Kinetic link

[Mudders Brudder]

Years ago a poster by the name of Swingbuilder preached "hips and hands". He preached a simplistic three step sequence of Coil, Stretch, Separate. Depending on how you take those steps, you can get hitters fairly close to realizing the resultant rotation of the body that you see here. From a simplistic point of view the Coil can be thought of as getting into your rear leg ... the Stretch can be thought of as getting the slack out of the system as you move forward (walk-away-from-the-hands) ... the Separate can be thought of as the core usage of rotation & lateral bend ... in which case "Hips & Hands" becomes "Core & Hands".

He still does. It's a variant/similar to what I've always used as "hips then hands" to add to the "separate" phase of the swing.

 

[Mudders Brudder]

Another one, Harper.

View attachment 12161

Don't confuse "cause" and "effect".

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

When I say square, I mean square with the pitcher.. the opposite of closed. Think I should make that clear first, I have a way of confusing things . Now I know a lot of hitting instructors teach kids to keep their shoulders closed to a certain point up until or just before contact and through extension to a certain degree, depending on pitch location. I am not fixating on being perfectly square (hips and shoulders), but damn I expected a lot of these hitters to be more closed at contact than they are. Harper is the opposite of closed, he's gone past being square with the pitcher. I also expected a lot of these guys to be hitting the ball a little deeper in the zone.

Let's review the notion of keeping your shoulders closed.

First of all ... look at any professional swing and you'll see that the shoulders do not remain closed .... which is a good thing, because they shouldn't remain closed.

That leaves an instructor to instead be vague about "when" the shoulders open up ... which is what you are doing.

That said, the cue of "keep your shoulders closed" can be a good thing if you use the cue appropriately. Basically the movement of the lead shoulder will pull on the barrel. You'd like to get that initial pull to take place through a contribution of lateral side bend. Hitters that simply take a hard left turn (right-handed hitter) to pull on the barrel are by-passing the lateral side bend. The cue of "keep the shoulders closed" is meant to help hitters learn not to initiate powering their swing by taking a "hard left turn". That said, the movement of the lead shoulder still captures transition of the barrel .... just that it is not an opening move, but an upwards move. The lateral side bend will have the front shoulder moving upwards, and hence move the barrel into a rearward arc. It is this action that should "inspire" the lead arm to be a swinger. From here the lead shoulder opens up.

Said differently, rather than teach a hitter what NOT-TO-DO, consider teaching a hitter WHAT-TO-DO. Replace the inaction of "don't open up" with the action of "lateral side bend".

 

[rdbass]

You don't think he's turning the barrel here?

Nope. Spine rotation. Not turning the bat with the hands. JMHO.

 

[julray]

Nope. Spine rotation. Not turning the bat with the hands. JMHO.

I see the bat going rearward at start. I still have a ton to learn about turning the barrel. Looks like Edwin is doing it in this swing on a high picth IMO. But you know a lot more than me, it's a new concept to me

 

[rdbass]

I see the bat going rearward at start. I still have a ton to learn about turning the barrel. Looks like Edwin is doing it in this swing on a high picth IMO. But you know a lot more than me, it's a new concept to me

Not true. Again it's JMHO and how I see it. Others may see his swing differently and that's fine too.

 

[Shawn]

Same as Stanton, the bat is behind his body. Just shows that some hitters are different.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

Same as Stanton, the bat is behind his body. Just shows that some hitters are different.

 

[tjintx]

Hmm, His bottom hand wrist tells a story... powerful man.

 

[julray]

Same as Stanton, the bat is behind his body. Just shows that some hitters are different.

What do you mean his bat is behind his body?