Albert Pujols
In the case of the photo
above, the ball is up at the letters, but the head of the bat is below his
hands. Albert Pujols is still tilted over the plate, but less because the
ball is up. While this swing is more level than the one above, it certainly
isn't parallel to the ground. Oh, and this swing is also a home run swing.
The truth is, all of the talk about level swings
notwithstanding, about the only time a major league hitter actually
swings level (e.g. parallel to the ground) is on a pitch up at the top of
the strike zone. Otherwise, the head of the bat is below the level of his
hands.
9/25/2007
The Limits Of
Drills
The other day I
was looking at some tape of a client hitting and noticed that he
was disconnecting like crazy.
Albert Pujols
Rather than making
contact with the ball at the heel of his front foot, as Albert
Pujols is doing in the photo above, he was making
contact way out front of his front foot.
I couldn't figure out why he was doing
this until I looked at a clip of him hitting with his Solo
Hitter. The problem was that when he was setting up to hit with
his Solo Hitter, he was setting up with the ball way out in
front of his front foot. I recommended that when hitting with
his Solo Hitter, he set up with the ball at the heel of his
front foot.
All of this goes to show that drills
are only good if they are designed with the proper swing in
mind. If you don't understand what the Major League Swing looks
like, then you could easily design drills that will make someone's
swing worse, not better.
9/14/2007
Book Review:
The Hitting Edge
There are very few
good books on hitting out there, and lots of terrible ones, so I
like to let people know when I come across a good one. One book
that I like is Tom Robson's "The Hitting Edge". By and
large, this book advocates The Major League Swing. It's worth
checking out and maybe even buying. The only weakness of this
book is that it doesn't have much in the way of drills, so its
value is limited.
9/12/2007
The Major
League Swing
Before I get into
a discussion of specific do's and don'ts, let me first talk for
a minute about terminology. In general, what I am trying to
teach people is The Major League Swing. By that, I mean that
swing that is used by 90 to 95 percent of major league baseball
players.
That 5 to 10 percent gap includes
hitters like Ichiro Suzuki, Vladimir Guerrero, Ryan Howard, and
others who often employ The Major League Swing but who sometimes
use other approaches. However, the thing to keep in mind is that
Ichiro Suzuki, Vladimir Guerrero, and Ryan Howard are all
supremely gifted athletes and can get away with things that
others, including many other major leaguers, cannot. As a
result, I think that young hitters should emulate the swing that
the majority of major league hitters use.
My belief system is generally
compatible with what is known as Rotational Hitting, and stands
in contrast to the system known as Linear Hitting, however the
whole Rotational versus Linear debate can get very confusing and
imprecise. The problem is that some people will label a hitter
Rotational while others will label that same hitter Linear.
While I will on occasion make the case
that what I am teaching is Rotational Hitting and mechanics, and
that I am not a fan of Linear Hitting and mechanics, the reality
is that what I am advocating is The Major League Swing; the
swing that is used by the vast majority of major league hitters.
9/11/2007
Kick-Off
To my surprise, my
article on Rotational
Hitting has quickly become one of the most popular hitting
how-to's on the web (and even more popular than my
pitching mechanics blog). I guess that makes sense, since for every 1 pitcher
there are 9 hitters out there. Given that, I thought it might be
interesting for me to post articles every week or so that lay
out my philosophy with respect to hitting.
