Posted by: Teacherman () on Sun Apr 20 19:39:13 2003

>>> IMHO every hitter has a circular hand path. Everyone rotates therefore everyones hand path turns circular at some point. I believe the tightness of the circular hand path is the issue. If your hands go straight to the ball they eventually turn circular as you rotate. But the path is not very tight. If your hands never go straight to the ball they turn circular immediately. This latter example is a much tighter hand path and allows much more quickness.
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> IMHO ARod is very linear and relies on his athletic gift to accomplish what he does. Less athletes cannot do what ARod does. And, it is my opinion, that ARod would have Bonds like numbers if he was rotational. <<<
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> Hi Teacherman
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> You are probably right in saying “everyones hand path turns circular at some point.” But “If your hands go straight to the ball they eventually turn circular as you rotate,” would mean that when they do start to go circular, they would be arcing away from the ball’s path toward third-base. The more arc in the hand-path, the less likely they can reach the outside pitch. Also, starting with a linear hand-path they would be generating less bat speed to really hit the outside pitch hard.
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> I do not see A-Rod’s swing as you and others describe it. Every frontal view of his swing I have seen show that his hands completely disappear behind his shoulder just before full initiation. When they reappear at shoulder rotation, the hand-path has already gone circular. This means his hands are first directed perpendicular to the ball’s path and not parallel with it.
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> Jack Mankin

Jack

Great discussion.

Just because the pitcher can't see ARod's hands doesn't mean they have to go circular. The contact point is still in a straight line path from where his hands are.

I agree that most, if not all, rotationalists hide their hands and have a circular hand path. I do not agree that Arod is completely rotational. Yes his hands are hidden but they can still go straight to the ball at the contact point, which I believe they do. And, Arod has a lot of hip slide in many of his swings, another linear trait. And, his hitting coach is/was? Charlie Lau.

I believe at best he's a combination of linear and rotational with heavy linear traits.
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