Is Wrapping the Bat ALWAYS bad?

[tominct]

Last night I was showing my kids (7-8's) some of steve posture stuff, and then working a little off the tee. For many, the lesson seemed lost on them, the minute they swung their bat, it was the same thing, Straight but, huge strides, immediate disconnection. However for this one little guy, the second smallest guy on the team, he really tried to get it. However, when he loaded he would wrap the bat pretty seriously around his head, but his turn was good, his connection better that every other player, believe it or not, and his balance was very good. Should I let the bat wrap go for now? He has some confidence issues, and he needs some positive reinforcement, I don't want to belabor the negative, his father does enough of that.

Tom

[Chris O'Leary]

However, when he loaded he would wrap the bat pretty seriously around his head, but his turn was good, his connection better that every other player, believe it or not, and his balance was very good. Should I let the bat wrap go for now? He has some confidence issues, and he needs some positive reinforcement, I don't want to belabor the negative, his father does enough of that.


In my opinion it's always problematic, but it doesn't always hurt a kid.

Until he gets to kid pitch and kids start to really bring it (e.g. 10 YO), he'll probably be able to get by since the lower ball speed makes high bat speed relatively less important. However, it's something that's going to have to be fixed at some point.

The problem is that the longer he does it, the harder it will be to break the habit.

[Ursa Major]

Tom, it's hard to assess it without seeing a clip of the kid, so all we can do is to give you some criteria and rely on your obviously pretty good judgment to monitor what he's doing. How close to parallel to the ground is the bat? If it doesn't go below 45 degrees, you're probably okay. If it looks like the backswing of John Daly (the golfer), he's gone overboard.

The key question is whether he's getting around on the ball in time. If he is, it probably isn't a critical problem yet.

Many kids his age are too tentative and short with their pre-loads. I'd rather have a kid who overdoes it and then have to reign him in, than have the opposite.

Another issue is his back elbow position. If it starts pretty high (say, it's almost as high as the middle of his rear shoulder), the natural tendency of the elbow to drop during the first part of the swing should bring the bathead into the correct swing plane. If his rear elbow is low, it'll be darn near impossible to bring the bathead around in time and in the right swing plane, and he'll have a weak hand position to boot.

[tominct]

Another issue is his back elbow position. If it starts pretty high (say, it's almost as high as the middle of his rear shoulder), the natural tendency of the elbow to drop during the first part of the swing should bring the bathead into the correct swing plane. If his rear elbow is low, it'll be darn near impossible to bring the bathead around in time and in the right swing plane, and he'll have a weak hand position to boot.

Im not sure I follow this. It is better then, to have the back elbow higher than lower? If its low, wouldn't a proper load raise the elbow? This kid's elbow is lower, rather than higher.

Tom

[CoachZee]

I have a girl on our team who wraps the bat behind her head. She is the best hitter on the team, makes good contact and has power. I leave her alone. If it ain't broke don't fix it.

Her high school coach mentioned it to her and I told her if she has trouble catching up to a pitch that would be the place to start but until then keep doing what you are doing.

[Ursa Major]

Im not sure I follow this. It is better then, to have the back elbow higher than lower? If its low, wouldn't a proper load raise the elbow? This kid's elbow is lower, rather than higher. If he persists in wrapping the bat, the negative effects on his swing will be more pronounced if the elbow is low than if it is high. That doesn't address the question of whether the elbow in all instances should be "high" or "low" (which is hard to define since you and I may have different views of what "high" and "low" is). And, yes, a proper load should raise the elbow a little bit, but kids at that age tend not to load much (or if they do, it's usually more horizontally than vertically).

Anyway, much of the point of raising the rear elbow is to avoid other bad affects. If he's staying connected, not dragging the bat and keeping a one-plane swing, the bat wrapping and elbow probably are nothing to worry about this year. There's only so much new shtuff that kids can absorb within a given period.

[tom.guerry]

tom-

The wrapping kid is probably (see this a lot as learning phase) trying to "naturally" do the Benyi type swing.

Wrapping is a way of creating upper body resistance so there is a better coil. This keeps the stride from being excessive. You can't do this aspect of a high level mlb pattern with passive upper body resistance/excessive middle focus.

You need good upper body resistance to middle action to get in the high level ballpark like Benyi, but this is still not the mlb type swing where the upper body resistance is created by arm action torquing the bat handle (easier to do with vertical bat/plane transition during rubber band winding as you "rotate into toe touch"), then by shoulder "tilt" in the "drop and tilt".

The progression can be compared to the evolution of the golf swing.

This "wrapping" high level swing is like a single plane golf swing,and is on the road to the high level mlb swing. Just as in golf:

The single plane swing creates too much separation between hips and torso and not enough coil/stretch/cusp just prior to launch. This is fine for golf, but not optimal for hitting where there has to be better sweetspot control and a quicker swing.The lower body and hip action is compatible with the mlb swing which is why it's on the road.

The next step would be the 2 plane golf swing where there is more hips and hands action with better cusp formation and less hip to shoulder separation.

The final step is the addition of the shoulder tilt which finishes creating cusp and plane adjustment.

The mlb swing always has the same pattern which requires focus on learning to "wind the rubber band" and then how to "drop and tilt". Put in context, the mlb swing always has the same sequence:

1- inward turn which gets hip action in sequence and turns the body back for abiliuty to create a plane that will match/compress the ball location better - don't fotget this when teaching or you get the dead stop hitter

2-hip cock - there will be some of this in the batwrap/single plane swing

3- hand cok - there will be some of this in the batwrap/single plane swing

4- rubber band winding - none of this until you go 2 plane/plane transition/arm action torquing handle - this is necessary preparation for next phase

5- drop and tilt - none of this except in MLB swing, but you have to have the rubber band winding coil underway (rotating into toe touch) then superimposed on this, you have to creat a further upper body ressitance/stretch/coil/cusp by tilitng the shoulders as the hips turn to max momentum.


If you take the road of eliminating the "wrap" of the bat and also eliminate adequate upper body coil/resistance along with it (dead hands), you will get a very different lower body/hip sequence, moreso if the initial backward hip coil of the inward turn is omitted. (dead hands no stride will force spin/body sequences incompatible with high level pattern/coil/cusp/uncoil).

Then you will be heading to an entirely different spinhook pattern supporting an entirely different set of resulting swing planes that have to be set early (early adjustment) and tend to cut across the path of the ball more (poor compression/poor "plane match"/shrunken contact zone) with more gradual acceleration to max batspeed (late batspeed).

You might find a Benyi type as a role model because the basic pattern is high level and fits well with bat on deltoid type swing to help control connection. This will be as good a "batwrapping/flat bat" pattern as you will find.

Note she wraps the bat by pinching the back scap while the front/stride foot "shows sole" during the "carry". What she is missing is the "rotation into toe touch" (no "rubberband winding"/synchronized back arm/lead leg external rotation as in "keeping the elbow up" and loading for overhand throw) which then makes a good "drop and tilt" impossible.More like a golf swing where there is plenty of time and no need for late adjustment so shoulder tilt is avoided.

Then you just have to learn the high level arm action which is best learned from a good overhand throw and then carried over to hitting. Buster explains this action well in the OAffie Advise II thread.

[Mark H]

I have a girl on our team who wraps the bat behind her head. She is the best hitter on the team, makes good contact and has power. I leave her alone. If it ain't broke don't fix it.

Her high school coach mentioned it to her and I told her if she has trouble catching up to a pitch that would be the place to start but until then keep doing what you are doing.

What's her frame count? If it's pretty quick...