Posted by: Brian (support@batspeed.com) on Sat May 8 11:23:54 2004

>Doug, I’m not surprised. Your post is simply more of the same. You allegedly played at a high level, but cannot engage in an intelligent discussion about swing mechanics. Regardless of the merits of your story, this is exactly what we observed when we met with two professional batting coaches: Merv Retman and Reggie Smith, who had never analyzed a swing in slow motion or frame-by-frame prior to meeting with Jack.
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> > Since you discount everything taught by BatSpeed.com since Jack did not play pro ball, then describe exactly where the batting mechanics taught on this site differ from the batting mechanics used by Barry Bonds or Sammy Sosa.
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> > You have 50 pages of writings on this site to demonstrate where BatSpeed.com is wrong. You should be forewarned that Jack Mankin repeatedly states that he has not discovered something new in the swing, but is only defining the mechanics used by the great hitters. For once, you'll have to focus on analysis of mechanics instead of regurgitating your weak spiel. Until you can identify specific areas where BatSpeed.com is wrong, there is no point in continuing a discussion with you, as it will be evident that you are merely espousing contrived beliefs.
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> > Notably, I could identify exactly where Brett does not follow Lau's teaching in about two seconds. And who cares what Brett says, look at his videos and analyze his swing. His words are gray, but his frame-by-frame movements are black and white.
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> > Again, describe exactly where the batting mechanics taught on this site differ from the batting mechanics used by Barry Bonds or Sammy Sosa.
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> > Brian
> > BatSpeed.com
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> Brian, You are the one that I am talking about, not the mechanics that your dad teaches. You popped off about Gant, McGwire and Canseco, like they were brutal. I brought up Ruth, Mantle and Mays at the end of their careers and all I get back from you is that you are hot because you did not play the game.Was it mechanics that finished off Mays, Mantle and Ruth, or did they just get old? If you were taught properly, how come you did not succeed? As far as Brett, I taped him for 14 straight years, and am quite familiar with his swing. I told you that I am a fan of Ted Williams, and brought up the fact that the hitters are taking better swings in the big leagues today. Who do you think is working with them as they learn their trade in the minor leagues? Do you think that the coaches are getting better?If you can pick apart Brett's swing in two seconds, I wish you would.
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> Doug

Hi Doug:

You didn't answer my question, so I note that we are not going to swing mechanics. Okay, I can't force you to analyze the mechanics and therein focus on who is actually teaching the correct mechanics.

I will nevertheless address our long standing debate, which I believe is an interesting discussion because it gets to the heart of whether a player who is striving to play ball at a high level will receive better batting advise from watching pre-game shows with the batting coaches, listening to the commentators, attending camps, or paying hundreds of dollars per hour to be taught by a former major leaguer, as compared to listening to what some other coaches like Mankin and Epstein have to offer, or people whom they’ve worked with, such as John Elliot.

With respect to Canseco, McGwire, Gant, and many others, the question is whether their career ended because they lost their mechanics or because age took its toll. None of these hitters career ended because they wanted to stop. Rather, they stopped being able to hit and were forced to quit. I used Canseco, McGwire and Ron Gant because we studied their swings in great detail. Conseco was very still strong, but he was forced into retirement because of a major mechanical flaw. In fact, he was suffering from similar problems that A-Rod had earlier this year, Eric Davis, and Strawberry had. His bat was being initiated incorrectly because he was accelerating it in a vertical direction toward the catcher, instead of a more horizontal arching motion past the catcher. This caused the bat to fly down past the plane of the swing, causing a reverse wrist roll, and resulting in a wavy swing. Conseco had no idea where his bat was going to be at contact from swing to swing because his bat was out of the swing plane. That is why he retired in my opinion.

Ron Gant had a great season (300/30/30) and was considered to be one of the best hitters. He followed that up with another good season. After the season was over we heard an interview with him in which he said that he was going to start a year long weight conditioning and strength training program to be even better the next year. Well, the next year he looked to be in great physical shape, but he hit under 20 homeruns. The reason is probably twofold. He was too tight and because his mechanics had changed. He subsequently modified his mechanics and then had a few more decent years, although he could never hit the outside pitch.

It still seems to be a valid point that you raise regarding age. However, what about players in their prime who went into very bad slumps. This has happened to Bonds, A-Rod, Sosa, McGwire, Griffey, Strawberry and many great hitters. It’s obviously not age or strength. To the contrary, video analysis almost always shows that their swing developed a flaw. We would watch these players go into these week/month/season long slumps – breaking bats across their knee, throwing things in the dugout, taking extra BP, looking to the sky, not knowing what was wrong – when it was a mechanics flaw that neither they nor their professional coach had identified, and they would have to relearn their swing to get out of the slump.

Obviously, the Padres and Dodgers coach could not figure out the problem because they had never watched their players swings in frame-by-frame motion, which was unfortunate that they did not have the knowledge to pass along to their players.

In one interesting story, Jack had been discussing swing mechanics with the Dodgers’ organization in 1992 or 1993, regarding Darryl Strawberry. The Dodgers invited him to their spring training program and he met in the clubhouse with Reggie Smith and the whole batting crew, along with several players standing around. Jack said that he had studied several preseason swings of Raul Mondesi and predicted him to be an up and coming star, which got the coaching staff very interested. The discussion then turned to batting mechanics and the stationary axis. Reggie Smith contended that it was not possible for a player to hit with a stationary axis. Jack put a video in the VHS and played a frame by frame of Bonds hitting a long homerun, clearing showing that the axis was not moving forward during the swing. Reggie Smith still denied that it occurred, so Jack placed a piece of tape down their TV in the middle of Bond’s body and played the swing in frame by frame. The rest of the coaching staff agreed that Bonds used the stationary axis, but Reggie Smith could not believe what he was seeing, as he had not seen frame-by-frame before, and thought that the video must have been altered. He simply relied on what he observed at the batting cages, which as I’ve indicated is usually wrong. Though Reggie was a good player, he was not able to understand and teach the mechanics used by the best hitters because he did not understand what was happening during the swing. Notably, the meeting ended after a heated discussion about the stationary axis with Jack claiming that it was not possible to work with Reggie or his players because Reggie was unwilling to acknowledge obvious mechanics, such as a stationary axis.

If I recall correctly, Strawberry played for several more years, but was never very successful. It’s probably unfortunate for Strawberry that the issue of stationary axis came up during that meeting (although other issues would have arisen) because he had an obvious flaw that could have corrected.

Thus, I cannot help but place some blame of slumps and retirement on the backs of some of these major league coaches because many did not know what they were teaching. This is now changing today, as players/coaches are reviewing swings in frame-by-frame and beginning to understand the swing, but that was not the case for decades.

Brian
BatSpeed.com