There is a lot that goes into a good swing, probably a thousand things. However, there are 2 main pillars, I call them my non-negotiables, when it comes to swing mechanics. Those are proper kinetic sequencing and a bat path that moves up through the zone. The reason for these 2 non-negotiables is that I have yet to work with or study a good hitter, regardless of level who didn't do these 2 things. Today, I want to focus on the bat path. While this is a topic I have written a ton on, I wanted to attack it from a different angle today. Rather than explain the nuts and bolts of the bat moving up (you can check that out here), I wanted to talk about the myths surrounding an uphill bat path and why players, parent and coaches still are convinced.
I wanted to start by having you watch this video,
Now, let's pretend that you have never played, coached or even watched baseball before. Which way is the bat moving as it meets the ball?
It is moving up.
So why do some people not accept this?
Confirmation Bias
It is called confirmation bias or the tendency to believe previous held beliefs even in the face of evidence to the contrary. Essentially, the longer you believe something, the harder it is to break away from those beliefs. In the baseball world, many players, parents and coaches were told for a long time that the bat moved down or level through the zone. Therefore, it is harder to believe anything different. I was told for most of my career that the bat moved down. I worked really hard at moving the bat down and it wasn't until I was able to change my thinking, found any success at the plate. However, the acceptance that I had been taught wrong and spent many, many hours practicing mistakes was hard to accept. Unfortunately, many people are never able to break away from their hard held beliefs.
Now, let's say that you believe what your eyes and logic tell you, why do some people still struggle with the idea of the bat moving up rather than down or level? Let's explore some of the reasons.
Debunking Myths
Myth #1: Swinging up will cause pop ups
Probably the # 1 thing that people around baseball don't understand is why pop ups happen. I was told for the majority of my career that every time a ball went too high in the air that I had an uppercut to my swing, or I dropped my shoulder. So, what would I do? I would work down and focus on not dropping my shoulder. And what happened? More weak pop ups.
Fast forward to my career as a hitting coach. I now had access thanks to newer technology that allowed me to see every swing that my hitters took during a training session. And what did I see? Every weak pop up was a result of the bat moving either too level or down through the zone. How was that possible? Check out the video below and this article.
Myth #2: Only big leaguers do that
Another response that I get when people will disagree with the bat moving up is that only high-level hitters do that or can do that. Again, this doesn't hold up to scrutiny when you break it down. The main reason for moving the bat up is to meet the plane of the incoming pitch and give the hitter the best possible chance of squaring up the ball. The second reason is that if a hitter can match the plane of the pitch and square the ball up, it increases the likelihood that a hitter can hit a line drive. Both of these should be the main goals of any hitter, regardless of level.
Not only should every hitter regardless of level have an incline path to their swing, but I can also make a case that younger hitters actually should have more of an uphill angle to their swing path than Major Leaguers. Why? The angle of the incoming pitch at the Major League level will be on a less declined angle than the pitches that younger players face. Why? MLB pitchers throw significantly harder. One of the biggest factors in the angle of the pitch is velocity. The harder a pitcher throws, the flatter the angle of the incoming pitch. So, a pitcher who throws 95 mph will throw a pitch that moves down less than a 10-year-old who throws 45 mph, thus creating more of a need for the bat to move up through the hitting zone.
Can the bat actually work up too much?
Yes. Do we see it very often? No. Every once and a while we will see a hitter who legitimately uppercuts too much. I call these players unicorns because they are very rare. If a player lands in a good launch position, it is virtually impossible to get the bat moving up too much through the zone. A hitter has less than 1/3 of a second to react to the incoming pitch and from a good launch position does not have enough time to get the bat to actually move up too much. So, the hitters who actually uppercut too much struggle with getting to a good launch position. When these hitters land in their launch position, almost all of their weight is on the back side, and they start dropping the back side way too early in the swing. This is the only way that a hitter can create too uphill of a swing path.
Conclusion
Getting hitters to move the bat up through the zone rather than level or down is the aspect of mechanics that has helped the thousands of players we have worked with more than just about anything. I would estimate that 9 out of every 10 players we see don't move the bat up when we first evaluate them. When they start doing it, they see some pretty incredible results in both consistency and power. After all, I truly believe that getting the bat to work up through the zone, on the path of the incoming pitch, is the most important aspect of hitting. However, there are still people out there who cannot accept that this is what good hitters, regardless of level do.
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