L-O-N-G Stride

quote:

Originally posted by StyleMismatch:
I've got a player (13) who has a very long stride. I've taken video of his swing and watched it in slow motion, other than the long stride his swing is very nice - immediately after foot plant he has good hip rotation, good balance, and so on. He's hitting well in BP also (haven't had a game yet), lots of line drives with decent power.

Any reason to try and 'fix' the stride?

My initial instinct is to say no. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

However, this kid doesn't have a great swing.

He's EXTREMELY arm-y and disconnected and also shows signs of bat drag. I have serious doubts about whether he'll be able to catch up to a good fastball (even if he does just fine against a BP fastball).

I'm having trouble counting frames, but I'd guess that he's in the 10+ frame range, which is about twice as long as is optimal.

It looks like he was taught that power comes from the stride, not the rotation of the hips (his hip rotation is weak). It also looks like he was taught to make the Power V at the point of contact, which is wrong.

IMO, his swing needs to be rebuilt from the ground up, which means that fixing the stride is just one of the things that needs to be dealt with.

I would switch him to a no-stride/short stride swing with more of the focus on getting power from the body.

StyleMismatch,

Based on the video… I think you would be doing this boy a big favor by helping him with his entire swing.

No disrespect, but he does several things that will probably keep him from hitting at an advanced level. Someone is likely to change him anyway at some point. Might as well do it now while he’s still young. IMO

This is where keeping his style rather than improving his mechanics (as we have talked about in other threads) might be a problem. And I’m an individual style advocate for the most part. But the individual style has to at least have a chance!

I agree with evferyone else. Definitely signs of bat drag, it also looks like he drops his hands in a funny manor. He is really struggling to bring the bat through the zone, nothing short or compact about the swing at all. Now is the best time to address these issues.