Hitting Mechanics/ Philosophy

I am not a big fan of a two-part swing. You will not see many if at all, professional hitters with such an approach. The swing should be one continuous movement from start to finish, however, I am a fan of getting ready early and that is the premise behind the approach he is teaching your son. If he separates early, he will be locking in and ready when the ball approaches the hitting zone. That is a good idea, but in the long run, it will cost him power, no doubt. Imagine the pitcher striding to the plate and then pausing before delivering the ball. He could still throw the pitch, but not with 100% power. Same principle. I hope that helps.

Baseball Pros

The launch of the swing must be instantaneous.

The barrel must be whipped.

To create a whip the barrel must undergo a 'sudden change of direction'

To accomplish that the body must separate between the upper and lower halves. One working one direction. The other working the opposite direction. Then the sudden change of direction of the barrel.

A 'sudden change of direction' will NEVER be accomplished by a two part load then swing swing.

Your instructor does not understand separation and how the barrel is released to contact as a result of the "pull" of this separation....all controlled by the hands. The two part swing teaches brute force rotation....it teaches "turn like hell"....it does not accomplish a "mechanical advantage" that is necessary to have the 'stretch and fire' or "launch and spend" launch mechanics.

Pro Examples

The 2 part swing is often taught to the young ones in an attempt to get them to stay back longer. Not only do you lose the power chain, but those that teach this method usually promote dead bat "don't wrap" in the load. If your kid is in high school, you may want to consider another approach. Do you want him to swing like a pro or a 3rd grader?

Doesn't everyone promote "don't wrap"? And does anyone actually promote "dead hands"? Wouldn't dead hands mean no load?

Then again one would have to define "bat wrap". To me "bat wrap" is when the barrel of the bat is behind the head at the beginning of the actual swing, not where it might be before the swing starts.

So what some would call bat wrap others would say, there isn't any when he starts. BTW, there have been a "few" good hitters who loaded forward/down rather than back/up. Some might say they were bat wrappers, but not when it counted.

To me the 2 part swing can be taught as step one to learning the 1 part swing. The 1 part swing is more advanced and involves more timing. Does any advanced hitter use what might be called a 2 part swing? Yet I can see where in certain situations the 1 part swingers will use the 2 part swing, ie. 2 strike count off speed pitches.

Yes? No?

quote:

Originally posted by TripleDad:
The 2 part swing is often taught to the young ones in an attempt to get them to stay back longer. Not only do you lose the power chain, but those that teach this method usually promote dead bat "don't wrap" in the load. If your kid is in high school, you may want to consider another approach. Do you want him to swing like a pro or a 3rd grader?

PG , we are caught up in semantics here. I am positive you and I both know what an improper bat wrap is versus torqueing the bat. To get into the details of that part of the swing requires a thread of its own.

As far as dead hands go, what I call dead hands is the hesitation(stop) in the hands at load and go. I like the hands to load, torque and fire in a singular motion without a pause. Again, dam hard for me to explain. Many times I see excellent core movement/rotation , then a pause in the load/go with the hands, thus killing much of the power generated by the core.

If I keep having trouble communicating or am confusing folks I will stop posting, unless its something simple.

I've been known to be easily confused. Sometimes don't get it with just one post. Please don't stop contributing on my account. It's obvious you have knowledge and a lot to offer here.

Here is where i think most players get lost in that 14-16 age bracket.

The curve balls get a little better. And, the coaches are preaching "keep your hands back" on the curve. So, not knowing what to do, the kids have set their timing in motion for a fastball. They see the curve, but "kill" the hands by stopping them dead. But, they don't teach what to do with them (or, as Chameleon would say, fill the slack). They come to a stop, and can't get them going again, or can't get them going effectively.

Not knowing how to fill the slack whittles down the talent pool.

Getting back to the original poster, I think what he is doing is something that is benefical for offeseason work for the 9 or 10 year old kid who can't stop bailing out. It gets him striding in the right direction, then continue fixing from there. But, I'm talking a couple of sessions until he moves past the original problem.

quote:

Yet I can see where in certain situations the 1 part swingers will use the 2 part swing, ie. 2 strike count off speed pitches.

Yes? No?

No.....Not, if they segment and use "stretch and fire" mechanics properly.......

Segmentation allows a hitter to delay the "go" and still maintain momentum and stretch.....

The running start with the hips allows the stretch to continue longer if you need it to.......

And, the running start with the bat moving rearward delays the "go" so you are not committed to any swing plane until you do "go".........

