Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Sun Nov 9 16:03:57 2008

>>> Jack,
I would like to know what you think of Mike epsteins principles in hitting. He does things that are well but to me all of his hitters are robots. They all no stride which is unnessary and have there hands low. At least hes not saying let it get deep. But It looks like to me his hitters tend to lean back to much as oppose to pull with the front shoulder. I'd like to know your thoughts. <<<

Hi Mike

As I mentioned in a post below, I am not up to date regarding Epstein’s latest batting principles. Although a couple of his students I have worked with did have a fairly straight lead-leg at foot plant. Landing on a straightened lead-leg and rotating their back-knee to rotate the hips did result in these batters leaning back more than I would like. I am not sure if this came from Mike’s or some other coaches teaching.

One of the problems I have always had with Epstien’s approach is with his principles of transfer mechanics in general and how he describes the use of the lead-arm in particular. He may have changed in the past couple of years, but when I discussed transfer mechanics with him a few years back, he maintained that the lead-arm should be boxed and then extended approaching contact. This he stated would allow the hands a more direct path to the ball (classic linear teaching). This would also explain why he would not understand the importance of lead-shoulder pull at contact.

I explained to Mike in our meeting that findings from my study showed that extending a bent lead-arm straightened the hand-path (less CHP) and applied less torque than maintaining the bend to contact. I also pointed out that a wider hand-path produced from a straighter lead-arm generates greater bat speed. He appeared genuinely surprised that someone would advocate what he called a “looping “ swing by straightening the lead-arm early. Mike would not accept my contention that a circular hand-path generated greater bat speed. He went on to say that even if the hand-path I described could develop more speed, it would produce such a long swing that it could not work against good pitching.

Recently I have been told that Mike now teaches a circulat hand-path. So I am not sure if Mike still believes the box should straightened toward contact or not? Hopefully we will meet for another discussion of any differences we may have.

Jack Mankin