Rotational Rubbish

[Rydell]

I am new to this site, however I am curious as to why many seemingly intelligent baseball bloggers/instructors think rotational machanics is the Rosetta Stone to cure most baseball swings. I realize that in all stick & ball motions, the body rotates and through impact quite rapidly. However, I feel that this concept can be OVERDONE, especially when rotating B4 the front foot plants.

[PhilliesPhan22]

I like my over simplified theory on hitting...see ball, hit ball

[jbooth]

I am new to this site, however I am curious as to why many seemingly intelligent baseball bloggers/instructors think rotational machanics is the Rosetta Stone to cure most baseball swings. I realize that in all stick & ball motions, the body rotates and through impact quite rapidly. However, I feel that this concept can be OVERDONE, especially when rotating B4 the front foot plants.

You don't rotate the shoulders before foot plant, but you better get the hips going first, and have them (and the legs) be the force that rotates the torso and accelerates the bat, if you want to hit it hard and get maximum batspeed.
You rotate in what I term, HHH, the sequence of the primary objects that move is;
Hips, Handle (with back shoulder), and bat Head. Of course, you have to rotate CORRECTLY, but the harder you rotate, the farther the ball goes. You can rotate improperly, but I don't think you can OVERDO rotation.

Would you tell these guys to stop rotating before front foot plant?

[jbooth]

I like my over simplified theory on hitting...see ball, hit ball

If your vision is good, you can see the ball, but if you don't have body control and proper movement of the bat, you may not hit the ball, and if you do, you may not hit it very hard.

The goal is to; see ball, and hit ball hard, often, and you can't do that by just flailing away in any old fashion.

[Jake Patterson]

I am new to this site, however I am curious as to why many seemingly intelligent baseball bloggers/instructors think rotational machanics is the Rosetta Stone to cure most baseball swings. I realize that in all stick & ball motions, the body rotates and through impact quite rapidly. However, I feel that this concept can be OVERDONE, especially when rotating B4 the front foot plants.

I think you need to go back and read some old threads. There is a reason so many instructors are teaching it and it ain't because it don't work.

[Mark H]

I am new to this site, however I am curious as to why many seemingly intelligent baseball bloggers/instructors think rotational machanics is the Rosetta Stone to cure most baseball swings. I realize that in all stick & ball motions, the body rotates and through impact quite rapidly. However, I feel that this concept can be OVERDONE, especially when rotating B4 the front foot plants.

I'm aware of at least four definitions of "rotational mechanics" depending on who you talk to. The term is pretty much useless now that so many have approrpiated it for their own marketing purposes so I have no idea whether I agree with you or not. My goal is to learn from the best. However, even with that as the gold standard there is much disagreement about what we see when we look at a clip of a MLB hitter. IOW, you are WAY late to the argument. That discussion happened about ten or fifteen years ago. What's efficient and effective and how do you get kids better today than they were yesterday without teaching them something that will have to be undone rather than added to. That's the question. As the kids would say, the word "rotational" is really kind of yesterday IMO. Now if you'd like to define what you mean by rotational, that could be a discussion.

[Chris O'Leary]

I realize that in all stick & ball motions, the body rotates and through impact quite rapidly. However, I feel that this concept can be OVERDONE, especially when rotating B4 the front foot plants.

I don't disagree.

However, this isn't unique to rotational mechanics. People can do this wrong regardless of how they hit.

[korp]

Rotation should definitely not start until the front foot is down.

[jbooth]

Rotation should definitely not start until the front foot is down.

Rotation of what? Did you even look at the 10 video .gifs that I posted above?

Their pelvic bone has started moving in a rotational manner before the front foot is fully weighted.

The hips start rotation before the front foot is fully weighted, and then the rotation is finished with all the weight on the front foot.

[Mark H]

Yep, if you watch frame by frame you'll often see hitters with both heels in the air at the same time due to pelvic rotation. Hopefully the back hip joint never quits moving forward till it's finished rotating.

[MarkL]

Yeager's printouts will tell you all you need to know about hip rotation and when/ how it occurs.

[MarkL]

with both heels in the air at the same time due to pelvic rotation.

That's funny--the hips are pulling the heels off the ground...Sounds like that middle-out garbage SE continues to revise....

[Mark H]

Maybe you should watch more video of elite hitters?

[MarkL]

The back heel coming up is a result of the "back-leg-push"

NOT from the hips pulling it off the ground..---as you SE and nybong/pcr posse believe...

[Jake Patterson]

I'm aware of at least four definitions of "rotational mechanics" depending on who you talk to. The term is pretty much useless now ....

I would assume Rydell is implying rotational versus linear. Not Rotational A versus Rotational B... I could be wrong.