud. D'Arnaud will be traveling to Phoenix to work on catching with coach Bob Geren.

"We'll tag-team that and do some hitting as well," Long said.

Long also expects to spend time with Curtis Granderson this offseason, although they have yet to work out the dates.

"The main thing I've seen is his hands are kind of moving more than they did when he was with the Yankees," Long said about Granderson. "So we're going to try to just quiet that down a little bit. They're not really getting into a strong position consistently. So we'll work at that. There's a few little, minor other issues that we'll hit. Curtis, he had some streaks this year where he was really swinging the bat well. We'll just try to maintain a little bit more consistency.

"You know, I think it's tough, too, the first time you come into an organization and you signed a big contract. I think it's a little more difficult than it might seem. In Curtis' case, that probably played into it. I know Brian McCann, as this season progressed over with the Yankees, he got better and better and more comfortable."

Long throwing left-handed should help batters such as Lucas Duda improve against southpaws, the coach added.

"I'll move over a little bit more so that it makes it more difficult to pick up my arm slot," Long said. "... That should help Lucas, getting to face me a number of times. I know Curtis, every time we faced a lefty, and even when we didn't, would take batting practice off me. All of my flips in the cages are left-handed. Obviously the more that you face a lefty, the more comfortable you should become and be."