Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Mon Sep 4 09:54:14 2006

>>> I don't have any video of my swing but I notice that when I do a dry swing I seem to dog-leg the bat. Could it be from not keeping my lead elbow up in the plane of the swing?? How can I work on keeping the lead elbow up?? Are there any drills?? Also, how bad is this?? Does it hinder potential bat speed?? Thank you...<<<

Hi Dave

I would need to study your swing to see what you mean by “dog-leg the bat.” I normally think of a bent lead-arm as appearing dog-legged. If that is what you are referring to, I would point out that many of the best hitters swing with their arm bent while keeping the elbow in the swing-plane as shown at - http://baseball-fever.com/showthread.php?t=41554 (scroll down page).

In order to make consistent contact, the bat-head must remain in the same plane as the hands. Allowing the lead-elbow to drop down out of the swing-plane before contact leads to a host of problems. The lowering of the elbow causes the premature rolling of the wrist. As the wrist start to roll, the bat-head is forced out of the plane the hands and looks more like a sine-wave.

It not possible to make consistent contact with the bat-head waving above and below the path of the hands. – In 1988, I found 23 MBL hitters whose wrists rolled prior to contact. They averaged less than 4 HR per year and their BA was below 230. In 1989, only 4 of the 23 were still in MLB.

Jack Mankin