What Causes Ground Balls?

[Chris O'Leary]

Hitting the top of the ball or the bottom of the ball?

I'd be interested in people's opinions, and will explain why I ask in a bit.

[Jhall8]

Why do I feel like this is a trick question?

I'll say top.......

[Standballdad]

Depends on the plane of the bat at contact. They both can produce ground balls

[bbrages]

Depends on whether the pitcher is "throwing a heavy ball" or not.

[ck_bolts]

African or European?

[Switch_Hitter_29]

Why do most hitters hit more ground balls to the pull side and more fly balls to the opposite field?

Look at the defensive shifts teams are doing in the big leagues now....

[JCincy]

Everything else being equal... striking the top of the ball will cause more ground balls than striking the bottom.

Gravity + velocity of the pitch + the velocity of the swing can impact the "flight" of the baseball.

[dominik]

Many people make the mistake to think about center, bottom, top of the ball at a point on the outside of the ball.

but what acutally does matter is the COG of the ball.

If the vector of the swing passes below the center it will go up (and have backspin) and hit above it will go down (and have topspin). the swing plane doesn't really matter here in the first place although of course it influences the likelyhood of an outcome a lot.

I made a graphic with different swing planes


read lines will cause backspin and black lines topspin

[tg643]

When daddy ground balls and mommy ground balls don't use protection.

[Standballdad]

Many people make the mistake to think about center, bottom, top of the ball at a point on the outside of the ball.

but what acutally does matter is the COG of the ball.

If the vector of the swing passes below the center it will go up (and have backspin) and hit above it will go down (and have topspin). the swing plane doesn't really matter here in the first place although of course it influences the likelyhood of an outcome a lot.

I made a graphic with different swing planes


read lines will cause backspin and black lines topspin

Disagree, plane swing does matter. I can hit ground balls with a fungo hitting the bottom half of the ball all day long.

[songtitle]

If you hit the top... with backspin, it will backspin to the ground - with topspin, it will topspin to the ground.

What do I win?

/ of course, they all eventually hit the ground. Bonus points?

Hit the top (adapted from Dr Nathan)


Hit the bottom

[dominik]

Disagree, plane swing does matter. I can hit ground balls with a fungo hitting the bottom half of the ball all day long.

of course it does matter-because the chance of hitting the bottom is much higher with an uppercut. but it's not the swingplane itself causing the flight.

often the biggest uppercutters tend to roll over a lot and hit many GBs.

[Standballdad]

of course it does matter-because the chance of hitting the bottom is much higher with an uppercut. but it's not the swingplane itself causing the flight.

often the biggest uppercutters tend to roll over a lot and hit many GBs.

I think we are talking by each other. The original question was what causes a ground ball? Hitting the top half or bottom half of the ball. My answer was either one depending on swing plane. If you swing plane is horizontal to the ground and you hit it with enough force it will not produce a regular ground ball in the infield. If your swing plane is down to the ball at a severe enough angle a ground ball can be produced depending on how below center you strike the ball and amount of force.

[real green]

Disagree, plane swing does matter. I can hit ground balls with a fungo hitting the bottom half of the ball all day long.

I would like to see that.

Bottom half and back half are different.

I logically cannot see it possible to conact the bottom half of the ball and the ball not exit in a upward path.

Take a beach ball and broom stick. How can you make a beach ball exit a broom stick in a downard path without hitting the top half of the ball? I don't think it's possible.

[azmatsfan]

Is the answer to this question going to be the punchline of a dirty joke involving a coffee grinder?