Posted by: Thorpe Facer (tfacer@yahoo.com) on Tue Oct 30 07:39:03 2001

Everyone,
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> Ooops, I didn't do something right in the first post. Sorry. Here is another one.
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> If I understand correctly, this site is dedicated to educating people about good hitting by using better mechanics. My question is "what are the resluts of good mechanics?"
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> Is batting average an indication of good and poor mechanics? If so, what is the batting average that is the line between good and poor mechanics? Is above 300 an indicator of good mechanics and below 300 an indicator of a problem? 290? 250? Where is it?
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> Or, are homeruns an indicator of good mechanics? If so, how many indicates good mechanics?? What is the number of homeruns that is the difference between good mechanics and poor mechanics?
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> These performance indcators have numbers associated with them. If we are talking about mechanics being the way to better performance what are the numbers that will show good mechanics?
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> F. J.


This is an interesting topic. Results, such as batting average, number of homeruns, etc., can never be the SOLE definition of what is good mechanics. Hitters, no matter how good or bad their mechanics, do not control results. We have all seen hitters put a great swing on a pitch and hit a screaming line drive that a fielder makes a spectacular play on and catches. We have also seen the weak swing where the hitter is badly fooled result in a little flare that falls in for a hit.

Results, such as batting average, are important in the sense that they show trends over long periods of time. If you have good mechanics and hit line drives, eventually many will fall for hits and your batting average will reflect that. Same with weak mechanics: little flares don't drop very often and usually the batter with weak mechanics gets fooled so often he doesn't hit the ball hard.

The danger in using results to determine good or bad mechanics is in not having enough time or, to put it another way, enough at-bats to really know what is going on. The typical youth player may only get 100 at-bats in a season. What if he goes thorugh a few games where he hits the ball hard but doesn't get on base? His batting average, particularly since he won't have that many total at-bats, will drop quite a bit; does he have bad mechanics? Of course not because he's hitting the ball hard but at people.

Unfortunately, we as coaches and/or fathers, often run out in a panic looking for the next great "secret" of hitting instead of letting our players/sons/daughters continue with the mechanics that are actually working well. My own son this past Summer hit several balls 370 feet in games. Of course they went to center field where the fence is 380 instead of down the lines where the fence is 325 so he didn't have any homeruns. Does he have bad mechanics? Of course not, but a focus on results might lead you to think he needs to make changes.

To finally answer your question, "What are the results of good mechanics?", I say the results are seeing the ball well and hitting it hard, consistently.