TTB and Swing Adjustability
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Disclaimer: My views may not align with others that believe in this concept. And they definitely do not align with those that overbake the concept.
In my opinion, adjustability can be broken down into two primary components; location and timing.
Location: A hitter needs to be able to hit "out from" their body instead of "around" their body. The gif of Posey below is a great example of this. On these three swings, he is handling three different locations with authority because he is swinging "out from" his body. In many cases when a young hitter swings around their body, an outside pitch turns into a routine ground ball to the shortstop. In my opinion, this is the importance of "staying inside the ball". You will notice there is a slight pause in this gif. TTB begins just after the pause while the barrel is still relatively vertical and behind Posey's head.
Timing: Really two points on this one; depth and barrel path. One of the goals with depth is to increase the timing window. The further out front you hit the ball, the sooner you must swing. First of all, that requires that the hitter make their decision sooner. The ball is further away from the plate when the decision is made, so the hitter is less prepared for it. Plus, the further out front you make contact, the further the barrel has to travel. Again, stripping the hitter of valuable time. By gaining depth in your swing, you also gain time. Tewks refers to the depth component as "swinging on the right side of your body" (for a right handed hitter). I call it swinging on the catcher's side of your body (becomes hitter specific that way). The picture of Pujols below demonstrates this. No matter the location of the pitch, the barrel stays on the right hand side of his body until well beyond contact.
The second picture below demonstrates barrel path. From the point of launch, a great deal of the barrel's path is downward. But then it levels out and in most cases will travel slightly upward prior to contact (location dependent). This type of barrel path allows the hitter to keep the barrel in the zone for a longer period of time. If we go back to the videos that @julray and others have posted. Some of those pros are demonstrating a barrel path that is much more extreme. Yes, I realize there are aspects missing, but if someone doesn't know any better and takes their demonstrations too literally, the barrel path shown simply will not work in the batter's box. I am on the record as stating that I appreciate the pros comments. I just think the audience needs to be careful in how their comments are interpreted.
Added: For the record, I am not in anyone's camp. I find valuable information in many different places and don't necessarily align myself with anyone in particular.
In my opinion, adjustability can be broken down into two primary components; location and timing.
Location: A hitter needs to be able to hit "out from" their body instead of "around" their body. The gif of Posey below is a great example of this. On these three swings, he is handling three different locations with authority because he is swinging "out from" his body. In many cases when a young hitter swings around their body, an outside pitch turns into a routine ground ball to the shortstop. In my opinion, this is the importance of "staying inside the ball". You will notice there is a slight pause in this gif. TTB begins just after the pause while the barrel is still relatively vertical and behind Posey's head.
Timing: Really two points on this one; depth and barrel path. One of the goals with depth is to increase the timing window. The further out front you hit the ball, the sooner you must swing. First of all, that requires that the hitter make their decision sooner. The ball is further away from the plate when the decision is made, so the hitter is less prepared for it. Plus, the further out front you make contact, the further the barrel has to travel. Again, stripping the hitter of valuable time. By gaining depth in your swing, you also gain time. Tewks refers to the depth component as "swinging on the right side of your body" (for a right handed hitter). I call it swinging on the catcher's side of your body (becomes hitter specific that way). The picture of Pujols below demonstrates this. No matter the location of the pitch, the barrel stays on the right hand side of his body until well beyond contact.
The second picture below demonstrates barrel path. From the point of launch, a great deal of the barrel's path is downward. But then it levels out and in most cases will travel slightly upward prior to contact (location dependent). This type of barrel path allows the hitter to keep the barrel in the zone for a longer period of time. If we go back to the videos that @julray and others have posted. Some of those pros are demonstrating a barrel path that is much more extreme. Yes, I realize there are aspects missing, but if someone doesn't know any better and takes their demonstrations too literally, the barrel path shown simply will not work in the batter's box. I am on the record as stating that I appreciate the pros comments. I just think the audience needs to be careful in how their comments are interpreted.
Added: For the record, I am not in anyone's camp. I find valuable information in many different places and don't necessarily align myself with anyone in particular.
Thanks Cornbread, just to clarify, not my camp, I am always searching for the truth. Who better to learn that from then those hitters who have the best swings in the game and HOFS. I am just reiterating what the pros say, what they do and then providing evidence that this really happens in their swing for those who say feel vs real. The Pros don’t focus on TTB, they have cues like down to, hands to, stay on top, practice staying inside etc. If they are trying to TTB, they would be talking about it, demoing it, and practicing it in their drills.
