Posted by: Red Dog (gwils@brdwlaw.com) on Wed Jun 23 10:28:03 2010

You make a good point. Now that I know about rotational mechanics, I see young hitters who naturally drop the bat into the slot and pull the bat around with the front side and a strong front arm. These players are naturals and I can understand if a coach changes these natural mechanics that he would hurt the effeciency and power of the players swing. As I think about my first comments on this subject, I may have been to quick to lump everyone into the same category. With further thought and asking myself, "What would I do now if my son were 10 years old? I came to the conclusion I would teach him rotational mechanics at a very basic level. What I mean by that is that I would teach, balance, hide the hands from the pitcher, keep the front arm solid, start with the back elbow up and drop it to your back side, don't do anything with the hands, stay tight in the front arm pit, once the front foot hits all forward movement stops and finally rotate through contact. I would also really stress hitting the big bag. These concepts would replace the linear drills of: Hands from point A to Point B, throw the hands at the ball, extend arms to the pitcher (form a V), keep your front shoulder in and your head down, and swing level. My son made the transition later (age 13) and it has made a tremendous impact on his hitting. I guess the final decision depends on how athletic the player is and how he swings the bat. If the player is not athletic, you may do more damage trying to change his mechanics than just working with his natural swing.