Posted by: Mister X () on Wed Apr 23 19:04:38 2003

From what I can see by looking at the player at the top of this page, he does in fact have translational movement. This movement does not mean that the batters weight should necessarily be out over the front leg, but as a batter picks up his front leg his weight automatically goes back. Then as the swing begins, this weight is shifted from the loaded position (back) to through the baseball at the point of contact. The swing involves rotational movement as well as translational movement.
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> I agree with Mr. Mankin in that the force that initiates the rotation of the swing begins in the legs. However, I think it begins with shifting the weight to the back leg, and then getting it shifted forward as you rotate. If one were to simply rotate around a fixed axis with no translational movement, the only way they could generate power would be to shift their weight upwards. I think that this results in the weight never getting through the ball at the point of contact. I guess if you're Barry Bonds or Sammy Sosa you would still be able to hit the ball out of the park, but the average sized high school player would not have consistent success.


Shifting your weight up is a good thing. The pitch comes at downward angle, so shifting your weight up, into the ball at the same angle gives you a lot of power. If you want more info on this check out SetPro. There they talk about the "sit and stand". To put it simply, when the batter loads, there is some sitting movement, and as he swings, he shifts his weight up and stands more (you can see it in Bagwell and even in Bonds some). You made a pretty good observation there.