Sydney Romero swing

Right on plane means ball and bat are traveling tangential to the same 2D surface(plane).

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I am thinking that it meant the vectors of the force of the bat and ball align from opposite directions at contact, with the resultant vector after collision being similar to the path of the force imparted by the bat. (Does that make sense?)
What I saw in her swing was an off-center contact, the collision of which resulted in the ball traveling in a third direction with a lot of spin.(assumed).
Anyhow, I went to a state school so I'm not trying to argue the point, just tell you where my thinking came from.

obbay said:

I am thinking that it meant the vectors of the force of the bat and ball align from opposite directions at contact, with the resultant vector after collision being similar to the path of the force imparted by the bat. (Does that make sense?)
What I saw in her swing was an off-center contact, the collision of which resulted in the ball traveling in a third direction with a lot of spin.(assumed).
Anyhow, I went to a state school so I'm not trying to argue the point, just tell you where my thinking came from.

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They teach the same math at state schools and private schools . The phrase "on plane" has nothing to do with force but ball/bat path. At the end of the day all that matters is where the barrel is at contact but in some views "matching"
bat path direction with ball path direction for as long as possible gives more room for error.

There is also the "feel vs. real" factor. Both Chamberlain and Bonds have talked about their intent to hit down on the ball.

Mark McGwire too

Gwynn and Pujols also describe swing thoughts that don't match their actual swings..there are numerous examples of that. Those guys grew hitting lots and lots of baseballs with the only intent being square up the ball
as often as possible, a lot of them probably didn't even see themselves swing until they got to college/pros. A lot of the recent guys in MLB who have "changed" their swings to improve launch angle still used to barrel
up the ball a lot. The slight changes (JD Martinez for example and Bogaerts this year compared to last year) they made at the MLB level changed 100 MPH exit velocity line drives/ground balls to 100 MPH exit velocity HRs...
but the exit velocity was still there because they knew how to use their bodies to get the barrel to the ball as often as possible. At the younger ages i think this is the most important thing. Can you barrel up balls and hit them hard
at various speeds/locations with regularity. If so you are 95% of the way there. The other 5% can be worked on once you stop growing and have a good feeling for how your body works.

Great diagram from williams on slight upswing but I believe it pertains more to baseball than softball. With a pither on a mound with a release point around the head, the ball will be traveling in a downward angle as opposed to softball with no mound and the release around the hip. Also considering the rise ball. It would be interesting to see some information pertaining to the typical pitch plane of softball, including the riseball.

Just a couple of examples of 'matching the plane' of the pitched ball. If you are interested in more go to the model pitching thread.

Riseball in softball....high fastball in baseball.

rdbass said:

Riseball in softball....high fastball in baseball.

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Not quite. A softball riseball will enter the zone higher than its release point. A baseball high strike will have a downward trajectory from start to finish. In baseball, a slightly upward barrel path may match the plane of a high strike pitch. This may not be the case with a softball riseball.