Grounders vs ball in the air

[mann]

A baseball swing produces long fly balls? wow.

 

[Cannonball]

Believe it or not, had a parent ask me in one of my lessons if I was teaching a baseball or softball swing. I just figured I'd teach them an efficient swing that I consider high level. Line drives are our friend.

 

[mann]

ya, hi level is good, because if you gave them a baseball swing they would strike out more.

 

[mann]

On the opposite end of the spectrum, what are the best drills to help fly ball hitters (not pop ups) hit more line drives?

what i do is use tees. i ask the girls to hit line drives, grounders, and long fly balls. With the ball at all locations. high low, in out. The girls shagging play five hundred, for a dollar.

 

[Tom]

Are you 100% certain of this?

Guess I should have said "typically the barrel is going to be on a upward angle". It doesn't have to be.

Statistically a rising line drive can be hit by swinging straight down if the bat strikes ball at precisely the right time and location. Of course this would only put the bat and ball on plane for a fraction of a second and greatly reduce the amount of barrel surface that passes through the ball's plane. With gravity acting on every pitch the instant it leaves a pitchers hand an upward angle in barrel swing (degree varied by ball plane location) will put the barrel on plane for a longer period of time exponentially increasing the chances of contact, and as contact chance increases so does chance of contact point producing rising line drive.

 

[rdbass]

Guess I should have said "typically the barrel is going to be on a upward angle". It doesn't have to be.

Statistically a rising line drive can be hit by swinging straight down if the bat strikes ball at precisely the right time and location. Of course this would only put the bat and ball on plane for a fraction of a second and greatly reduce the amount of barrel surface that passes through the ball's plane. With gravity acting on every pitch the instant it leaves a pitchers hand an upward angle in barrel swing (degree varied by ball plane location) will put the barrel on plane for a longer period of time exponentially increasing the chances of contact, and as contact chance increases so does chance of contact point producing rising line drive.

See if this makes sense:

The ball is round, the bat is round. Both of those factors can either add or subtract loft. Swinging up while hitting the ball above the center of it's equator will produce a humpback liner or ground ball. That's just a couple of possibilities. You can swing up and hit just slightly below the equator. You can swing level and hit above or below the equator. You can swing down and hit slightly above or below the equator

 

[Tom]

See if this makes sense:

Sure that makes sense, there are nearly limitless possibilities of angles of contact and plane angles producing nearly limitless launch angles and types of hits. My point was that to take advantage of the additional ground an outfielder has to cover a rising line drive has the highest probability of success, and an upward swing plane has the greatest statistical chance to produce the rising line drive.

 

[rdbass]

Your original post was:

To achieve the rising line drive the barrel is typically going to have to be traveling on an upward angle matching the plane of ball.

I just added other possible ways of hitting a line drive. Yes, what you say is the general ideal and what a hitters is looking to do. There are other possible was of achieving a line drive less than ideal. My DD's goal is to hit line drives and yes we 'try' to hit on a slightly upward barrel angle.