Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Wed Nov 5 13:06:14 2008

>>> I have a boy playing high school baseball. We are having a hard time getting rid of a loop in his swing, basically the hands drop a bit and alot of times swinging a little up on the ball at impact. He does not do it off the tee, only live hitting. We have tried starting hands high, hands low and going up on the load, still has a tendency to do it. Any good drills anyone has would be appreciated! <<<

Hi Rick & Rql

Your question raises a number of issues. As rql points out, all the best hitter’s bats are on an up-slope at contact. So, what does the term “Looping” refer to? It appears some coach may say a batter has a loop when he is not “swinging down” on the ball. To other coaches, looping may mean the caving in of the batter’s back-side from relying much on the top-hand. Not having concise definitions of batting cues and terms makes it difficult to get a true mental image of the batter’s mechanics.

To me, the mental image I associate with “looping” is the bat-head dropping below the plane of the lead-arm. As rql describes, this is mainly due to lack of lead-shoulder rotation placing a constant and strong pull on the knob-end of the bat. – I will place below video clips that illustrate a clean swing plane and a wave in the plane that results from the top-hand accelerating the bat-head down through the plane.

Sosa – Clean Plane --

Abreu – Clean Plane --

A-Rod’s Slump – Waves in plane --

Jack Mankin