Elements of the perfect swing

It's gotta start with the head, specifically the eyes and the brain.

I don't care what else happens in the swing, if the hitter picks up the pitch, it's rotation and has that instinctive ability to adjust to what his senses tell him is coming (even if he isn't actually "thinking" about what he sees), he ca be a good hitter.

If his reaction time is poor, or his eye-sight isn't good, or he's just out-of-sync, he'll not be a good hitter, regardless of what technique he uses.

A lot of this is just good old-fashioned natural ability.

Although some may feel that foot speed and other intangibles make up the perfect swing, I think PhxDad says it best

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It's gotta start with the head, specifically the eyes and the brain.

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There are so many different strokes by different folks but when all is said and done you have to see it and react in order to hit it.

Well said.Add some trunk and quick hands. Not to start limom goin, but that's also where that "overrated" instinct kicks in.

I tried to model my son swing along the lines of keep it simple, wide stance, soft front foot, quick hands, keep front side closed, etc ..... than I watch Icuiro {spelled badly} swing and realize that it's all dependent upon individual skills/traits/genetics and there is no one recipe for success.

Doesn't hurt to have 20 - 10 vision and lightening quick hands.

Balance and great trunk rotation....

I remember a line from Dave Hudgens' material - and I paraphrase: "Soft/slow feet = fast hands" I think the fast hands is a result, too, of all the other things that have to happened with the weight, tension/turning of the hips, quiet head, etc - If you mess that stuff up, it's hard to have fast hands

"..... what needs to take place for the bat to hit the ball and create a solid hit on a consistent basis."

This......
http://www.youthbaseballcoaching.com/mpg/Bonds02.mpeg

Heard a story from a college hitting coach at a camp. He said that he went to a convention and one of the speakers, with pretty good credentials, went on for quite a while and had a great deal of technical detail. The coach understood what he was saying and generally agreed with all of it. The speaker was asked to wrap up after 40 minutes and didn't want to get off the stage saying he wasn't finished. The next speaker was Tony Gwynn and he said that what they were trying to do with their hitters was get the hitters into a bottom hand palm down, top hand palm up, bat head square to the ball position at contact and he demonstrated what he meant. (Easier to show than to describe.) They asked him all sorts of questions and he just said the same thing.

The hitting coach then told the kids at the camp that he could go over a lot of things with them but the key was to learn how to get to that palm up, palm down position at contact and if they just took that away from the camp they'd be doing well.

Later in the camp during the live hitting he did make some comments on some adjustments that needed to be made in kids swings that went beyond that but in general he kept things pretty simple.

I think the only comment the coach made to my son was that he liked that he wasn't muscling up during his swing. That was understandable since a lot of the other players were trying a bit too hard to go deep to impress the coaches and my son is too young and small to even consider going deep on a full size field so he was just trying to hit line drives.

One simple thing that seems to really help hand speed is simply being relaxed ... my son's batting coach has him do a very, very subtle rocking of his upper body and bat. We're talking a total movement of only an inch or less so it doesn't affect balance, timing, or having to recover the bat into an ideal position before swinging. Just a very gentle rocking. The point is that small movement causes the forearms, wrists, and hands to relax so that when he does commit to his swing, the quick-contraction muscle response is better, and he's less prone to lock his wrists.

Relax the mouth! While running or swinging the bat. Grit your teeth and lock your jaws as hard as you can and look at something... Now open your mouth and look at the same thing. Now you decide how you want to see the ball.

Tight jaws, locked teeth, lead to tightness in the neck and shoulders. Tightness leads to tension and slows the swing. We used to focus on hitters mouths.

Also, when you see someone gritting their teeth and running with locked jaws... You normally have a bad runner who is running much too hard. Try to play, run, hit with the mouth relaxed even if you have to force it open. Some do this with breathing technique.

Note: Some can keep their mouth shut and still be tension free and relaxed.

Look at the big horse races and watch the horses mouth.

Echoing PBone - relaxing the hands is BIG - have to get them to realize that their grip will automatically tighten during the course of the swing, but you have to start relaxed. I his seminal book, "Fundamentals of the Golf Swing", Ben Hogan would describe it this way: "Pretend it is a bird you are holding in your hands, not a golf club [baseball bat]".

PG,
Interesting point. I'm going to keep that in mind next time I watch my not that fast son run a sprint. I think he may tighten up a bit when running.

Relax the mouth ... so that was Micheal Jordan's secret ... and the floppy tongue.