Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Tue Jan 17 22:55:38 2006

>>> Help Jack,

Have a senior that spent some time at a hitting center with an instructor that is good IMO. This kid is an athlete. PLus speed, arm, glove. Great CF ...best in league by far.

He cannot execute a rotational swing and you can imagine what all I have tried. He has 75 bats left in his HS career.

I guess you never get this question. Should we give him the top hand back and let him go linear? He hits with a dead front leg and a weak bottom hand pull through. The brain just will not let the lead arm take the swing at any point completely

Help..need seriouis advise <<<

Hi Donny

With only 75 at-bats left it may be best to let him swing with what is most comfortable to him. Even if the drills I suggest does get his lead-side more involved in practice, there is still the issue of timing, rhythm and confidence in his game swing to consider.

A high school player I worked with also had a back-side dominant swing. To get his lead-side more involved, I tightly duck-taped his back elbow to his side and demonstrated how to use the pulling on the knob with the lead-side (BHT) could produce as good or better bat speed with a shorter swing. He looked much improved in BP, but reverted back to his old swing in the first few games. It was a year later before his game swing looked like his BP cuts. – He later played college ball at Fullerton CA.

Note: If you duck-tape a batter, you must have something like a heavy bag to stop the bat at contact.

Donny, another drill I have had success with in getting the lead-side more involved is the “Thumb to the Shoulder” drill. I will place it below for your consideration.

Jack Mankin
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THT & the THUMB Drill

The direction of force the hands apply at the handle to initiate the swing is a key difference between linear and rotational mechanics. With rotational transfer mechanics, the batter does not drive the top-hand forward at the start of the swing. They keep the hands back during initiation and accelerate the bat-head rearward in the swing plane before they direct their energy toward the ball. When the top-hand is pulling back (or just holding back at the shoulder - resistance) during initiation, the lead-arm will remain across the chest, and shoulder rotation will then accelerate the hands into a circular path. When the force of the top-hand is pulling rearward, the rotation of the lead-shoulder (through the lead-arm and hand) pulls the knob around toward third base. This applies torque at the handle that accelerates the bat-head rearward. With this early rearward acceleration, the bat-head can stay in sync with much quicker hip and shoulder rotation.

There are two keys to efficient rotational transfer mechanics. (1) Do not drive the top-hand forward at the start of the swing (2) Make more productive use of the lead-side during the swing. To help a student accomplish these keys, I have my students practice the following drill. -- The “Thumb to the Shoulder” drill works best when practiced with a heavy bag (or tire) before hitting off a tee or soft toss.

I have the student take their normal launch position – with one major change. I have the batter lift the thumb of the top-hand away from the bat and point it toward their back-shoulder. As the batter initiates rotation to start the swing, the thumb should be close to or touching the shoulder. The batter should try to keep the top-hand pulling back so that the thumb remains at the shoulder at the start of rotation. The bat-head is accelerated back toward the catcher by lead-shoulder rotation pulling (through the arm and hand) on the knob-end of the bat. The accelerating trajectory of the bat-head will cause the top-hand to separate from the shoulder as the forearm rotates and lowers toward the horizontal contact position.

Note: The top-hand is pulling back with the finger, not driving forward with the palm. Therefore, lifting the thumb away from the handle presents no problem.

In order for the batter to keep the thumb at the back-shoulder during initiation, he must pull the back-elbow back toward the third base dugout. He is now learning the basics of how to apply Top-Hand-Torque while generating a CHP.

Jack Mankin