What role if any does "bat wrap" play in turning the barrel?

[FiveFrameSwing]

Mr T, I would need to know the specific posts you are referring to in terms of switching loading patterns easily. If you are referring to switching hitters between a 'stride' & 'no-stride' then understand that the loading pattern there can be largely the same.

As for Candrea teaching 'throwing' ... You are spot on ... What he teaches in throwing is quite different than how his players actually throw. As RHC stated earlier ... The job at this level is largely about recruiting.

 

[Mr T]

Great series of posts FFS. The coach must be furious since none of his players is listening to a word he says.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

Pat is a good coach. It is possible that the players are listening to him and that perhaps someone that attended one of his clinics had selective hearing.

- Door knocking knuckles aligned … Nope!

- Elbows level on the table …. Nope!

- Static …. Nope!

 

[lhowser]

I just recently attended an event with Pat Murphy.

1) he is an excellent coach, motivator, person, and personality. I was fortunate to be there. I learned a ton.

2) His teaching on hitting has defiantly changed. I own hitting videos he produced (I think in the early 2000's) and he advocated knuckle alignment, and hitting down on the ball in a straight, short path. I ordered the videos a couple of year ago and when I watched them my head started to spin. He in fact in the video demonstrates a training tool that forces the bat in that straight downward path imparting backspin on the ball. It was not the swing I saw from his players, even the players demonstrating on the videos.

Fast forward - When I heard him just a few weeks ago he DID NOT advocate swinging down to the ball. In fact a coach in the audience asked about the training tool that uses pipes to create a forced downward bat slot and he told the coach that this was not something he advocated and that players do not swing on that path. That made me feel great because I felt really weird disagreeing with the Pat Murphy of those training videos when he has coached the best and I'm just a dad who wants his kid and her friends to succeed at hitting in high school and travel ball.

Yet on stage when he was talking about hitting he would occasionally show a slow-mo faux swing while describing something and by default it almost always was a short direct line from launch position downward to an imaginary ball. The idea or description of turning the barrel or the Nike swish path was absent in anything we talked about the day.

It really is quite interesting.

 

[Doug Romrell]

"....he advocated knuckle alignment, and hitting down on the ball in a straight, short path."

I see this A LOT around here in both softball and baseball hitting instruction. To me, it's like they are not keeping up with the newer thinking on hitting mechanics. Do I mention anything? No! It's my experience that people aren't open to modifying their thoughts on how hitting should be taught unless they have sought out new information on their own. What's real interesting is that the best hitters turn the barrel and swing with a "Nike swish path" in spite of what is taught. Good thing they do.

 

[Doug Romrell]

Pat is a good coach. It is possible that the players are listening to him and that perhaps someone that attended one of his clinics had selective hearing.

- Door knocking knuckles aligned … Nope!

- Elbows level on the table …. Nope!

- Static …. Nope!

Personally, I think it's much better to have SOME motion than it is to be standing like a stiff statue. IMO you're much quicker when you're already moving some.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

Yes, people should be cautious of what they extract from slow motion demonstrations. As we've seen a number of times here at DFP, such demonstrations are often flawed and do not represent a high-end swing.

 

[CoogansBluff]

It's my experience that people aren't open to modifying their thoughts on how hitting should be taught unless they have sought out new information on their own.

Most are open to it - if the teacher has some impressive credential, such as college coach, or accomplished former player. Perhaps the single most important thing that I've learned in seven years of being around youth softball is that many if not most of these credentialed 'experts' and certainly most travel-ball coaches do not really understand hitting, which is merely the most important skill that every non-pitcher needs to succeed in order to succeed in this sport.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

Here's the thing Ihowser ... You went to the clinic to extract potential information WHILE applying the Hanson Principle to filter out nonsense. You armed yourself with a tool to filter out the 'bad' while absorbing information for potential use. Hopefully that will be an example to others.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

Personally, I think it's much better to have SOME motion than it is to be standing like a stiff statue. IMO you're much quicker when you're already moving some.

Go to the model swings thread and look at videos of Cabrera.

There is no temporary stop in his swing.

There is no period of time in which something stopped before it is started again.

There is no temporary inaction due to uncertainty.

He is in motion and his motion is continuous.

He flows.

He is not static.

He does not load, pause, and then unload. Instead he flows. He overlaps.

There is no pause in Cabrera's motion. He does not get midway through his swing and then pause. If he did that then he would have to restart his swing in an inferior manner and he wouldn't have realized the success he has realized.

Cabrera flows. He embraces the Holy Grail of hitting. He gives himself enough time to get to a proper hitting position. He has rhythm. He has movement.