Posted by: Teacherman () on Wed Nov 27 11:02:06 2002

> Major Dan,
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> You are sligthly off. It is possible to be decelerating at the point at which you reach maximum batspeed. Obviously, you would not be decelarating up to the point of maximum batspeed or else you would never gain a maximum. My point was if your bat was at maximum bat speed at contact (ie ball contacts) any time afterward the bat would be decelerating and not accelerating through the ball. Although you are right that the ball is on the bat for only a very short time. As for momentum, you are correct momentum is mass times velocity. But we are not necessarily just looking at the momentum of the bat or the ball seperately. We are looking at the conservation of momentum of the system which is not a totally elastic collision (ie. two objects head in opposite directions collide and return in a direction from which they were coming from)
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> I didn't say my theory was correct. I was just trying to provoke some thought. If maximum batspeed is achieved when both arms become fully extended then why aren't most great hitters in that position at contact. There has to be a reason. I know batspeed is a major component to how much power a hitter has but maybe there are other things that must be accounted for.

The reason hitters aren't at full batspeed at contact is the trade off of some batspeed for bat quickness. Most maximum batspeeds are accomplished with long swings that will not allow one to catch up to a good fastball. Quickness is priority and then get the best batspeed you can with the quick swing. It will probably be less than the full extension,long swing, batspeed
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