Posted by: The Hitting Guru () on Tue Feb 20 10:08:58 2007

> >>> Jack. I thought that was an excellent clip of how the hitter is leading with the knob of the bat. That forces him to take a more direct route to the ball. As such his bat head does not dip significantly under the plane of the incoming pitch. This has the effect of having the hitter stay in line with the pitch better, which in turn leads to better contact. This is the opposite of a hitter who has to loop the bat up in order to hit the same pitch.
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> I also noticed the launch angle at contact 2 feet in front of the plate was in a near optimum point at contact. The launch/projection angle at contact is something the makes alfonso soriano and other top hitters so good as well as effective in hitting homeruns. <<<
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> Hi Guru
>
> You state; “I thought that was an excellent clip of how the hitter is leading with the knob of the bat. That forces him to take a more direct route to the ball.”
>
> We will soon be showing an over-head view of the swing that contradicts your statement. The clip will show that the hands and knob do not “take a more direct route to the ball.” A trace line of the hands (and knob) from overhead view clearly shows they first arc back toward the catcher and then follow a circular path to the contact zone (similar to the Pete Rose clip -- but with THT during initaition).
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> Although an overhead view is best (when available), we find that a front view is much better for judging the arc of the hand-path than the across-the-plate view. From the frontal view we can better see the radius of the batter’s hand-path. It is nearly impossible to judge the arc in the path the hands from the across-the-plate view. This why we use a side-by-side comparison of both views when doing an analysis.
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> Jack Mankin

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Jack. Once again you fail to see my point in its entirety as a result of a bias viewpoint assuming that I am trying to impose a linear spin on the topic. Note my comparison to the loop to the ball which would infer that extra time/distance is needed to bring the bat up to connect with the pitch.

If you would actually take time to read the Mike Schmidt study, you would understand that what he was trying to preach was to take a more direct line to the ball as Jimmy alluded to in "the combined system". My only point of difference with Schmidt is that it appears that on ocassion the top hand cancels out some of the rotational contribution because of a premature wrist roll (Cal Ripken Jr).

As such, you need to open your eyes to what you ar witnessing, as the bat barrel does not dip significantly in the photo and stays on line better. This is a shorter move to the ball. Thus I am correct with MY observation in what I described. For your own benefit, I would suggest you review the clip and my post in their entirety.