Posted by: tom.guerry (tom.guerry@kp.org) on Thu Nov 21 08:41:46 2002

If you look at major league hitters, most of them do not get to full
> > extension until after contact. You will find that the back elbow is tucked and L is made between the upper and lower arm. The lead arm is
> > is somewhat extended but this is a function of pitch location. The further outside the pitch is the more the lead arm is extended, and the further inside the pitch the more the lead arm is bent. You will also notice the the hands are in the palm up and palm down position. I will admit full extension does occur with all the great hitters but not until after contact.
> >
> > If you look at still photos of Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Luis Gonzalez, Moises Alou, Vladimir Guerrero, and others, you will see at contact they are not at full extension.
> >
> > I wish I could post some picutres to show you proof. If you look at Jack's analysis of Sammy you will see he is pretty much dead on in describing what happens at contact.
>
> Coach, you are right, but to Tom, RQL & others who have visited Setpro in the past, why would Paul Nyman make such an argument?

When Paul says something,you can almost always take it to the bank.If it seems wrong to you,then most likely you have either taken it out of context or you have just not thought deeply enough about things.

My recollection is that Paul's experience of carefully measuring batspeed on at least hundreds of thousands of swings is that maximum batspeed requires a longer swing radius which gives more extension at contact.However,it is more important to have the right blend of batspeed and less extension to optimize being "quick to the ball" with less chance of decelerating before contact.The best swing is a compromise of length of swing and batspeed maximum.