Posted by: Melvin () on Tue Aug 10 20:18:08 2004

Hi All

Been following the recent doubts about THT and thinking a lot about it in recent months between posts.

I don't know if I have ever seen one thing generate so much discussion as Jack's THT. It's new and novel and therefore gets a lot of "wow" attention.

It promises the grail and therefore attracts even more attention. It can be hard to coordinate with the ingrained habits, therefore it takes hits from critics.

After a lot of thought, I have come to one conclusion, not that I am an authority or have any credentials, but I have an opinion nonetheless.

The basic movement Jack describes as THT is clear in great hitters - the arcing of the bat that sweeps it around and behind the body as rotation begins around a stationary axis.

Other tenets Jack speaks of - principally that some hitters generate the sweep in a different direction based on pitch location - are less obvious to some people. It may happen. I am just saying it isn't obviously clear to some of us.

What I have found in the past few months from studying video and swinging myself is this: great hitters almost all have a high back elbow and wrap the bat at least a little bit toward the pitcher.

Great hitters also start early - they begin the stride before or just after the high speed extension of the pitcher's elbow.

Almost all of those hitters, at some magical moment in time, do something else. It might be at decision time for an offspeed pitch, it might be just after the stride lands for a heater. But they do it.

What is "it?" The unfolding of the arms that brings distant elbows together and brings a wrapped bat head into the swing plane. An unfolding that brings the high back elbow down to the slot and brings the bat nearly parallel to the ground, with the top arm staying tight to the chest, the hands still behind the body, almost where they where in the stance.

Jack terms it pulling with the fingers of the top hand. Others have claimed it's identical to scap loading. Others, of course, say it's nothing like scap loading.

Point is, contact happens with the elbows close together. Good hitters get the elbows into contact position with the hands behind the body and then rotate. It seems to me that unfolding of the elbows causes an action to occur that Jack describes as THT.

I haven't the physics training to evaluate if torque is happening or not. It does seem, however, that the elbow action has an effect on the bat head that mirrors Jack's definition of THT.

As a rough and not scientific test, I would propose a simple exercise. Mimic the stance and bat position of a great hitter, say Manny Ramirez.

We have two choices. Unfold the elbows as described, or shove the hands forward as they are in the stance. The latter choice is a disaster - front arm breaks down into chicken wing and back elbow sticks out of the rib cage, never getting inside the ball. No one hits like that, at least no one we have ever heard of.

So call it whatever you want. It seems to me that great hitters have this hand/arm action in common, however. That college coaches and scouts don't talk about is immaterial. That Manny Ramirez doesn't talk about is immaterial.

It happens, and it can be learned, it would seem. Take away the pressure of the oncoming pitch and it is a simple gesture - anyone who can skip rope or dribble a basketball with the non-dominant hand can do it.

That leads me to believe that it can be made habit and eventually coordinated with the stride and rotation.

Melvin