Need help with rotational hitting

I always thought extension was a good thing...

i thoguht it was bad.... anyway, this is what i try to do. As I stride I bring my weight back, when my foot lands i bring my wieght forward, and I swing with my shoulders. I try to keep my elbows and hands locked in place and move my whole upper body at the same time and not just use my arms and wrists to hit the ball. Thats hows its suppose to be done right?

I feel like you must be a troll! LOL!

nah man being completely serious, you gotta use exclusively yoor upper body to turn your hands/elbow sockets to the ball

uhmmmm... nope.

 

Hitting is a combination of linear, and rotational.  The linear is the weight shift from back side to front side...then the rotational forces develop from the ground up...hips go first (specifically back hip rotates around a firm stable front leg), then the shoulders go...bat / arms are along for the ride....extension happens after contact.

 

If you are rotating like a revolving door, and not like a hinged swinging gate, then you will be out of control, and fall out of the batter's box.  Keeping hands inside the ball, not casting etc. are non-teaches if you start with the hands / elbow slot in a good position prior to bat launch, and let the natural forces take control.

"Rotational hitting" is a marketing term.  Stop worrying about "rotational" hitting and focus on hitting the ball with the barrel.   Sounds to me like your spinning out.  You need to keep your front hip and front shoulder in to have consistency.    Rotation happens naturally.  Extension also happens naturally.  If you're forcing no extension you're just spinning and cutting off you swing. 

Extension is good.  The old saying is short to the ball and long through it. That last part is the extension.

 

I'm surprised that you describe your style of hitting as rotational. Usually rotational students and teachers talk about starting the swing with the lower half. You sound like you're describing Hunter Pence's swing.

 

If you want a primer in rotational I'd look at Chris O'Leary's site.  (though not too hard cause this is a guy who calls himself a hitting expert but never played past little league).But his flipbooks are a cool way to see swings. Like so:  http://www.chrisoleary.com/doc...ookSwingAnalysis.pdf  Or if you're really serious go to the source and buy a book or video:  http://www.mikeepsteinhitting.com/

 

 

Floridafan -- I agree. There's something very familiar about the way this question is posed. This is not the first time I have felt that there is one teen player who posts under a  new identity every couple of months.

I dont think you need to play a lot of baseball to learn how to hit. But O'Leary is certainly not an expert at hitting baseballs.

Love O'Leary.  You are on the right track there.  Also jack mankin of batspeed.com  Too many baseball people get hung up on if a guy played.  That means next to nothing.  If you needed open heart surgery would you seek out a heart attack victim or would you seek the smartest and best doctor?   All you need to know about hitting can be seen on video.  Do what the best in the world do and you will be fine.  I like what back foot said so I won't just repeat it all.  The only thing I would add to it is that whole I prefer hip and shoulder separation I do not believe it is as critical as it is to pitching.  If your hips and shoulders work in unison I think you can still be fine.  Watch jack mankins pete rose video.  My favorite hitting video.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?li...TmyMPA&v=UAjerCuQbVo

Whatever works for you is fine by me, but your analogy is very flawed.  This is better:  Would you like to have a heart surgeon who went to med school and learned to operate under the supervision of other surgeons or would you prefer to trust your life to a guy who studied a whole lot of film of heart surgery to figure out how he thought it should be done?

 

I do agree that you don't have to have been a high level pitcher or hitter to teach pitching or hitting, but only up to a certain level of play.

Are you kidding me. A marketing manager (ex LL'r) masquerading as an expert. Look a little closer under the covers......

       
       
I suppose any analogy is somewhat flawed.  But your objection to mine presupposes that the player had excellent instruction from the former players.  I will confess to not being a surgeon but I do know doctors do a ton of video training now.  And yes I completely believe in video for baseball and the less learned from the 'former pro guy' the better.  Keep in mind we are talking mechanics here.  If we are talking about what a good slider looks Iike coming to the plate or a major league curve ball then the Chris O'Learys of the world probably have to step aside.  What can I expect when I make that step to the mlb level?  These are the things you need those guys for.  But the actual mechanics?  My experience is these guys don't even have a clue how they actually hit half the time.  They were just really good at it.  Or we could keep listening to the same old garbage about swinging level or worse swinging down to make the ball go up.  We can do the two tee drills until we hit nothing but ground balls.  We can extend our arms to contact, squish the bug, don't overswing, hit the top half of the ball etc. Etc. Etc.  Yes I will take the video thank you very much.

