I haven’t posted in a long while yet people sometimes find this blog…they don’t comment but they read a little.
One thing that bothers me is when coaches tell kids to take the knob to the ball. Proper hip rotation pulls the hands in an oval/circular hand path. Neither power nor bat speed is facilitated by taking the knob to the ball.
I’ve used a boxing analogy before and it is apt here as well. Imagine throwing a right handed punch directly at your opponent and then veering it off to the left as contact is made. Huh? Doesn’t make sense. No, it does not. You’re trying to combine a jab with an uppercut or roundhouse punch. While the jab is quicker it lacks the power of the latter two types of punches.
The best swing is one where the hands are held back with hips rotating before the hands. With proper torque the hands more or less go along for the ride when the turn of the shoulders takes place after hip rotation.
This definitely does provide more power and it gives the added benefit of giving the batter more time to judge the speed, type and location of the pitch. Your hands and resulting swing are the only thing that can be adjusted to those three factors. Because movement is initiated before the pitch leaves the pitchers hand you cannot adjust your stride or anything else besides the hands and when they move.
