Posted by: THG () on Wed Jan 30 20:03:15 2008

> >>> Jack. I understand and respect your concern with regard to teaching the high level swing. But in this case Bob will benefit from Schmidt's knowledge shared in his book. Mike Schmidt is regarded as the best third baseman in the history of the game and had numerous homerun titles. So one might assume he had a high level swing in addition to knowing a thing or two about hitting consistently and for power.<<<
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> Hi THG
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> I am sure there are areas in Schmidt’s book that may help Bob and other aspiring hitters. However, just because MLB hitters have high level swing does not necessarily mean that how they view their swing mechanics should be taken as gospel. In many cases, video analyze reveals something very different from what they describe.
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> Below is a story from an earlier discussion we had on that topic.
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> "Always, when this conversation arises, I remember a story Don Slaught told me about talking w/ Barry Bonds about his swing. Bonds said he "was hitting all right, but didn't think he was swinging down sharply enough to contact." Slaught told him that in fact, like all MLB hitters, he swung UP to contact. Bonds vehemently denied the possibility of this. Slaught used RVP {Right View Pro} to convince Bonds, and later heard him walk up to ARod at the All Star Game batting practice and say, "Alex, you know you don't swing down to the ball, right?"
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> Jack Mankin


Jack. I agree with you 100%. And to a great degree many times a good hitter will describe good hitting much like Yogi Berra might explain an analogy. But with regard to Schmidt he may not have actually swung down, but if he indeed had an upswing it was slight. In addition his follow through was not up for the most part. He was much more of a line drive homerun hitter than the flyball hitters we see today.

On the otherside we should remember that most major league players have "A" level talent but not "A" level mechanics. And what makes a great hitter is his ability to get to a solid launch position that promotes consistent hard contact which results in ABOVE AVERAGE RESULTS. Without the results, it does not matter how good the technique looks.