Posted by: Jude (wayout1@columbus.rr.com) on Thu Mar 15 00:29:07 2007

Based on just this one shot angle I have concluded the following: Your son appears to have good torque beween the upper body and the lower body. I state this because in the front rib area just above the hip there appears to be significant rotational stretch. This bodes well for good potential rotational power. However, I can understand why he would have trouble hitting a good fast ball. From the angle that I see his hands seem to be overactive and have gone up level to his back ear. This is, I believe, a bad launch position for a youngster who is having trouble hitting a fast ball. I would strongly suggest that he do as Mankin suggests. Take the bat back with a front shoulder shrug,thus taming the hands, and setting them up even with the back shoulder (or the armpit), where they can be launched from a lower position than from his present position.
You will probably find that his bat becomes more vertical. Right now with his hands even with his back ear his bat has flattened and the tip of the bat is wrapped too much toward the pitcher, making it impossible to have a short compact swing that gets the bat head out front in time. His swing is too long. Short to the ball and long through the ball is a good hitting philosophy to build on.

The bottom line is leave the high hands set up to the pros. Some of the players whose hands never went back above the back shoulder were Mantle, Ruth, and Williams. As in their time, there are still countless others today, including Bonds, who don't take the hands above the back shoulder. From the launch position, even with, or below the back shoulder, a player can use the cue of bringing the back elbow down quick to near the rib cage while flattening the hands quickly. This is the way to get to a low fast ball in time, or any good fast ball for that matter. (By the way, bringing the elbow down in close to the ribs the hands will also come in close - making the swing quicker.)