Sounds good to me! What about when the hitter is fooled with two strikes? I've seen big league hitters hold back (2 part) and spoil a pitch or even hit to opposite field.

I'm not suggesting it would be the primary swing.

Thanks everyone, Bluedog seems to have put this instructors philosophy best,I thinks it is a matter of timing, when he first started this method he had a tendancy to stop his hands, now he loads his hands and bottom half slower and seems to be able to "break off??" his load according to the pitch so his hands never stop once the load starts, do you guys think that the step (bottom half) should be separate from the swing itself? I have seen some D1 coaches preaching the separation of the "step from the swing. Again thanks guys I appreciate the input.

quote:

Sounds good to me! What about when the hitter is fooled with two strikes? I've seen big league hitters hold back (2 part) and spoil a pitch or even hit to opposite field

One of the things I always liked about Sosa was his willingness to adjust his swing on 2 strikes and slap the ball away/oppo if given the opportunity. And sometimes just get ugly long just to stay in the battle. This was when he was with the Cubs. Havnt watched him in a while.

I'm going to post a couple pics of my son then provide some comments to you. He was taught a 2-step swing and I'll give you the details in a minute.

Jon

Sorry the second picture was out of focus. I was learning to use a new camera.

This is my 11 yr old son. As a 9-10 yr old he was kind of a slap hitter, hitting the ball to the right sight most of the time...some line drives, but primarily a singles hitter. As a 10 yr old he had only 4 extra base hits in about 50 games.

Last winter, he started taking some hitting lessons and his instructor took him to a 2-step swing right away to get his swing started earlier. It was a pretty dramatic change. Step...wait...swing. But it really cured him and after 3-4 lessons he was smoking the ball. My concern was that by stepping and stopping everything, he wouldn't get off his back side and couldn't generate any or much momentum into his front side.

The first pic is him "loading", at least that's the term used by his instructor for the first-step phase of the swing. And as you can see in the second picture, he is getting off his back side pretty well.

He just killed the ball this year, as many extra base hits as singles, and became the only kid on our team who could hit the fastest pitchers we saw.

And I think the key going forward is this...over the course of this year, he has gradually shortened the step...wait...swing. There isn't much 'wait' there anymore. He sometimes has trouble timing pitchers the first AB, but gets better after that. So I think he's moving toward a one-step swing and should get there in his own time, and his instructor is trying help him get there.

So though I'm no swing expert, I can only go on my son's results which have been fabulous. He's really fired up because the pitchers still throw from 50 feet next year which will speed them up....and he loves fast pitching now. That will continue to move him even closer to a one-step swing, he won't have to wait on as many pitches next year as last.

I hope that explanation helps if you're considering a 2-step swing to start with.

Jon

Thanks Jon,
My kids coach uses the same terminology and the pictures apply to what he is being taught,he seems to be the same way, just loves the fastball, the faster the better lol.

Thanks everyone for the input

Each of us have muscle fibers that are both fast and slow. Some kids are blessed and born with more fast twich muscle fibers that relate to quickness and speed, and explosiveness. Same holds true for hand-eye coordination. These are gifts.

You see these kids every so often. They are the ones who do things at a very young age that makes you say, "he's a natural". Ask PG, he sees the annual crop, except maybe a few . They are a thing of beauty.

For those not as blessed, don't underestimate the importance of all the physical drills and hand-eye development drills that will need to be applied in the batters box, especially when you get down in the count, and/or get fooled.

At a higher level of baseball, you may get one true hittable pitch in a plate appearance where you can apply the hitting approach you learn to perfection. After that, it becomes more toolsy, for lack of a better term.

When you see a hitter down in the count, say 1-2 drive a low outside pitch into the opposite field gap with authority and power, you can bet that one second in time for the hitter had more variables being generated than a quadratic equation.

Don't underestimate the importance of the physical aspect of hitting. It can turn a bad at bat into a productive one !!

Thanks Slugger, great point, it goes directly to one of my concerns, he does seem very "toolsy" some times, He strikes out only once per per every 28 AB's but the number of times he is up with 2 strikes seems excessive to me, sometimes I think he is not really ready to "hit" until he has 2 strikes. The point where he thinks "screw it" I'm just going to hit it? Does that make sense to you?? It seems he doesn't get aggresive until he should be defensive. Looks at alot of good pitches early in count. Could this be an over training issue, I know it is probably a mental one. Thanks.

Sometimes the 3b coach has a stop sign, sometimes it is creature comfort.

Some kids have focus mechanism'

If that happens under the gun, at least hey have the abilities