Point of contact Revolution

That’s a lot of talk about the Fly ball Revolution that is taking over Major League Baseball over the past several seasons I started to think abput the idea that maybe it wasn’t all about launching the ball in general. Maybe the real idea behind the revolution is that players are no longer sitting back and waiting to make contact with the baseball.

This waiting to hit the ball deep could be one of the main Exit Velocity drains on hitters. Could it be that hitters have dared to see how far in front of home plate they can get the baseball and that is the real missing story of the Fly Ball Revolution?

I am by far not the first person to even speculate this idea but I want to really consider this when we work with hitter. The above graphic is from HitTrax and looks at different types of contact that Major League hitters make. We see that the chart shows that groundballs come from hitting the ball deep in zone. While most line drives and flyballs come from going to hit the baseball in front of home plate.

Why would this be the case? May people have pointed out from Bob Keys to Francisco Lindor that the bat must go down first before it comes up. Why would this happen? The bat is too heavy to swing with the head held high for too long.

So if we refer back to that graph from before we can see that the bat may not have enough time to start it’s ascent upward to elevate the baseball.

Two examples of the fact that the bat must go down before move upward. If you look at Ted Williams graphic above you can see that either swinging level or upward both strokes force a downward path. Baseballs that are contacted deep can’t be put I to the air. But as the swing is moved forward in front of the plate you can see that the bat gets elevated.

Good look from Blast Motion above. The goal possibly to elevate the baseball maybe to catch the ball in front of the plate where the swing is more conducive to getting the ball elevated.

The graphic from HitTrax makes sense when you consider the drop and elevation of the baseball bat during the swing. The main take away is that we as coaches should be encouraging our players to go get the baseball in front of home plate. Don’t sit back and try to poke one to the opposite field. Go get it and do damage into the air.