Posted by: george stanley (saint_george13@yahoo.com) on Sat Apr 26 07:55:49 2008

> If you look at guys like Ken Griffey jr. or david ortiz these torque their upper body back when they seperate i've done the same thing for a while at lower levels i'm now playing varsity baseball as a freshmen and i'm not strong enough yet to torque my upper body how can i shorten my swing up without changing anything to drastic?

hey jason!

to shorten your base will allow you to generate greater lower body torque.. the wider the base the less your ability to actually have any lower body movement.. your feet should be directly under the junction of your arms to you torso. in that position all your weight is DIRECTLY over what generates the initial power.. your feet! from there is the most efficient position to generate initial movement.
simply because most young players have a favorite MLB player they try to emulate, there is a great probability that you have too wide a stance.. MLB hitters are much stronger than you are at this point in your life.. therefore they are able to generate MUCH greater force and thus greater batspeed with just their arms & shoulders.
to adapt that style wherein you have a wide staance & swing with mostly the arms/shoulders works for them just well enought for them to think that is the best way to go.. unfortunately it does not transfer to a young player such as yourself..learn to generate batspeed from the ground up rather than being an arms/shoulder swinger..
also you might be positioning yourself a little too far back in the box, or a little too far off the plate.. this alone will leave you diving at outside pitches, which means you might be dropping your power hand off the bat & diminishing your batspeed. most hitters are not optimally located in relation to the plate. put yourself in a postion to put some good wood on a pitch that is just off the black.

best of luck to you!