Posted by: Teacherman () on Wed Feb 21 06:55:50 2007

Nice effort on the clip.

You draw the line of the pitch. Then you show the arc of the barrel through contact and then claim "see the large hitzone", or something to that effect, that the circular path creates.

With the circular path you have drawn, the hitzone is actually quite small, not large. It's quite small because of the "horizontal swing plane"...the "around the shoulders swing plane"...that you promote. You do want to hit the sweet spot don't you?

With what you've drawn, the sweet spot lines up with the ball twice. The point early in the arc (if the hitter was late) and the point later in the arc (if the hitter was early). For John to hit that pitch, with that swing, at all the possible spots that you claim exist, besides the two mentioned above, he will make linear hand/arm adjustments. They are absolutely required to line up the sweet spot.

By your theory, it's ok for the hitter to hit the ball on the handle, slightly up from the handle, the sweet spot, toward the end, and the end. And all points between.

There is most definitely linear components to the swing. A purely rotational swing does not allow the adjustability a hitter needs to align the barrel with the ball, given the time crunch he is under.

Finally, the swing plane of MLB hitters is not mostly horizontal as demonstrated here. It is diagonal. The diagonal plane allows high adjustability for both in/out adjustment and up/down adjustments.

Up/down adjustments with the mostly horizontal swing plane you promote are very limited....limited to the point no high level hitter swings that way.