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March 31, 2005
"Roots...."
As in going back to our origins. And in going through some of the old SETPRO postings I've come across what I consider some interesting posts which are in a sense "roots" of the tree that this branch (www.hitting-mechanics.org) of baseball information and opinion has grown from.
Enjoy!!
03-27-2001, 12:14 PM #4 Major Dan--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Had a very interesting exchange with Mike Epstein on his site.
In a thread about 'keeping hands inside the ball', a writer asked what that meant. I responded with an explanation that boiled down to keeping the hands in and shoulders turning until (or almost until) contact.Mike Esptein agreed but added some more 'advanced' points.
He said the arms should extend completely by pulling the knob of the bat to the ball with the bat barrel fully trailing. That any angular displacement of the bat barrel (my words) would result in less bat speed. At full arm extension, the wrists snap the barrel out to the ball resulting in tremendous bat speed.I was shocked and suggested he was advocating a two-piece swing, with completely linear upper body mechanics, disconnected from the kinetic chain. I threw some Jack Mankin angular momentum at him along the way.
Within an hour, both his post and mine were gone!!!
(unfortunately I don't have a copy of what was written).However, responses on the main branch remained with comments about Mike's post: kac's reply -
"I was watching Mike Piazza giving hitting tips on TV one day and he said one of the main things he thinks about is getting his hands inside the ball. he said to do this, you have to drive your back elbow into your rib cage area and rotate with it staying to your side."
I replied, agreed with kac and questioned why Mike's and my posts had been deleted.
Mike Epstein's reply
"Hi Major Dan –
>I had my post deleted because I posted information which I thought might be "confusing." My apologies to you and others.
>My next article in Collegiate Baseball News addresses this, what I call the “third” core mechanical movement in the swing. So, I’ll be brief here.
>The kinetic link works in conjunction with the hands staying inside the ball, which means the hands and bat remain close to the body during upper body rotation. For this to occur, the rear elbow MUST tuck in on the approach. The hand path stays circular until the hips begin to decelerate and the torso has received its maximum momentum transfer. >Extension occurs as the swing nears the appropriate contact zone, which is dependent on pitch location.
>The hands and bat travel in a circular movement as they follow the rotating upper body, with the barrel dropping below the hands on the approach to contact. The bat head will always be below the hands at contact—unless the player swings at a pitch above his letters—at which point the barrel of the bat could be higher than his hands as he attempts to get on the plane of the pitch.
>The “key” is to not let either arm “pre-extend” in the approach. "
Seems to me, Mike spent some time at Batspeed and here, doing some quick research. He now has a third core mechanical principle.
On one hand, its nice to see he is learning. On the other hand, this is unabashed revisionism and plagarism of the highest order.
I can't wait to read his article. It will probably spare Jack Mankin the trouble of having to publish his own ideas.
Posted by PaulNyman at March 31, 2005 03:35 PM