@spookinoff baseball players dont go for uppercut swings because if u just miss it it will result in a flyout, where as if you dont quite get it on a downward swing you can get line drives or ground balls that find holes
one thing they fail to mention is how much further back Nomar's upper body is on the home run cut, showing that he is trying to increase his bat speed with his chest and shoulder muscles, where his contact swing is mostly powered by his hips and legs. This supports their claim that more bat speed results in more distance.
@impactbat there are a lot of hitters that say participating in the home run derby tend to mess up their swings which leads to a decline of home runs they hit during the second half of the season. i like jose bautista and i want him to match or even exceed the amount of home runs he hit last year.
@hydrolix92 - He has an awesome swing. His secret to his success has been starting his swing a little earlier and guessing right. He is a rotational hitter.
Obviously, its because the averages in the home-run derby have home-runs by the best power hitters in baseball, and the average in regular games is from every hitter.
actually he is a hybrid of a linear and rotational hitter. . . if you look at his swing in slow mo or even normal speed you can see he moves way forward, has his back foot off the ground, but also rotates which makes both a linear and rotational hitter unlike Ichiro who is completely linear
You forgot one thing, just like playing defense, you have to predict how the trajectory of the pitch will go right at the moment of release. Most hitters these days don't pay attention to that at all and it leaves them swinging at air or reaching for low and away
What do you think is happening on a 2-0 count? That hitter knows that a pitcher throws a fastball 80% of the time. So he guesses fastball. Please learn about the game before you make yourself look like a fool in front of the world.
Great video...I hope everyone takes a look at how it (hitting) really happens at the professional level. All levels of player could hit like this if they simply learned the 3 fundamental moves of the rotational swing, hips lead the hands, match the plane of your swing to the plane of the pitch, and stay inside the ball.
Contact and bat speed are definitely important, but what they didn't cover or explain, Launch Angle. Although ball exit speed wasn't covered, launch angle is more important. As far as which is more important, bat speed or launch angle? No science behind it yet, but imagine a bat speed of 70 mph and a ball at a negative launch angle (ground ball) and a ball at a 25 degree launch angle. Extreme comparison, yes, but it shows the importance of launch angle regardless of bat speed. Sounds like CoachMcDonald1 is an Epstein Hitting fan. Or at least a Ted Williams fan.
He's assuming that the launch angle is held constant and also that you are hitting the ball at the exact same place. The physical model he is referring to is one-dimensional collisions. Where the parameters are velocity of ball before and after contact, velocity of swing, mass of ball, mass of bat, and energy transferred from bat to ball. Where the only thing changing is the bat speed. Obviously an oversimplification!
