Posted by: Jack Mankin (Batspeed@aol.com) on Tue May 28 19:40:52 2002

>>> You can't say you can completly change your mechanics on an outside pitch. At least Major leaguers dont. All the happens is that their hand path straightens a bit to enable them to hit the ball to the right side without rolling over. I would not call that linear mechanics <<<

Hi Hitman & grc

You are certainly right, good hitters do not change their basic swing mechanics for pitch location. Jason Giambi is a rotational hitter. He has a chp and applies torque from initation to contact. He certainly does not extend his hands away from the shoulder (linear mechanics) and generate a straighter hand-path. I will give odds that when he hit that 430 foot shot straight-away (bat perpendicular not opposite field), he maintained a circular hand-path and his wrist did not roll.

The prematurely rolling over of the wrist on outside pitches is caused from extending both arms to the “V” position before contact. Full extension of the arms (“V” position) before the bat-head is brought around to contact can happen to batters who do not have a chp and is in a weaker position to apply torque (linear mechanics). In other words – without chp and limited torque, they can’t get the bat around before the wrist roll. --- Good rotational hitters use chp and top-hand-torque that bring the bat perpendicular well before the back-arm fully extends – even on the outer 1/3 of the strike zone. Their arms reach the “V” position(and the wrist roll) well after the ball is on its way . So, as Jason did, they can cream outside pitches to left or right-center.

Jack Mankin