Posted by: THG () on Tue Nov 20 18:36:45 2007

> What you're saying sounds good, but the term "rotational" throws me off. If you just rotate you don't stay on the ball very long. You cut across it. You don't "chase" the ball down its intended flight path like a more linear approach does.


PickPlay. I too agree what Mike says sounds good and I am not against rotation which is why I used Robin Yount as my first example. Yount like Jeter can hit the ball out to the opposite field. Jeter also is an example of a hitter who does not have the greatest batspeed but knows how to compete and make adjustments. His abiiltiy to compete is what separates him from other players of greater hitting ability. As such he is one of the few life time .300+ hitters.

Note that Carew, Gwynn, (Boggs) intentionally did not try to hit homeruns. But with adjustments they could have learned to finish their swings. (But that was not their way) Also both men were not of the strong upper body type hitters we so often see today. And most opposite field homeruns are not leaving the park with a lot of room by players of Gwynn and Carews level of strength. Nowadays conditioning/strength training comes before learning good fundamentals. This is why we see so many players who cannot bunt, execute a hit and run, hit a sacrifice fly on demand and run the bases.

Brett was perhaps the best example of the complete hitter in avg, power, clutch skills against great pitching as well as the rest (almost fundamentally perfect as a hitter).

Williams as mentioned did not have to use the oppositefield at all. Why? Because his command of the strikezone and ability was that good and his quickness and overall knowledge of the game put him in a class by himself.

It should be remembered that Williams used a hard push swing and made adjustments in the batters box (explained in his rare films video) to help even the most pull conscious hitter drive the ball to the opposite field. But the key is to look to hit the ball away as opposed to trying to react at the last second as many of todays hitters do.

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PickPlay. Regarless of which method you use, the idea is to stay on the ball in a direct collision course. With rotational the thought is that if the ball is going downward, it would make sense to hit it at an upward angle in an effort to meet. Of course, this is a split (less than a) second decision. So whatever method you find that can work to hit the ball hard and consistently is a good one.

I like Derek Jeter as a hitter, but he actually starts and stops/pushes his bat through the zone while incorporating a wrist snap at the end. Somehow he generates enough batspeed to hit major league fastballs. He slumps against the best fastballs periodically but has reached Yankee Stadiums black seats (437ft to dead center). So it can be argued that he uses no torque in his initiation.