Posted by: The Hitting Guru (hitman3527@aol.com) on Fri Apr 7 15:40:28 2006

> Hello All,
>
> I am new to this board, but I have been reading some of the strings. I loved the Final Arc 2 by the way. With all the talk about great hitters and rotational vs. linear, I was wondering, Albert Pujols, Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez are one of the best hitters around to all fields, for power and for average, can we see some clips on them to analyze whether its rotational or linear. Along with Barry Bonds who is in a class by himself, (Steriods or not) These guys are the best hitters in the game for the last 5-10 years. I think we need to see their swings before we can say whether rotational is more productive or effective than linear.


Beyond their swings, it is interesting to note that each of these hitters is (1) exceptionally stong, (2) applies most if not all of the Charlie Lau absolutes (3) uses the entire field as you mentioned in your above post.

The rotational concept popularized by Babe Ruth, who changed the way the game was played was not an opposite field concept. Rotational in its purest sense is a pull concept. Ted Williams was a pull hitter. He defied hitting the ball to the opposite field. Never has it been shown that Williams was willing to for go his strength in order to use the opposite field. Rotational works BEST for the physically strong athlete. Ted Williams illustrated this belief specifically in the Science of Hitting. Mike Schmidt also makes reference to this belief in his book the Mike Schmidt Study. With this being said, it is no wonder that Bonds, Sosa, McGwire, and Palmeiro turned to steroids in conjunction with rotational. This is not to say that rotational is not effective, but one had better put his time in at the gym and be a student of the pitcher's tendencies. There was only one Ted Williams who was hitting bombs at 170 lbs.