How can Deer be a hitting instructor when he has such a low batting average and struck out so many times?
“I answer that a lot,” Deer told Milwaukee sportswriter Drew Olson in a 2006 interview. “I don’t teach the way I hit. I understand how to hit .300. I know what it takes. We tell the guys to be selectively aggressive. We want that to be their approach. We tell them, ‘Be patiently aggressive.’ That’s our motto. What does it mean? If you get a good pitch to hit and you take it, that’s your fault. We don’t ever want to take aggressiveness away. But, we don’t want to swing at bad pitches either. I’ll be the first to admit I don’t want them to hit like I did.”
