Posted by: BMill (brumil2@hotmail.com) on Fri Mar 25 14:22:05 2005

> >>> I am not sure what softball at the higher levels you have been watching, but the majority of fastptich hitter (especially) at the travel ball level, hit rotationally. That is the hitting style endorsed by the ASA and that is the hitting style that is "most prominent." I have been a college coach for over 12 years and just recently switched my teams to a more "linear approach." We have more homeruns and more hits the other way, then when we were teaching rotational. I think coaches get sucked into the roational style because they beleive it's faster, which it may be, but you trade speed for creatinga team of pull hitters. At the highest levels of softball, if all your team can do is pull the ball, you will not be very effective. <<<
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> Hi Anne
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> Welcome to the site. – A large number of the girls I have worked with (mostly through frame-by-frame video analysis) have graduated high school and gone on to receive Division I and II College Scholarships. Their reports back to me do not support your contention that most fastpitch college coaches teach rotational mechanics. In fact, almost every girl, and their parents as well, are very upset that their college coaches want (or demand) them to change the mechanics that got them there to linear batting principles.
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> Anne, I suspect the problem is that you have a different concept of rotational mechanics than we teach at this site. This site does not make a distinction between linear and rotational mechanics based on the length of stride or the amount of forward weight shift during the swing. All good hitters, no-stride or long stride, rotate around a stationary axis.
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> The main distinction we make between linear and rotational transfer mechanics is based on the hand-path produced and the forces applied at the handle of the bat. This means the two mechanics have very different visions of how the bat-head is accelerated to contact.
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> To make a long story as short as possible, linear mechanics use the arms to extend the hands and knob away from the back-shoulder during initiation. The rotational transfer mechanics we teach keep the hands (and knob) back close to the shoulder during initiation and rotates the bat-head into the swing plane (first back toward the catcher). Therefore Anne, coaches that say they teach rotational mechanics is of little value unless they define the principles of the mechanic.
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> Note: Rotational transfer mechanics does not necessarily equate to “pulling the ball.” We teach the batter to practice hitting the ball straightaway. If they are a little early with the swing, the ball is pulled – a little late, the ball is hit to the opposite field. In either case, rotational transfer mechanics can generate enough bat speed to hit the ball hard.
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> Jack Mankin

In my experience most travel ball and college coaches teach throw the hands or knob at the ball and swing down. I have come to the conclusion that the reason this works for some is that for what ever reason, natural ability or whatever is that they fully open their shoulders before throwing the knob. These are the better hitters. For the majority of girls though they concentrate on throwing the hands and do not open their shoulders all the way early enough resulting in weak ground balls if they hit it. My daughter just started college ball and still is fighting not opening up all the way and keeping hands back. (I changed her over to rotational only about a year and a half ago). I think the ones that say their hitters are hitting better linear are because the girls are really incorporating mostly rotational mechanics first.
When my daughter does the rotational mechanics right most of the balls are line drives up the middle or to the right (probably because she hasn't learned how to get that last little hook of the bat).