Batted Ball Distance

[Stever]

Here is Mike Trout on the Zepp. The significant slowing after impact is from the collision, not because he's already exhausted all his energy and speed. If he were to swing and miss the ball, what would the chart look like?

With all things being equal in two comparative swings except one hitter had stronger hands/forearms (muscularly), but they both had the exact form, the exact bat, exact bat speed, etc, who would hit the ball farther, or would it be the same?

 

[JJsqueeze]

Powering through the ball is a figure of speech. No different than the days boxers spend hitting heavy bags. They train drive, so they can knock someone's teeth through the back of their head. Throwing a ball? Frisbee? Shooting a free throw? How about teaching follow through after throwing a fielded ball? Surely jogging a couple of steps towards the intended target doesn't get the ball there faster. I would hope that no one actually thinks that they can push a ball off a bat. How exactly do you teach kids how to swing? Do they stop motion once they touch the ball?

There's no wonder why the majors leagues are filling up with bottle cap hitters from tiny countries. They're just great instinctive hitters who don't know what they're "supposed" to do

not sure how to respond to this. I didn't see anyone suggest that you try to stop a swing after contact or slow down to contact or any of the things you mention. just laying out the reality of how a ball hits a bat and how the mass of the bat, it's COR and the velocity at Impact are all that matter. The bat will follow through and the swing will get through the ball naturally no need to coach it.

Hitting a heavy bag clearly does not teach follow through or powering through either. Coaches may think that is what is happening, but when you hit a heavy bag harder all the bat is doing is traveling faster at contact, and that is of course the point.

how do you draw the conclusion that recognizing that follow through doesn't add speed somehow means that you would teach a kid to push a ball off a bat? It is just recognizing the basic fact that a swing only matters up until contact. Now follow through can give good info about upstream issues before contact so it has a role in training but really only as a diagnostic.

 

[JJsqueeze]

View attachment 8552

Here is Mike Trout on the Zepp. The significant slowing after impact is from the collision, not because he's already exhausted all his energy and speed. If he were to swing and miss the ball, what would the chart look like?

With all things being equal in two comparative swings except one hitter had stronger hands/forearms (muscularly), but they both had the exact form, the exact bat, exact bat speed, etc, who would hit the ball farther, or would it be the same?

If he missed the graph would be a smooth curve instead of a sharp peak but the amplitude would be the same.
The distance hit would be the same for your two batters.

 

[RetiredCoach]

The way I see this is that once that bat is off the ball, essentially it does not matter what the bat does. However, what does matter is the form and technique of the hitter. In order to impart the maximum power into the ball at impact the hitter must swing "hard" through the ball. This is in order to maximize the swing dynamics and gain the maximize bat speed which, besides the bat characteristics, is what imparts the most power into the ball.

 

[Stever]

I think I'm a little misunderstood. I realize the ball is gone, off the bat, in milliseconds. But what happens to the batspeed at impact in those milliseconds plays a huge part in batted ball distance. If impact slows the bat head immediately down to 30mph for one, and down to 40mph for another, with all else being equal, who hits the ball further?

These was my analogy from the previous post of one batter having stronger hands.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

View attachment 8552

Here is Mike Trout on the Zepp. The significant slowing after impact is from the collision, not because he's already exhausted all his energy and speed. If he were to swing and miss the ball, what would the chart look like?

With all things being equal in two comparative swings except one hitter had stronger hands/forearms (muscularly), but they both had the exact form, the exact bat, exact bat speed, etc, who would hit the ball farther, or would it be the same?

Stever, you don't appear to understand the release process or whipping process.

The slowing down of Trout's barrel would have occurred regardless of bat/ball collision.

If you zoom in you will see that the barrel began sharply decelerating prior to impact. Obviously there was no impact taking place prior to impact ... yet the barrel was already in the process of slowing down prior to impact.

If you looked closely at the Ortiz Zepp result you also saw that maximum barrel speed occurred just before impact.

You can run similar tests with the Zepp. The Zepp does require some sort of collision to work, but you can reduce the weight of the object being struck and you'll still see a reduction in barrel speed. In fact, you can remove the ball completely, and strike the top of a tanner tee, which will be enough to have the Zepp work, and you will still see the barrel speed reducing significantly through & post impact.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

I think I'm a little misunderstood. I realize the ball is gone, off the bat, in milliseconds. But what happens to the batspeed at impact in those milliseconds plays a huge part in batted ball distance. If impact slows the bat head immediately down to 30mph for one, and down to 40mph for another, with all else being equal, who hits the ball further?

These was my analogy from the previous post of one batter having stronger hands.

I know it is easy to fall for Ray D's description ...... but he got it incorrect, ..... or, he you consider that his true purpose was to sell bats, and from that perspective he succeeded.

A simple application of the law of conservation of momentum answers your question.

 

[rdbass]

If you zoom in you will see that the barrel began sharply decelerating prior to impact.

If impact slows the bat head immediately down to 30mph for one, and down to 40mph for another, with all else being equal, who hits the ball further?

Could that be the 'fine tuning' of direction....

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

Could that be the 'fine tuning' of direction....

Doc Yeager spoke of the importance of deceleration. He would speak of this throughout the swing sequence.

He also spoke of lead-arm pull back and the importance of deceleration. He spoke of the throwing of the bat head ... he looked to see if there was good top hand action of throwing past the bottom hand and that bottom hand snapping the handle back to give "good deceleration".

No joke ... Doc Yeager described this as "good deceleration". He had drills to work on what he referred to as deceleration transfer.

Rapid deceleration is a result of maximum momentum transfer.

The greater the acceleration or deceleration, the greater the force. Force = mass * acceleration. (Newton’s 2nd) In other words, a rapid change in velocity results in great force- WHIP EFFECT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[625ender]

not sure how to respond to this. I didn't see anyone suggest that you try to stop a swing after contact or slow down to contact or any of the things you mention. just laying out the reality of how a ball hits a bat and how the mass of the bat, it's COR and the velocity at Impact are all that matter. The bat will follow through and the swing will get through the ball naturally no need to coach it.

Hitting a heavy bag clearly does not teach follow through or powering through either. Coaches may think that is what is happening, but when you hit a heavy bag harder all the bat is doing is traveling faster at contact, and that is of course the point.

how do you draw the conclusion that recognizing that follow through doesn't add speed somehow means that you would teach a kid to push a ball off a bat? It is just recognizing the basic fact that a swing only matters up until contact. Now follow through can give good info about upstream issues before contact so it has a role in training but really only as a diagnostic.

Hitting a heavy bag with a bat? Teaching a kid to push the ball off the bat? You didn't read a single word I typed


I've been in a ton of tee ball dugouts all the way through the major leagues. I've never seen a physics professor hit a ball. I've rarely seen a lower level coach who could square up in a batters box and perform either. Most high lever players are as simple as it gets and they aint terribly smart. Batting is not static and thinking that you can figure it out and teach it with a protractor is futile at best. There's not enough trigonometry in the world to analyse Cal Ripkens, Rod Carew, Eric Davis, Julio Francos................. swings.

I wouldn't be able to hit water falling out of a boat if I had to endure some of this teaching.

Stever I have no idea where you or your 14 y/o is, but I travel a lot. I would gladly volunteer to work with her and get her mind right without a white board or power point presentation (seriously). One or two hours and she'll be right