Bat angle complaint from parent

Wellphyt said:

How a player holds the bat while in their stance is a style choice and not part of technique. As long as the player can get to the bat lag position correctly and on time, it dosen't matter how they start the bat. The advantage of starting the bat out on plane is that the back elbow and front forearm are pre-set very close to where they need to be when they get to the bat lag position. The same can be said for players who start the bat at a 45 degree angle across the pony tail hole. The difference is a matter of degrees. In both cases the coaches and instructors are starting the players out with flatter handsets because they know that the hands need to be flat very early in the swing in order to get on plane quickly and hit in a long zone.

I see a lot of FP hitters who start with flat handsets, including ones who start with the bat at a 45 degree angle across the pony tail hole; drag the bat. IMO, the players need to be taught how to correctly get the hands flat in such a way that they can do it from any handset.

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If a player has not yet developed a style would you recommend this? My problem with it is that IMO it does not create enough bat speed, it seems slow to adjust to all the different pitch locations and does not feel powerful.

Dragoncoach said:

If a player has not yet developed a style would you recommend this? My problem with it is that IMO it does not create enough bat speed to adjust to all the different pitches and does not feel powerful.

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There's also the bigger issue that no good hitter actually does this.

Personally, I disagree with the premise that it doesn't matter how a player holds their bat as long as the player gets to 'bat lag' on time. What takes place during the transition is largely important in terms of how well one drives the ball.

This laying the bat out flat thing has actually been around for a while. I remember hearing about it on the old Fastpitch Forum, and it pops up from time to time.

IIRC, the original thinking was flawed. It was created at the time when it was believed that the close distance of the pitchers and the ability of the girls to swing the bat didn't match up. So they went to this method to try to cut some of the time out of the swing. It was thought the bat was already on-plane, so all you had to do was throw the hands at the ball and you'd be on time.

It's not what good hitters do, as has been pointed out. It has certainly been proven that with better instruction, better timing and better technique fastpitch hitters can swing with the same mechanics as baseball hitters. Girls can develop plenty of batspeed. More important, to me, is the concept of short to-long through.

Girls back in the day took very long, hand-oriented swings. It took them a long time to get the bat to the ball, so they needed to start early. Today, most hitting instructors have the girls in motion and rotating their cores while the pitch is on the way, so in the end the hands only have to travel a short distance to deliver the bat head to the ball. I'm pretty sure this is universal regardless of the specific format you follow, i.e. HLBB swing, PCR or some other term.

Bottom line, that laying the bat out flat is pretty old school. There are better ways to hit. As Mark H would say if he were here, check this.

Starting the bat in the slot position has been around since I played baseball and that is a long time. We teach young girls not style! We teach a neutral postions and cues they can relate to. One is starting with the bat with a tap of the poney tail holder in the back of the helment. With the bottom hand top of the should with a fist gap between the hands and shoulder. Many young girls seem to have the bat straight up. No bat speed and the fist move is dropping fo the hands. Then they wonder why a riseball pticher owns them. Keep it simple of young kids. When they make milllions like MLB, then they can have a style.

FiveFrameSwing said:

Personally, I disagree with the premise that it doesn't matter how a player holds their bat as long as the player gets to 'bat lag' on time. What takes place during the transition is largely important in terms of how well one drives the ball.

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That's why I wrote: "As long as the player can get to the bat lag position correctly and on time,..."

In his "Do We Teach What We Really See?" seminar, Epstein does a computer simulation with Ted Williams and Jimmy Foxx. He takes two computer generated stick figures; one of Jimmy Foxx and one of Ted Williams; and overlays then on top of each other. One is green and the other is red so you can tell them apart. The simulation begins with each player in their batting stance and finishes after their follow through. Williams and Foxx had totally different batting stances. Ted started with a vertical bat handset and Foxx had an unorthodox handset where he laid the bat over almost horizontal.

By the time each player gets to toe touch the two stick figures align almost perfectly. If not for the different colors you can't tell whose who.

Would I teach a batting stance like Jimmy Foxx? No. But IMO it's vital that coaches understand how a player can get from Jimmy Foxx's batting stance into the correct position at toe touch. Or, how a player like Jen Yee transitions from her vertical bat handset batting stance position to toe touch.

If would be interesting to here other's thoughts on Jen Yee's batting stance vs. the "pony tail tap" stance. Is one better than than the other? If so, why?

Wellphyt ... I still disagree with the premise that it doesn't matter how a player holds their bat as long as the player gets to 'bat lag' on time. What takes place during the transition is largely important in terms of how well one drives the ball. I don't care if it satisfies your definition of "correct bat lag position" or your definition of a "correct bat lag position on time" ... the prior loading of the hands and barrel are important for those that wish to drive the ball.

FiveFrameSwing said:

Wellphyt ... I still disagree with the premise that it doesn't matter how a player holds their bat as long as the player gets to 'bat lag' on time. What takes place during the transition is largely important in terms of how well one drives the ball. I don't care if it satisfies your definition of "correct bat lag position" or your definition of a "correct bat lag position on time" ... the prior loading of the hands and barrel are important for those that wish to drive the ball.

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We are not talking about the same thing. Think Craig Counsell or Julio Franco. I'm not talking about the transition or the load. I'm talking about the batting stance prior to the coil or loading the hands. My point is that some coaches in FP are cloning hitters mistakenly thinking that one particular batting stance such as the "the pony tail tap" batting stance is somehow superior to other batting stances such as the "vertical bat" batting stance used by Jen Yee. Both work just fine as do many other batting stances.

How many FP coaches or instructors in your area do you think can take a hitter with a "vertical bat" batting stance and teach them how to get their hands flat correctly? I can't think of one in my area. Not one.

Is there any video out there of an elite hitter starting with knob pointed at pitcher/flat bat On a Hr or deep gap hit?