Pt. of contact on balls on outside pitches

[skipper5]

The Hanson Principle-- Is there any way of proving or disproving that the majority of MLB hitters actually allow the outside pitch to travel extra deep before contact?

IMO, slow-mo overhead video would prove that most MLB hitters have a similar location of contact for a pitch on the outer part of the plate as they do for a pitch right down the middle.

Our local batting academy use tees that have 3 different positions--out front, even, and deep.

I think there are two contact locations--more or less even with the front foot for middle and for away, and out-in-front on inside pitches (for most hitters; some keep the hands in and let the inside pitch travel until it's even w/ the front foot).

[scorekeeper]

Better look out skip, you’re gettin’ close to heresy. ;)

I’m just gonna make a guess here and say that there are probably as many contact points as there are possible permutations of the all the factors.

[dominik]

Those tees just exaggerate the deeper contact, zou don|t reallz contact that far behind.
But getting it too deep is not very often a problem on outside pitches.
So it's just a teaching tool.

The purpose of letting it deep is shortening the swing. If you pull an outside pitch the swing get's long and you hit around the ball.

Since the outside ball is farther away from you, you can't afford having that longer swing.
Letting it go deeper allows you to from your shoulder to the outside corner instead of going out front. This allows you to maintain the same swing length.
If you go to the front AND outside your swing will be longer then going directly to the outside, since going diagonal is longer(pythagorean theorem).

But of course this is just theory and in a game this often varies.

[scorekeeper]

dominik ,

I’m afraid I don’t understand that post at all.

[dominik]

I will try to make a graphic later to illustrate my point.