Posted by: jeremy (nativetrout at earthlink dot net) on Thu Feb 16 00:38:21 2006

Hi. My 1st post (though have followed the discussion sporadically for 3-4 years).

Interesting link. It would seem Hudgens has a different (and not very well defined) interpretation of "rotational" hitting. Hard to believe he was Giambi's hitting coach.

For instance he says "However hitters who are rotationally dominate, will generally have a longer swing, pull off the ball more and be more inconsistent - therefore they will have more holes in their swing."

I would guess rotational hitters in fact have a SHORTER swing, measured linearly from home plate to the mound and, more importantly, a swing that takes less time to reach the ball once initiated.

Worse, he then goes on:

"If any of you have Ted William’s book, The Science of Hitting, turn to the very last page and you will see a perfect swing. However, look closely. Ted has gone to the center position, with his back heel in the air, and his toe - NOT the ball of his foot - on the ground. This clearly shows you the weight has transferred to the center position therefore, it is not a pure rotational swing. (WHAT???) A pure rotational swing that would involve no weight transfer, would consist of the weight spinning on the ball of the back foot. It is clear cut, he is definitely not spinning."

How does the fact that his TOE IS ON THE GROUND (as opposed to his heel --"squashing the bug") in any way imply that his swing is not rotational. Rotaion occurs around an axis. The axis may be a leg, or it may be invisible, centered through the torso and between one's legs, no?. Every photo I have seen of Gary Sheffield (arguably having the greatest batspeed today), for instance, shows not only that is heel is NOT on the ground, but in fact his toe has come OFF the ground at or before contact. His whole body is violently rotating around an angled axis. In fact, I can't think of a major league hitter whose heel IS on the ground at or slightly before contact (based on still shots I have seen).

It leads me to suspect that many instructors (including Dave Hudgens, former Oakland A's hitting coach) preach a gospel which they have not thought very deeply about. Which also explains why a coach on my son's majors LL team today preached the importance of a strong follow through in hitting (I couldn't bring myself to explain that follow through makes little difference in and of itself since the ball has already left the bat --not in front of 12 ten to twelve year olds).