Posted by: melvin () on Sun Jul 20 22:26:59 2003

Will someone tell me around what percentage of major leaguers are using rotational compared to Linear. I was watching Gary Sheffield and he looks like he is Linear.
> >
> > What year was the rotation theory discovered and why isn't everyone doing this?
> >
> > I've always taught my kid to "dive into the ball" and now goint into rotational.
> >
> i think about a year ago or so i published some stats on this question...the answer is about 90 percent of the power hitters are rotational...i didn't study the linear hitters....
> > Thank You Kindly.

Folks

I think a lot of people are sick of this thread of discussion: "He LOOKS like XYZ or ABC or linear or rotational, etc."

No criticism intended toward the original poster here. Just bringing the trend and the language into question.

Linear and rotational are subjective terms. They are no different than the words "good" and "bad." They are so broad as to be meaningless.

I think most people who have watched a lot of videotape would say Sheffield rotates around a stationary axis once the stride is finished, uses a circular hand path and lots of preliminary bat movement that accelerates the head before a swing decision is made.

We typically call that a rotational swing.

But to be precise, we can't just say, "He looks rotational or linear."

We need concrete, objective information to support any opinions.

It is easy to draw lines on the screen with cursors and so forth and determine if he uses a circular hand path and rotates around a stationary axis.

He does. You can call that linear, rotational, frankenpanzer, mitterwaltish or swadley if you want.

But you also have to call it rotation around a stationary axis, with a circular hand path and bat movement before a swing decision is made.

Melvin