Posted by: tom.guerry (tom.guerry) on Sat Mar 4 09:25:44 2000

Some related info

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> http://www.eteamz.com/blackhawks12/files/bat.PDF

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> It's my theory as to why a little leaning over the plate (shoulder tilt) is a good thing. Although I don't think I would teach falling over to the plate I wouldn't necessarily think it's always bad either.

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> At contact--many good batters have the plane of their shoulders parallel with the plane of the bat. Which means on a low strike the hands are well above the barrel.

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> Pros seem to use the tilt angle rather than the knees to adjust to the height of the pitch and make dynamic adjustments during the load and just before the swing.

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> Current swing thoughts for my son? Make sure you feel a little like you are leaning over (toward) the plate. Make sure your rear elbow tucks into the side at the start of the swing and try to keep there and let body rotation work until the elbow leaves the side near the contact point. I think Jack here shows in his diagrams the player driving his rear elbow in at swing initiation and keeping it near that location well into the swing.

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> Tim



Tim-good to hear from you again.I have been looking closely at clips thanks to Shawn to try to understand better how these hitters adjust for location and timing.It does seem like tilt is the primary way for up/down which fits with the theory that the preferred plane is with the arms perpendicular to the spine.Timing adjusts for the speed of the pitch as well as insideout location.Jack's mechanics have the advantage of initiating the swing as late as possible and keeping the hands back as much as possible.My operating assumptions for looking at video is that the preswing routine is pretty much the same.I think of the major phases as 1-stance,2-preswing,3-launch/initiation.The preswing usually starts with some sort of trigger that begins the stride.The batter has assessed the situation and determined when to initiate the usual preswing depending on what pitch he is looking for or wants to be ready to react to.He may be limiting this to a certain hot zone and timing or he may be in a more reactive anything near the strike zone mode.I think Jack describes the preswing well.There is usually some stride,some weight shift,some inward turn and some loading of the hands up and behind to get them inline with the line of the batter's head/pitcher.Slack comes out of the front arm and the elbow comes up.As the stride foot comes down and/or weight shift back to center begins,the hips start to open.Theoretically the best way to initiate launch is to connect the shoulder rotation to the ongoing hip rotation when the hips are at maximum angular velocity.Some combination of strategy/reaction/experience optimizes how this happens for a given pitch.One interesting observation from looking at clips,especially Manny Ramirez and Edgar Martinez is how the sequencing changes for different locations.Take a look for this and let me know what you think.Unfortunately,you can't control for pitch velocity so this could be completely off base.On the inside pitch/early timing the hips start to open then the back elbow comes down,then the shoulders start to open.On the ouside pitch,the back elbow comes down as hip rotation starts,then the shoulders start.It is as if the timing is somewhwt independent for the upper and lower body.In either case the bottom hand stays back and is pulled forward smoothly by shoulder rotation,while the elbow comes down into the side beginning torque before the shoulder is started.There is also probably the beginning of swing plane adjustment here before the shoulders start.Let me know if this fits the video you have of rotational hitters or what your sequencing/timing ideas are.







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