Pure barrels or cut!

[_MIA_]

Not gonna lie, I have been hit in the chest by a line drive that knuckled. I could see the logo coming at me before it went left a foot....scary.

Softball or baseball?I can never remember ever seeing a ball knuckle at me in baseball but I seem to see it all the time in softball for whatever reason.

 

[Hawk_]

Softball or baseball?I can never remember ever seeing a ball knuckle at me in baseball but I seem to see it all the time in softball for whatever reason.

softball. More surface area to hit it flat maybe.

 

[Rolling Hard]

How far does the below, above have to be in relation to the center line to create a rising line drive or a sinking line drive?

5/16 or 7.9375 mm? Did I get it right?

 

[BigSkyHi]

5/16 or 7.9375 mm? Did I get it right?

Sounds good to me. Thank you. The very best MLB home run hitters touch one off less than 9% of their AB's. Appears it may be more feasible to work on getting contact on maybe a 4" sweat spot of the bat rather trying to perfect 5/16" or 7.9375 mm.

 

[JumboJack]

Ok, been in this discussion for a few decades. Just a different way of describing it. In less than .4 tenths of a second, I just can't buy into the notion that someone intentionally hits just below the center of a ball on purpose. It is my contention that they look to center and drive the ball on all swings. There is also the continuing argument about swinging down on the ball. Are hitters swinging down on the ball or are things like pelvic tilt and lateral tilt helping a hitter get on plane? To what degree does a hitter's hands come into connection and then leave connection as the hands adjust to put the barrel on the ball? It various on each pitch. I'll read this thread and maybe learn something.

I'm not an instructor but that makes a lot of sense. If someone is able to purposely hit a specific part of the ball that person would/should never swing and miss.

 

[625ender]

5/16 or 7.9375 mm? Did I get it right?

Haha 78.35% of all measurements and statistics are made up on the spur of the moment

 

[_MIA_]

I refuse to believe that anybody facing 95+ from 60 or 65+ from 43 is able to try and hit a certain spot on the ball and be successful at it..the ball is a blur at those speeds/distances.

 

[FP26]

Another thing to consider here, Alan Nathan has done some work which shows that for typical exit velocities in baseball, there is a maximum backspin rate (for a fixed exit velocity) above which the distance the ball travels starts to actually decrease (due to increased drag on the ball). In other words you can have too much of a good thing when it comes to backspin. I am sure the same is true for softball as well albeit with different quantitative results.

This study and some other interesting ones regarding "optimizing" the swing can be found here:

Physics of Baseball - Optimizing the Swing

Come on @pattar, you don't really expect people to accept science as fact, do you?

 

[_MIA_]

Come on @pattar, you don't really expect people to accept science as fact, do you?

No. That is the nice thing about teaching a course...if they don't "accept" theory backed up by experimental results (without providing an alternate theory that matches with the data) I can give them an F.

Imagining such a student/professor conversation is quite amusing actually..I just chuckled out loud.

 

[TDS]

I refuse to believe that anybody facing 95+ from 60 or 65+ from 43 is able to try and hit a certain spot on the ball and be successful at it..the ball is a blur at those speeds/distances.

I am guessing its not possible to hit a certain spot every time but guys absolutely aim for certain parts of the ball.