Editor’s note: I was a solid 500 words into writing this piece when I came across this from CSN Bay Area’s Andrew Baggarly. Encouraging to say the least.

Editor’s note #2: I literally put the final period on this piece when lo and behold, Belt comes through with a walk-off single off D-Backs lefty Tony Sipp. You can’t make this stuff up.

As I’m sure you are aware, I started this little blog for the express purpose of venting about what I felt was the mishandling of Giants first baseman Brandon Belt by his manager and hitting coach. So it is with great disappointment that I must report that I believe Brandon Belt is officially broken.

What do I mean by “broken”? Well, I’m glad you asked, and my explanation starts with a very nice breakdown from the guys over at BayCityBall.com who explain Belt’s early season struggles with off-speed pitches down in the zone. In this piece I hope to expand on the underlying issues that I believe are causing what we’re seeing when Belt is at the plate.

At the core of Belt’s mechanical issues is something that ESPN’s Keith Law picked up on last year and in my view has progressively gotten worse. Namely that Belt’s hips drift forward during his swing, which combined with an overly long stride, causes his weight to get out over his front foot. This has a couple of implications when it comes to the swing itself.

First, when Belt loads his hands, the drifting of his body results in a minor barring of his right arm. Think of the way Brandon Crawford used to swing (and still does a little) and the way Nick Noonan swings right now. Essentially the right arm straightens during the swing which leads to a slower bat, less power and you guessed it, trouble with pitches on the inner half.

Second, as his weight drifts out over his front foot early on in the swing, he loses the ability to “stay back” on off-speed pitches and the result is all of the flailing cuts he’s taken so far this year as opposing pitchers inundate him with change-ups and breaking balls.

What is interesting to me about the mechanical issues is that we were told that the changes made to Belt’s swing once he reached the majors were in response to the problems he had catching up with premium velocity on the inner half. Whether this was actually a problem or an overreaction to Belt’s lack of immediate success in the big leagues is up for debate. What isn’t up for debate is how bad Belt looks at the plate right now, which brings me to my next point.

Beyond the fairly obvious mechanical issues, I see a hitter who has gone out of his way to alter an approach at the plate that quite frankly did not need to be altered. A few numbers to consider (all data via Pitchf/x):

Belt is swinging at a higher percentage of pitches outside of the strike zone than ever before (33.1% compared to 28.4% in 2012)

Belt is seeing less pitches in the strike zone than ever before (39.8% compared to 45.4% in 2012)

Belt is making more contact overall (78.7% compared to 73.8% in 2012), but that is mostly fueled by his increase in contact on pitches out of the zone (62.0% compared to 51.1% in 2012)

Interestingly, I asked Belt about his second half success in 2012 and what he felt was most integral to that success

@AdamDoctolero a little bit of both but mainly approach — Brandon Belt (@bbelt9) March 10, 2013

At the time, the answer was not a huge shock as Belt was in the midst of a red-hot spring that I’m sure was helping to validate his more aggressive, fastball-hunting approach. They say, however, that baseball is a game of adjustments and my how the pitchers in the National League have adjusted to young Mr. Belt.

Once lauded for his discerning eye at the plate, Belt has morphed into yet another in a long line of semi-mindless hackers for which the Giants have become somewhat known for over the years. In my eyes, the recipe for this disaster has been fairly simple.

An altered approach led to poor, overcompensated mechanics. Those mechanics resulted in some success over a very small sample size and gave Belt a false sense of security. Now, as the league has adjusted to the poor approach, the bad mechanics are proving too much to overcome.

Call me stubborn, but I still believe Belt can and will fight through this and become the kind of hitter Giants fans want to see. I just hope he does something soon to restore the faith of his manager and the organization before it’s too late.