That flat plane advice is terrible.

Gene Watson has been at it for a long time so I'm going to go with his opinion on this.

96ags said:

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Gene Watson has been at it for a long time so I'm going to go with his opinion on this.

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maybe it is time for his "farewell party"

AustinCountyAg said:

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96ags said:

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Gene Watson has been at it for a long time so I'm going to go with his opinion on this.

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maybe it is time for his "farewell party"

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The Royals and the A's organizations seem to disagree with you.

96ags said:

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AustinCountyAg said:

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96ags said:

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Gene Watson has been at it for a long time so I'm going to go with his opinion on this.

---

maybe it is time for his "farewell party"

---

The Royals and the A's organizations seem to disagree with you.

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you and the poster who starred your post....

AustinCountyAg said:

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96ags said:

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AustinCountyAg said:

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96ags said:

---

Gene Watson has been at it for a long time so I'm going to go with his opinion on this.

---

maybe it is time for his "farewell party"

---

The Royals and the A's organizations seem to disagree with you.

---

you and the poster who starred your post....

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Touch . While I was alive in 1978 when that song was released, I obviously wasn't paying enough attention.

Completely agree, but that's not what these kids see in their experience and they aren't dumb.

Coaches and Scouts look at metrics for projectability. Almost all of he time this is the deciding factor in scouting a kid....does not matter how he plays, does not matter how he performs in certain situations, does not matter how well he knows the game.

I won't argue the flat plane or whatever. My interpretation was basic bat to ball skills which are lacking in the game today. Coaches should focus on their hitters making solid contact versus all or nothing swings and pitchers being able to work a strike zone versus blow it by everyone.

10andBOUNCE said:

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I won't argue the flat plane or whatever. My interpretation was basic bat to ball skills which are lacking in the game today. Coaches should focus on their hitters making solid contact versus all or nothing swings and pitchers being able to work a strike zone versus blow it by everyone.

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The whole discussion over swing plane and flat plane is so often miscommunicated or misunderstood. It's shorthand to convey the bat path that's both the quickest to the ball and keeps the head of the bat in the contact zone the longest. Good coaches know the difference however there are tons and tons of youth coaches who exaggerate the path to have much more of an uppercut which leaves big holes in the swing.

These are the left-hand and right-hand views from Ted Williams's book The Science Of Hitting which is still the bible of hitting.





The issue is that too many kids and youth coaches think a "slight upswing" means "uppercut" and that's what they teach. There's a lot of so-called "experts" out there who are actually bad coaches teaching poor fundamentals.

Sean Casey knows a little about hitting as he was a career .300 hitter and .814 OPS- I love his breakdown of Yordan's swing here.



For righties I love the Frank Thomas's swing. He's probably top-5 in right-handed hitters ever. Pujols is probably #1 but I like how Thomas was so calm & still with his upper half.



Those swings are fine examples for kids to mimic, IMHO. But there's definitely a lack of teaching kids to shorten up their swing and put the ball in play, especially with 2 strikes which is evident on up the ladder. The pros have the bat control to do things to beat the shift but I guess the analytics don't support playing for base hits and going station-to-station. I'm not sure I buy that but that's the argument. And because of that, kids are generally taught to go up to the plate and take daddy-hacks.