Rotational Hitting 101
As a kid, I loved the game of baseball, but I was never a great player.
While some of my problems were admittedly due to my not wanting to wear my glasses,
many of my problems were due to poor instruction.
I was never taught to do
what the greatest hitters in the world actually do.
Now that I have kids of my own, I have resolved to teach them
better than I was taught. As part of that effort, I have spent
years researching the various approaches to teaching
hitting.
I
put this document together to serve as an introduction to, and
overview of,
Rotational Hitting, an increasingly popular approach to
describing, explaining, and teaching the
High-Level Swing.
The Three Approaches to Hitting
I have found that there are three major approaches
to teaching the swing...
In my experience, Linear Hitting and Extension
Hitting are what most people are taught -- Extension Hitting
is what I was taught -- and the high-level swing is what
most good hitters actually do.
Linear Hitting isn't just a
made-up term. Instead, it's a widely-taught, but in my experience problematic, approach to
teaching hitting. I discuss the differences between Rotational Hitting
and Linear Hitting in greater depth in...
...and discuss the logical foundation of Linear
Hitting in...
...but let me touch upon those ideas and differences briefly.
While many people disagree about exactly what Linear Hitting
is, when I think of Linear Hitting, I think of an approach to
hitting that is focused on being short to the ball and getting power from the arms, hands,
and wrists. Some telltales of Linear Hitting are the
use of cues like...
- A straight line is the shortest distance between
two points.
- A to C hand path.
- Throw your hands at the ball.
The clip below is a good example of what proponents of Linear
Hitting want their students to do. Notice how the batter pushes his hands to the ball in a linear
fashion and then pops his wrists through the POC.
Hands To The Ball
The biggest problem I have with Linear Hitting is that
while Linear Hitting sometimes works at the lower
levels of youth baseball and softball, it
doesn't scale. In general, Linear Hitting only works until maybe 4th
or 5th
grade or so, at which point infielders can make most routine
plays. Yes, it worked to a degree in the big leagues in the 70s
and 80s when infields were covered with slick Astroturf
surfaces, but it does not work on contemporary grass or dirt
infields. That is why no more than a few current major league
baseball players (e.g. Ichiro Suzuki and Derek Jeter) swing in a way that even
resembles what Linear Hitting instructors advocate.
I do not believe in teaching kids a swing that they
will have to abandon at some point as they get older, and that is why
I am not a fan of Linear Hitting.
The defining cue of the philosophy of
Extension Hitting, which is a big favorite of baseball television
color commentators, is that you should extend and make
the "Power V" at the Point
Of Contact. That's what I was taught,
and that is the cue that ruined
my swing. This school of thought grew out of the words and
pictures in Charley Lau Sr.'s book
The Art of Hitting .300.
George Brett Demonstrating Extension and
the Power V at
the Point Of Contact
Scattered throughout Charley Lau Sr.'s book are a number of
pictures, like the one above, of George Brett demonstrating
extension and the Power V at the point of contact. While some
argue that Charley Lau Sr. didn't actually intend for people to
look like this at the POC, the words on page 93 of his his book say otherwise...
At the moment of contact, the bat should
be straight out in front of you, your arms should be
fully extended...
This is one reason why so many television color
commentators harp on the concept of extension. The problem is that this isn't what most major league
hitters, including
George Brett, actually look like at the POC in their
best swings.
Rotational Hitting is an approach to teaching hitting that was first
described by Ted Williams in his book
The Science of Hitting. Rotational Hitting involves learning how to power the swing with the
entire body -- and in particular the large muscles of the hips and
the core -- rather than just the arms, wrists, and hands. While
Rotational Hitting will sometimes result in
increased numbers of home runs, in general the idea is to try to hit the ball hard.
That is because
a hard-hit ball -- even if it
is hit on the ground -- is harder to make a play on because it's
moving faster.
Mike Epstein is the person who is most closely associated with
Rotational Hitting and is the person who popularized the term.
As a result, when you talk about Rotational Hitting with people, in many cases
what is going to come to mind is how Mike Epstein teaches hitting.
Similarly,
when people like Dave Hudgens describe the problem with
Rotational Hitting and when people question me about
Rotational Hitting in my
Rotational
Hitting FAQ, they are generally reacting to, and
criticizing, how Mike Epstein teaches Rotational Hitting.
The problem is that, while Mike Epstein's approach to teaching
hitting is a vast improvement over Linear Hitting and Extension
Hitting, as many people have pointed out there are some
significant differences between what Mike Epstein teaches and what
the best hitters actually do.
Rotational Hitting 2.0
Over the past few years a number of people, generally
parents who wanted the best for their kids and who saw that
there was a difference between...
- What their kids were being taught by Mike Epstein and his instructors.
- What the best baseball and fast-pitch softball hitters actually do.
...triggered a re-thinking of hitting
instruction in general and of Rotational Hitting in particular. The
goal is to bring Rotational Hitting back to its roots; to what
Ted Williams talked about in his book, to how Ted Williams actually
swung the bat, and to what other great hitters actually do.
Albert Pujols' Home Run Swing
This in turn has led to a renewed focus on what is called the
High-Level Swing,
which is the swing that you see in the best baseball and
fast-pitch softball players. This effort is facilitated by
the proliferation of high-quality, high-speed HD and super
slow motion video.
For More Information
I describe the High-Level Swing in greater detail in my...
...and in my other
articles about hitting.
Rotational Hitting DVD
All of the pieces above are just a few examples of the
types and quality of information that is available on, or to
people who purchase, my
Rotational Hitting 101 DVD. With your purchase
of my DVD, you will also get access to
my
private client
site.
Access to Private Client Site
 Additional
free information about Rotational
Hitting is available through
my
private client site. To access this additional
free information, and to see how much, and what kinds, of information is available
to my clients, all you have to do is
register.
Professional baseball Experience
My highest-level client is
Andres
Torres of the San Francisco Giants. Using the concepts that I
discuss in my
Flipbook Analysis of Albert Pujols' Swing, my
Rotational Hitting 101 DVD and on
my client-only web site, we
worked together to revamp his swing and get him to the point where
he could be successful at the major league level.
Of course, Andres Torres isn't the only professional baseball player that I have
worked with. At last count, I have one other client in the major
leagues, three clients at AAA, one client at AA, several more
clients in the lower levels of the affiliated minor leagues, and
three clients playing for independent minor league teams and
trying to get back on the road to the major leagues. I have also
worked with a number of D-1 college baseball and fast pitch
softball players.
I don't give out the names of these players because I don't
want to get them in trouble with their coaches. While they, and I,
believe in what I teach, most of the time it contradicts what
their coaches are saying, so they have to keep it to themselves
and we have to work on the down low. If you are a minor leaguer
and are looking for help,
e-mail me and we can talk about how you can get access to my
client-only web site.
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