TAMPA, Fla. — Back in 2015, Kyle Higashioka felt like his offense was going nowhere. The catcher looked at the big leagues to find someone who he could imitate to remodel his swing. The American League MVP that year was a slight infielder who showed incredible power, so Higashioka started taking part of Josh Donaldson’s swing to incorporate into his own.
Now, Donaldson is just four lockers down in the Yankees’ spring training clubhouse and Higashioka is taking advantage of it.
“I realized I couldn’t do the huge leg lift and all that stuff, but the underlying principles were the same. So mechanically speaking, he kind of speaks the same language as me,” the Yankees catcher said Tuesday after hitting his fourth home run in the last three games. “I will talk to him about the approach, it’s like where he really excels. . . There’s not many guys in the game that kind of think about the at-bats in the way that he does and about picking and choosing times to do damage and just everything. He’s just so smart mentally about that.
