Posted by: Major Dan (markj89@charter.net) on Fri Feb 16 11:59:54 2001

After rereading Paul's latest posts, I'd like to remind myself and anyone listening about the point of the experiment.
The point is to see if any factor beyond batspeed has any effect on ball exit velocity. The one and two handed swings were intended to show different means of creating a batspeed to see if any other factors are involved in exit velocity.

We have discussed in other threads about how the batspeed was generated, how good the swing is, etc. However these points do not directly affect the numbers. Those numbers say that bat speed and ball exit speed are in direct relationship to each other.
Actually I am not surprised by that. Newton's laws say that the momentum (mass * velocity) of the two colliding objects determines the result of the collision (I paraphrase loosely).
There are two variables in the experiment that could be varied and would then shed more light on what we know so far.
- Vary the ball velocity with speeds > 0, perhaps pitched balls with 10MPH increment increases in speed. This would change the momentum ratios of the bat and ball. I'd like to know if this affects exit velocity of the ball.
- vary the firmness of the grip on the bat. The study that Paul cites in his 2/15 post used a bat swinging machine. The bat is held tightly in the vise. If this 'grip' were subject to an element of looseness (perhaps foam rappings of the handle with different densities), the collision would be dampened, probably affecting exit velocity.

Altering these two variables in a controlled way would show if there is an effect on ball exit velocity due to the speed of the ball, and what effect the batter's connection to the bat (grip, hand torque, etc.) has to ball exit velocity.

I think without these, we are left with a less than complete picture. But we already know an important piece of information even at this point - bat speed and ball exit velocity are directly related.

Question for Paul - if bottom hand torque or top hand torque or an aggresive step toward the pitcher or pulling the knob forward or any other method increased or decreases batspeed prior to bat-ball contact, wouldn't the ball exit at a speed that is related to the bat's speed?
I don't see how the experiment says anything about any particular technique, just the batspeed the swing generates.