Bat Speed -- Baseball Hitting Forum

Posted by: nativetrout (nativetrout at earthlink dot net) on Mon Jun 12 19:32:15 2006

As a parent (and LL coach) I share your frustration. In my experience I hear age-old (and half-baked) adages on a daily basis and wonder how much natural ability and sense of enjoyment has been ruined by them. There seems to be so much misunderstanding (and meaningless adages) surrounding hitting at the youth league level. My question to you is: why is the coach concerned about this? Is your son late (fouling pitches the other way) in his swing? Is his bat too heavy? From every thing I know about hitting, bat lag is an essential component of creating batspeed. The hips will open first, followed by the upper body and then the hands and lastly, the barrel of the bat. The hips and upper body do NOT fire simultaneously. The bat does NOT move in a linear path to the ball (knob and barrel moving parallel and in unison towards the ball). Also, in my experience, when kids begin to bring their hands forward too soon they lose batspeed dramatically. Nor is this accomplishing a "shortening" of his swing. The old adage "take the knob to the ball" may be a misnomer, but look at any photo (taken from the front)of a pro ball player as his hips open and you will see the knob of the bat, barrel still trailing behind before it whips around. As Mike Epstein says "Do we teach what we really see?" I would add (in the case of many coaches) "Do we really see what we are teaching?" I have seen coaches demonstrate a swing in slow motion that I have never seen pro ball players use (let alone that would be possible to execute). Sounds like your coach needs to take a look at some photos of pro ball players in mid-swing. I print photos I find (mlb.com's "Photostore" is a great resource) and show them to kids to illustrate points I am making (and to show other coaches as well). Here are some illustrating "bat lag":
Bonds: http://photostore.mlb.com/source/Detail.aspx?L1=Giants&L2=12455&imageId=51037076&action=&ss=
Andruw Jones:
http://photostore.mlb.com/source/Detail.aspx?L1=Braves&L2=12170&imageId=51033627&action=&ss=
Soriano:
http://photostore.mlb.com/source/Detail.aspx?L1=Rangers&L2=13041&imageId=3192269&action=&ss=
Bernie Williams:
http://photostore.mlb.com/source/Detail.aspx?L1=Yankees&L2=12193&imageId=51047036&action=&ss=

Good luck!

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> As a parent (and LL coach) I share your frustration. In my experience I hear age-old (and half-baked) adages on a daily basis and wonder how much natural ability and sense of enjoyment has been ruined by them. There seems to be so much misunderstanding (and meaningless adages) surrounding hitting at the youth league level. My question to you is: why is the coach concerned about this? Is your son late (fouling pitches the other way) in his swing? Is his bat too heavy? From every thing I know about hitting, bat lag is an essential component of creating batspeed. The hips will open first, followed by the upper body and then the hands and lastly, the barrel of the bat. The hips and upper body do NOT fire simultaneously. The bat does NOT move in a linear path to the ball (knob and barrel moving parallel and in unison towards the ball). Also, in my experience, when kids begin to bring their hands forward too soon they lose batspeed dramatically. Nor is this accomplishing a "shortening" of his swing. The old adage "take the knob to the ball" may be a misnomer, but look at any photo (taken from the front)of a pro ball player as his hips open and you will see the knob of the bat, barrel still trailing behind before it whips around. As Mike Epstein says "Do we teach what we really see?" I would add (in the case of many coaches) "Do we really see what we are teaching?" I have seen coaches demonstrate a swing in slow motion that I have never seen pro ball players use (let alone that would be possible to execute). Sounds like your coach needs to take a look at some photos of pro ball players in mid-swing. I print photos I find (mlb.com's "Photostore" is a great resource) and show them to kids to illustrate points I am making (and to show other coaches as well). Here are some illustrating "bat lag": 
> Bonds: http://photostore.mlb.com/source/Detail.aspx?L1=Giants&L2=12455&imageId=51037076&action=&ss=
> Andruw Jones:
> http://photostore.mlb.com/source/Detail.aspx?L1=Braves&L2=12170&imageId=51033627&action=&ss=
> Soriano:
> http://photostore.mlb.com/source/Detail.aspx?L1=Rangers&L2=13041&imageId=3192269&action=&ss=
> Bernie Williams:
> http://photostore.mlb.com/source/Detail.aspx?L1=Yankees&L2=12193&imageId=51047036&action=&ss=
> 
> Good luck!

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