Posted by: cdubs (smokey2247@yahoo.com) on Fri Oct 11 14:55:49 2002

Having been away from batspeed for some time now, I got a real kick reading some of the recent postings. Still a lot of talk about strength vs mechanics...linear vs rotational, and so on. but I'm still wondering when someone is going to address the concept/importance of vision, and more importantly how it applies to making solid, repeatable contact with a bb. Don't take this wrong...I fully subscribe to rotational swing mechanics, THT, circle hand path, forward impact position, and the countless other swing fundamentals important to most hitters. And I also appreciate that swing mechanics the same, the stronger player will hit the ball further more often...than the weaker player.
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> But equally important, and the primary subject of some major league hitting coaches...is vision...the ability to pick the ball up in flight, determine its velocity, and projected location, and then impart a swing that makes contact. Contact may be enough to just stay alive, or maybe to go opposite field, or sac fly someone home, but the point remains simple...you must see the ball in order to hit the ball consistently. In the majors...without it...you'll find yourself back down on the farm wondering if it's time to change jobs.
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> Jeff M
> ...not Henry...not Jeff, but Jeff M!!!
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i wanted to comment on this subject again. i agree with jeffm 100%, and i wanted to add a few more points. i realize that this website is called batspeed.com, not vision.com, so i understand that the importance of vision isn't brought up too often, and maybe it shouldn't be. i think most people who frequent this website are passionate about becoming better hitters. one thing that i think that some of us forget, or at least i do is that not everyone is a baseball star. by this i mean, is that when i study baseball payers, and their swings, i obviously look at bonds, williams, griffey, a-rod, etc, because of their stats and success. but even in the majors, for every bonds and a-rod their is a david eckstein or a luis castillo (players who arent classic, picture perfect hitters). i am fully aware that they are both better than 99% of hitters in the world, but i hope you see my point. in my opinion (this is open to debate) there is probably some softball player, or even some people who post on this website who may have more batspeed that david eckstein for instance, and their may be someone in this world who may even have more bat speed than sosa or sheffield, but cant play in the majors because they cant track the ball well enough to hit 95mph fastballs,or sliders, or changeups. and i'm sure that there are people out there who have the vision to track these pitches, maybe better than bonds or a-rod, but have 60mph batspeed. my point being it is not as simple as one attribute, wheter it be batspeed, or vision, or swing. if it was, there would be a whole lot more barry bonds and ted williams in baseball history. those guys just excelled at all three. just some food for thought. thanks>