JAY BRUCE ALWAYS talks about wanting to be the best hitter in baseball (the talent and ability is there)

No, it is not. If the talent and ability were there, he'd have more than a career 113 OPS+ through age 25.

McCoy has a kinda old-school style of writing that I actually find quite refreshing. Lots of good info in there - very old school Peter Gammons-esque. I didn't know McCoy was blogging now.

Along the lines of #1, it's kinda time to stop calling Bruce young. Yes, I know, still only 26 but he's got 2700 PA in the majors. He's not some kid adjusting to a higher level of play, he's not in that "they've adjusted to him now he needs to adjust to them" bucket. I'm not saying "he is what he is" and he's got no chance for improvement but we aren't talking future superstar here.

That said, he is what he is. :-) High K, low BA, very good power. In his "big" year he had a 334 BABIP which is 44 points above his career BABIP. Walking more is probably a more realistic change than "centering the ball more." If he's fouling pitches off to get into strikeout situations then he's probably swinging too often early in the count at pitches he can't mash.

From fangraphs, he swings at 30% of the pitches outside the zone and 50% overall. That looks a little worse than Prince, much worse than Dunn. Austin Jackson just had a big year and part of that was reducing his swing %age on balls outside the zone from about 28% to 24% (and also career low in the zone) although he also upped his contact rate on pitches in the zone. (Warning: I was looking at the "plate discipline" numbers and now see there is also "picth f/x plate discipline" which has a different set of numbers but they tell the same basic story).

So my best guess for how Bruce can improve is to swing less, not swing better. The foul balls might well be the symptom but they're probably the result of swinging at the wrong pitches, not swinging badly.