Posted by: StevenV (steven@ars-inc.com) on Sat Aug 5 18:41:43 2006

> Jack,
>
> I have been visiting your site for about two months now and trying to improve my ability to instruct young children to hit a baseball properly. I have visited many sites and read the pros and cons of the linear vs. rotational swing and as an engineer I can understand the reasoning behind your theories.
>
> Equipped with my new view of the baseball swing and its scientific expalanations, I set out to study the swings of my 9-10 year olds. For the most part, it is difficult to see whether or not they are using the rotational techniques that you discuss as there are many other obvious flaws in their swings starting with stances.
>
> Anyhow, there are two kids that seem to have the types of swings of which you speak (and it must come naturally as I don't see anyone teaching it to them). When these two swing the bat, people continually make comments about how great their swings are.
>
> Here is the problem. Although their swings look identical from the sidelines, one of the kids is continually driving the ball with power that well exceeds what you would expect form his size. He is a right-handed batter and he drives the ball hard ot all fields. Almost all of his ABs result in a well hit line drive.
>
> The other kid, who happens to be a left-handed hitter, seems to have the more refined swing when looked at in full speed, but he is plagued by ground outs to first base or second base, or even worse, this weakly hit grounder or pop-up to the third baseman or a weak foul down the third base line. This is not the result of taking an outside pitch to the opposite field. This often happens on a pitch that is right donw the middle that he should be driving to right field.
>
> I have asked him to do a slow motion of his swing to see if I could break down where he is falling apart. I see absolutely no flaws in his launch as he is taking his stride and pulling his hands in opposite directions to create torque. What happens next when he takes his swing path is a little subtle but may be the source of his problem. He seems to take his hands down really low and close to his body, almost as if he is swinging a golf club (although it does not look like this when he swings at full speed). His lead arm becomes fully extended and he is not taking full advantage of his top hand torque.
>
> I think that on the balls that are grounded to the right side of the infield these are low and or inside pitches that are in line with the swing path. He is just not able to put a lot of power into it due to his lack of a circular hand path. The weak grouders and popups to third are pithces that are outside or even over the middle that he is not able to get the good part of the bat on.
>
> Do you have any suggestions that I can use to hel this kid with his mecahnics. He is a big, strong kid and once he gets this down, I feel that his power will be absolutely astonishing. Also, any drills that you can recommend would be greatly appreciated.

Hi,

I coach generally the same age group and I am an ME so we have some things in common.

One thing that I have noticed, especially at this age -- kids trying to learn this rotational swing mechanics tend to straighten the lead arm as you describe (which isn't that bad), but when they do so they get disconnected from the rotational forces of their torso. When this happens they have to try to sweep the bat in an effort to get to the ball = bad struck ball with no pop. Everything else looks good and it would appear just a timing issue, but there is more there than meets the eye.

If the arm straightens early, you may try to soft toss, throwing mainly inside pitches and have him concentrate on keeping some flex in the arm. Locking the lead arm and getting disconnected is a very hard swing habit to break, but this tends to help my kids.

It's all circular hand path, but some kids (and adults) have a hard time keeping all body parts in sync when the lead arms casts to a fully extended position early. Many (Bagwell, et. al.) are able to swing this way, but it takes a little more in my opinion to keep in sync with the shoulders / hips.

For whatever its worth!

Steven