Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Sun Dec 6 11:27:19 2009

>>> Jack, Thanks for these two clips theyre very helpful. What I noticed in most of the good hitters is the angle of the body at and just after contact, there seems to be a rearward body axis head through lead leg . Whereas the arm hitters are bent forward at the waist and appear disconnected from the lower body.
It has the appearance of the batter being fooled . This angle , is it to do with rear leg L and lead shoulder arm connection pullback? Do your thousands of videos support this or is it minor? This first came to my attention on the previous videos, amateur batter one hits the ball 400 and second 300. Thanks,<<<

Hi Chuck

No, the forward body lean you described is quite common with many young hitters. In fact, I find this contact posture with most hitters whose bat trajectory is angling downward at contact. And, as the video clips you referred to illustrate, it is also quite prevalent with batters that generate little rearward bat acceleration during the initiation phase of the swing. Although most of the best hitters rotate with their axis tilted rearward, it is not an absolute rule. Many good hitters rotate around a more vertical axis.

I find with my students that have poor contact posture, having them practice sound rotational principles will normally guide them into obtaining the correct posture. In other words, I find it more productive to cure what is causing the problem than working of the problem itself. As an example, a batter is less likely to lean forward during initiation while concentrating on accelerating the bat-head rearward.. He is also less likely to lean forward at contact while concentrating on getting his lead-shoulder to be pulling rearward toward the catcher.

Jack Mankin