No offense to the former pro ballplayers on here.  I know some study the game and are extremely knowledgable.   If John reads this know that you got 18 of my dollars for your workout pdf.  These are the things I turn to the pro guys for.  How did you get there?  What work did you do?  Strength and fitness, reps in the cage, how much did you throw etc.  Build me a pattern my players and my son can follow.  Next month I will be seeing one of my former players who is now a mlb batting practice pitcher along with other duties.  Former minor leaguer.  He worked incredibly hard to get there.  I will want him to talk to my son about the effort he had to put in to get to that level.  That has value.  So there is a place in our baseball lives for everyone!

       
       
So let me ask you a question.  If a person were born without use of his legs and could never play baseball but still grew up loving the game is it impossible for him/her to analyze the art of hitting and become an expert in the mechanics of hitting?  This is the kind of thing I wish we could stomp out in baseball.  The good ole boys club.  When I pointed out to one coach here the work of Dr. Nathan a noted baseball physicist his reaction was to say "I bet that physicist didn't play baseball"  Really?  Come on as baseball coaches and other interested parties we are better than this aren't we?  And no woman has ever played in the major leagues unless there was some one game gimic or something I am unaware of.  Does this mean no woman ever anywhere could ever be an expert in the mechanics of hitting?  How about this why don't you tell us what about O'Leary's teaching you don't like?

The problem with the internet gurus and video's is that they are only showing you what they want to "prove."  Pete Rose has a "circular" hand path -- so what.  Everybody does.  I have yet to see somewhere in this giant internet universe anything different.  Unless you can somehow dislocate your arm from your shoulder, your hands will be circular.  Even better is the guys who use HR derby swings for analysis. 

 

If you do notice anything from the video it is that it appears Pete's back hip stays back while his shoulders whip the bat thru the zone.   That is contrary to what a lot of "rotational" guys preach.

       
       
Think you need to give it another look.  Hips clearly rotate.  And yes everyone has a circular hand path.  I think that's the point.  There are actually people out there that will try to convince you the hand path 'flattens out' when the barrel reaches the strike zone so as to magically stay in the zone longer.  At the velocity a mlb player swings they would probably break their wrists if they actually tried to do that.  I think on the boards you and I agree more than disagree but we are probably going to have to part ways on this one.  Just out of curiosity though what or who do you follow for hitting instruction?

Jolietboy,

 

I get your point, I did not play past HS but due to being around a lot of quality instructors working with my son I have a pretty good idea on pitching and hitting mechanics, but I don't go around selling myself as an expert, just a dad with an opinion.

 

Golfman hit it on the nail, he has a long history of taking snipits, picture snapshots, single video clips, and making them his gospel. He will jump on the "theory of the week/day/month" He is an expert at marketing and should be viewed this way. I tend to take the advise of the Wolforth's, Kyle Boddy, Perry Husband's, p3sports, etc of the baseball business more seriously since they make their living at this and have a body of work to support them. His body of work is very suspect IMO, which again is just a dad's opinion, which you can take it or leave it. I view him as a charlatan.   JMO. 

       
       
You mention some pitching guys there.  And I will say this.  Pitching is a lot more complicated because it is so individualized.  There really are a lot of ways to skin a cat pitching.  I am open to about anything that works on the mound with some basic must do's.  But hitting I really believe after the personalized stance and stride...  once that front foot hits just about every mlb player is almost identical.  Or at least subtle differences.  Which makes video boss in my opinion.

Me.    Originally, many eons ago, I was taught based on Charlie Lau.  Since the internet, I have seen, read, reviewed, conversed, etc. almost everything.  I question everything and challenge everything.  Then I form my own opinions. 

 

I believe today we are over focused on "rotational" mechanics that kids are being ruined.  I have seen kids who couldn't hit a beach ball transformed once the "got rid of" a rotational focus and instead focused on hands are barreling up the baseball.  They still rotate, but it is quiet and natural. 

 

Now if you look at Pete's video.  At contact, his hip looks like it is pointed at the catcher (as opposed to perpendicular to the plate).  Also his back foot isn't completely turned indicating his hips are not completely thru.  Unfortunately, there is not a lot of video on Rose like the hitters of today.  But I would call that "quiet rotation" and let the 4,256 hits speak.     

 

 

I assume the "HE" is O'Leary. 

Ya ya you betcha....

 

I love the fact that we are into a rotational vs linear debate. We used to have these raging for weeks here, and this all seems to have died down the past couple of years. IMO there is not thing as a purely rotational on linear swing, the great ones are both.