Always liked Ken Griffey Jr.'s wiggle. Ichiro is my favorite player (in general) though. Great contact hitter. Not a pumped up power hitter, but love his homers. He can really put his body into his swing.
There was no more intimidating stance than Jim Thome. He'd hold that bat up, showing you where it's gonna go, he'd have the bat held high, a crouched, yet upright stance, looking like Paul Bunyan ready to chop a tree due to his size. When you saw those hands lower and taking that short step and seeing that ball jump off his bat, it was freaking awesome. The best part, he hit 600 clean. Hopefully one day he'll be in Cooperstown along with the rest of the greats. Go Tribe
+bluehorseshoe444 the entire piece is 5 minutes long and covers the entire league since its inception. 90 percent of the shots were less than a second. Sorry you were disappointed.
+bluehorseshoe444 Not to mention the success he had with it. A little less Will Clark and a little more Bagwell would have done it for me. Bagwell's stance is way more memorable.
I will definitely say one of the weirder stances I've seen is Craig Counsell. He is a World Series champion with the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Florida Marlins, he basically just yeeted the bat as high as he could as a batting stance, and that's how he hit for the longest of times until later into his playing career
Robin Ventura has the sweetest mechanics of any swing Ive ever saw. So smooth and elegant, you can essentially hit anything from either his or Pujols' stance.
Baseball Entertainment Pujols has a stance that you can literally hit anything with. Its amazingly smooth and powerful. Theres just something about the stroke of a lefty that looks so buttery smooth though.
it took me forever to figure out why lefties swingscare smootherblooking and i came to this conclusion. Its bc after the wpswing they are already facing where they need to go.....first base. So they just swing and start their home run trot. The exception is sheffield . Sweetest rught handed swing ever
I'm a Bagwell stance guy. Played second base and wasn't a tall guy. Not only does it minimize the strike zone resulting in more walks, you can read a low pitch. Spring into your motion and give that pitch a golf swing ride.
I always used a batting stance like the one that cal ripken jr used in his second mvp season without even knowing it xD. It feels comfortable having the bat lay on your shoulders before you swing
Randy Garcia Jim Leyritz? Not only the funky bat stance but the bat twirl and helmet pat after every swing at a ball not put in play. The closed off stance, leg kick and upper cut swing are mechanics damn near impossible to replicate.
Ken Griffey! Good hitting mechanics. He kept the front shoulder tucked in. It allowed him to keep his hands back.Put all the weight back to generate power
Julio freakin Franco. Cool batting stance. I always thought Hal McRae had an unusual stance with how low he would hold the bat and Carney Lansford was pretty odd as well. My personal favorite will always be George Brett.
I'd always copy Griffey and Franco. If I wanted to have a laugh, I'd do Tettleton's flaccid bat stance. Then finish it all off with a Fred McGriff back swing. The one that amazes me the most is Sheffield's. It's a testament to how strong he was because that whipping action takes a ton of wrist strength.
When I played in high school, I modeled my stance after Tony Phillips. A very odd stance, but I was able to draw a ton of walks from it. Doesn't hurt to be short to do that stance as well.
I bounced from stance to stance, using what was working for me at the time only slightly above who was just mashing at that time. Then, a young rookie from Deland, FL made an adjustment to his stance (from the left side; I swing lefty) midway through the 1995 season that I saw and said, "That looks really cool BUT it might also work." His name was Chipper Jones, and he helped me hit .475 through high school(at a very small school), and .585 my JR year. I had very quick wrists and reflexes and got "pull happy" because of them. The little "toe tap" with my hands starting just above my ear and a slight waive of the bat was the greatest timing mechanism I've ever found. During my SR year, I had a former Major League player and manager give me some private hitting lessons and he swapped my swing completely. 'Twas a bad season. I'm 35 and can still hit 90mph pitches in a cage using the "Chipper Swing". Click, click, BOOM! That's the sound it made in my head.
Brian OSullivan If I remember correctly, Tony used to have a high front leg kick when he was stepping into the ball and he brought his hands down below his waist while striding before bringing them back up to shoulder level?? I might have to watch some old footage but for some reason that's what I see in my head when I think about Tony Phillips.
captain obvious question but i wonder if some of this is meant to psych the pitcher out?? is it a two way thing too with the pitcher pitching awkwardly??
who's the guy who barely grips the bat almost with his fingertips? it almost looks like he's ready to bunt when he's actually doing that all the time? is he a ny met?
Fuckin Bautista had the greatest stance besides billy beans favorite youkilis I used to copy Thome and then swing like a Sosa/ bag well depending how far I wanted to pull the ball