I responded by I Phone, somebody is going to have lots of fun correcting my grammar errors,
- Jul 29, 2013
- 1,200
- 63
Great post!Disclaimer: My views may not align with others that believe in this concept. And they definitely do not align with those that overbake the concept.
In my opinion, adjustability can be broken down into two primary components; location and timing.
Location: A hitter needs to be able to hit "out from" their body instead of "around" their body. The gif of Posey below is a great example of this. On these three swings, he is handling three different locations with authority because he is swinging "out from" his body. In many cases when a young hitter swings around their body, an outside pitch turns into a routine ground ball to the shortstop. In my opinion, this is the importance of "staying inside the ball". You will notice there is a slight pause in this gif. TTB begins just after the pause while the barrel is still relatively vertical and behind Posey's head.
Timing: Really two points on this one; depth and barrel path. One of the goals with depth is to increase the timing window. The further out front you hit the ball, the sooner you must swing. First of all, that requires that the hitter make their decision sooner. The ball is further away from the plate when the decision is made, so the hitter is less prepared for it. Plus, the further out front you make contact, the further the barrel has to travel. Again, stripping the hitter of valuable time. By gaining depth in your swing, you also gain time. Tewks refers to the depth component as "swinging on the right side of your body" (for a right handed hitter). I call it swinging on the catcher's side of your body (becomes hitter specific that way). The picture of Pujols below demonstrates this. No matter the location of the pitch, the barrel stays on the right hand side of his body until well beyond contact.
The second picture below demonstrates barrel path. From the point of launch, a great deal of the barrel's path is downward. But then it levels out and in most cases will travel slightly upward prior to contact (location dependent). This type of barrel path allows the hitter to keep the barrel in the zone for a longer period of time. If we go back to the videos that @julray and others have posted. Some of those pros are demonstrating a barrel path that is much more extreme. Yes, I realize there are aspects missing, but if someone doesn't know any better and takes their demonstrations too literally, the barrel path shown simply will not work in the batter's box. I am on the record as stating that I appreciate the pros comments. I just think the audience needs to be careful in how their comments are interpreted.
Added: For the record, I am not in anyone's camp. I find valuable information in many different places and don't necessarily align myself with anyone in particular.
- Nov 16, 2017
- 406
- 63
TTB is the a concept to help players understand a proper swing. It helps eliminate push swings.
The majority of adjustability comes in the first millisecond of the knobs forward movement. If a pitch is at or below the belly button the knob should move directly forward replacing the front elbow. However, the pitch is high the knob will move slightly 1" or less out or up then replace the front elbow.
Trying to adjust through your swing is very difficult and often leads to bad things. Being able to adjust then fire is preferred. Therefor TTB should be occurring after adjustment.
The concept is similar to launching something into space. A very small degree adjust makes a huge difference in trajectory. I very small adjustment right at launch can make a big difference in path. Another reason this is desired is it is a small adjustment. Therefore, you are able to do it quickly. Teach your players to identify pitch location. Teach them knob adjustment at the jump. After a while it will become second nature.
Hitting around your body vs out from is caused by a faulty all back all forward movement pattern.. It would be nice if examples of ttb being discussed here were from folks who were utilizing the theory.
My understanding of the history is that "Turn the barrel" is a concept that was discussed by several people back in the day. TM does not have exclusive rights on the concept. In fact, I seem to remember several other people utilizing the concept. Much of the old "top hand torque" discussion is basically a version of TTB. If I understand your debate correctly, it really isn't a "hand pivot" that you have issue with, but rather what some refer to as "swivel".
I do agree that shifting the weight prematurely can lead to swinging "around the body". No matter what system you use, it is important for the upper and the lower to be synced properly so that both parts can be leveraged. By shifting the weight forward prematurely, the top half never gets leveraged properly.
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Yea, this has been Rich's go to yet every pro discussing and demoing there swings say nothing about ttb and the demos are the opposite... Folks who have push swings and swing around there body are all back all forward hitters.
Why not fix the sequence of getting into a leveraged fyb position so the hands and body can work together ?
There are no smoke and mirrors when the pros demo what happens when they swing the bat. Took me quite a while to really understand how the actions they were performing how it fit into the entire swing. What we really need to understand when watching some of these demos, a batter does not stand in the box flat footed and just move their hands. This is an isolated movement.
