Bobby

Hank Aaron is usually the first example I use when I hear coaches say a smaller player cannot hit homeruns and should hit the ball on the ground and that trying to teac them a high level swing is a waist of time (yes, i hear it all the time, wonder when coaches will start doing a little research hear in central NC) I read comments from players during his era say that Hank Aaron would sometimes wait until the ball was nearly in the carchers mitt and still hit it out of the park. I think he was just late on the pitch and his ability to get on pitch plane and early acceleration allowed him to be significantly late and still hit the ball hard. Thanks for the excellent info.

Joe

Well, it is hard to criticize two of the all-time greats, especially Henry Aaron. But, here goes.

Aaron does have a significant linear component to his swing with his long stride. He also skips his back foot into contact to get his back hip into his swing, adding additional momentum.

Kaline said that Aaron just “flicked his wrists.” I don’t believe that gave him his power, which was a huge misconception in the 1960s. He did so because he found himself lunging due to his long stride, which in and of itself is not a bad thing. Though he did keep his hands back, doing that with his wrists was a way of him compensating for his foward movement. He had some down and in movement with his front shoulder on his take away but not to the extent that Ted Williams had (the subject of a previous article). This may have contributed to his being prone to lunging, since he had nothing in reserve, not conserving angular momentum.

Nevertheless, Aaron’s inability to tilt behind his rotational axis at foot plant caused his lunging and his reliance on “flicking his wrists.” He was not behind the ball to use the leverage that would be created by the stiffening of the front leg and the body getting behind his axis.

Kaline barred his front arm early in his take away and I think that this prevented him from getting on the pitch plane for lower pitches, thus the many line drives and ground balls in the contest. He said that he was not hitting the bottom half of the ball. This might have been the reason since the rigidity of the early arm bar prevented him from using a softer front elbow to aid in getting on pitch plane. He was stepping into the bucket a bit, which might have been the consequence of his early arm bar, a way of compensating for it.

However, both Aaron and Kaline were able to get on pitch plane early and stay on it. Kaline just was able to get the lift necessary to hit more home runs that day. Aaron’s lunging produced a lot of pop ups.

George

Stop the madness!!! LOL … I’m not trying to be mean, it’s just … Geeeez guys… Have you not heard the following: You don’t hit with power by using your arms. No more than you use your arm for powering the ball in pitching. Of course, you CAN hit with your arms — but why would you?

It is just physics…

The way out of this quagmire is to lay down all the baggage — all the preconceived notions that people have from the moment they pick up their first bat, and swing it with their arms.

Joey Myers

I totally agree Bobby. Looking at the smaller hitters that hit like the big ones should be where our focus goes.

Joey Myers

Joe, interesting point on Aaron not taking the front shoulder in and down towards the back hip as much as Williams…and your reasoning for him “lunging” at times, having to rely on flicking his wrist. I think Aaron and today’s Bautista have a lot in common. But I think Bautista does better at tilting his center axis of rotation. Too bad Bautista didn’t figure this “hitting thing” out sooner, because he really could have made a run at Aaron’s career homer mark.

Joey Myers

George, I agree. There’s a study I’ll share in a future post that measured – using muscle activation sensors – muscles firing off during the swing of professional and MLB players. In short, there was little to no muscle activation in the forearm muscles during the whole swing. The triceps where the only “arm” muscles to have any significant spike.

Jon Ball

I have always considered Hank Aaron as an anomaly. He was such a great athlete that he could get away with his over active wrists and still square up many, many pitches. But I believe he was truly one of a kind and I stay away from his videos as much as possible in my teaching.

Joe

Joey,

Look at Aaron’s upper body and head position. He drifts forward with his stride and by the strict definition of lunging, he’s doing it. He keeps his hands back enough to still hit. If when his front foot planted/heel dropped he went back with his upper body behind his axis, he wouldn’t have lunged so much. On most of his swings in this clip, he was on his axis. On some, he is over/in front of his axis.

Joe

George and Joey,

No one is advocating hitting with your arms, at least not me. I am just commenting on what Al Kaline commented on as far as Aaron’s swing goes, which can be seen in the HR Derby clip.

Jeff

How’d you like to be that pitcher lobbing the ball in 60 feet away with no screen??

The power they generate really speaks to how valuable weight transfer can be, to me. I see a lot of youth hitters “sit and spin” or stay back too much. Their rotation is good, their hands are good (bat path) etc. but the generate no power. Many (most?) hitting instructors hate long strides or even leg kicks. One of my players kicks his leg like Matt Holliday, you should hear the gripes I get from others.

I firmly believe pitching approaches have changed over time. Even in this era, many pitchers still stayed up in the zone and tried to overpower hitters. Sweeping swings (early on plane, but at a lost of rotational quickness) worked. Jackie Robinson’s swing was the ultimate sweep. Can you find any video of him hitting a low an outside pitch?

Today is different. Pitchers stay down and away most of the time and change speeds more often. So we have to be quicker rotationally resulting in the swings we see today.

I do think we can learn the power of weight transfer from this video, specifically getting off that back leg/foot and incorporate this concept into our teachings.