Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Tue Jan 15 15:43:06 2008

>>> Jack,
That is exactly the reason when I did a frame by frame analysis. He looked liked arod did on the reverse wrist roll. What can he do to correct that? <<<

Hi Mike

To understand what generates a clean swing plane, you must first understand that it is the rotation of the shoulders that accelerates the arms, hands and bat around the plane. When the hands, lead-arm and bat are in the same plane when the power of shoulder rotation is initiated, their accelerating trajectories will remain in-line to produce a clean swing plane. -- However, flaws in the plane will occur if the power of shoulder rotation is initiated with the hands, bat or both are not in the plane of the lead-arm.

Batters who initiate THT and shoulder rotation from the normal launch position (hands at the back shoulder and bat behind their head) already have everything fairly well in-line and usually have few flaws in their plane during rotation. Problems with the plane are more prevalent with batter who start with their bat cocked forward and use PLT to accelerate the bat-head rearward to the normal launch position.

Although applying PLT correctly does offer benefits, there are also a number of problems that occur when applied incorrectly. From the video sent to me for analysis, I find two main flaws in their mechanics. (1) Initiating shoulder rotation with their hands above their back shoulder. The hands should be at the shoulder in the swing plane or waves will occur as the resulting trajectories attempt to line up. (2) Accelerating the bat-head back to vertically so that it cuts down through the plane instead of sweeping behind their head into the plane of the lead-arm (as we saw in the A-Rod clip).

Accelerating the bat-head back to vertically occurs because:
(1) Pulling the top-hand to straight back instead of also rolling the wrist to sweep the bat behind their head (through the normal launch position) as they pull back.
(2) Starting with their axis of rotation more vertical and then tilting the axis rearward to attain rearward acceleration of the bat. This can aid in rearward acceleration. However, in to many cases, the acceleration is to vertically straight back and the bat cuts down through the plane.

Jack Mankin