The Major League Swing

How The Best Hitters In The

World Actually Swing The Bat

Chris O’Leary
4/2/2008

Last Updated 4/2/2008

CONTACT INFORMATION
thepainguy@gmail.com
314.494.1324 - Cell
www.chrisoleary.com

Text Copyright © 2006-2008 Chris O’Leary

PHOTO INTERPRETATION 101
One thing I have learned from studying literally thousands of
photos and video clips of baseball players is that you have to be
very careful when doing this. The problem is that you can find a
photo that will illustrate any theory of hitting, regardless of how
crazy, if you look hard enough. As a result, if you want to come
to an understanding of things as they actually are, you have to
do three things.
First, you have to understand the context of the photo you are
looking at. All of the photos in this document are good swing. By
that I mean that 90 percent of them show home run swings and
the rest show doubles or triples. The problem with too many
theories of hitting is that they are based on photos that do not
represent a hitter’s best swing.
Second, you have to understand the moment in time that the
photo represents. Things happen very quickly in a good baseball
swing, and if you are going to draw the correct conclusions you
have to understand when are where you are in a swing. For that
reason, most of the photos in this document represent moments
right around the point of contact.
Third, you have to compare what you see in a given photo to
what you see in a video clip of the same person’s swing. For that
reason, this document contains both still photos and frames from
a video clip of Albert Pujols’ swing.
INTRODUCTION
Like most people, when my boys got older and I started
coaching them and their baseball teams, I taught them
what I was taught. That means swinging level,
swinging down at the ball, extension and making the
Power V at the point of contact, squishing the bug,
and things like that.
This worked just fine when my kids were young.
However, as they got older their batting averages started
to drop. It seemed like the more I coached and worked
with them, the worse they hit. What’s more, the
headstrong kids who wouldn’t listen to me seemed to
be the only ones who were hitting well.
After a couple of months of avoiding these problems, I
decided that I didn’t know as much about hitting as I
thought I did. I decided I needed to educate myself by
studying the swings of great hitters and rebuild my ideas
about hitting from the ground up.
In studying the swings of great hitters like Albert Pujols,
I quickly started to notice that they did something that
was very different than what I was taught and was
teaching. In the photo on the right, which shows Albert
Pujols hitting a home run, notice how he is not swinging
level, he is not extended and making the Power V at the
point of contact, and he is not squishing the bug.
I have put this document together to explain what I
have learned that the best hitters in the world actually do
and how that differs from what I, and many other people,
were taught.
LEVEL SWING?
If you hang out at a youth ballpark, one cue you will frequently hear coaches tell their hitters is
“Level swing” or “Swing level”. Sometimes, you will also hear coaches tell their hitters to stay
stacked, or upright, through the point of contact. However, if you look at photos of the good
swings of major league hitters, you will see that they pretty much never swing level to the ground
and they don’t stay stacked. Instead, they tilt over the plate and keep their hands above the
head of the bat. This is true both for balls down in the strike zone and balls up in the strike zone.
LEVEL SWING? (Continued)
LEVEL SWING? (Continued)
LEVEL SWING? (Continued)
EXTENSION AND POWER V AT THE POINT OF CONTACT?
The primary cue that I remember from when I was a kid, and was taught to hit by my father, was
that I should try to get extended and make the Power V at the point of contact. However, if you
look at photos of major league hitters, when they hit the ball well their arms are not extended
at the point of contact. Rather, their back elbows are usually bent roughly 90 degrees and are
next to, and often seem almost connected to, their back hips. While you do see extension in
many major league swings, on good swings it occurs after the point of contact. That says to me
that extension is the effect of a good swing and not the cause of a good swing.
EXTENSION AND POWER V AT THE POINT OF CONTACT? (Continued)
EXTENSION AND POWER V AT THE POINT OF CONTACT? (Continued)
EXTENSION AND POWER V AT THE POINT OF CONTACT? (Continued)
EXTENSION AND POWER V AT THE POINT OF CONTACT (Continued)
SQUISH THE BUG?
Many young hitters are taught that, at the point of contact, they should imagine that they are
squishing or crushing a bug that is beneath the instep of their back foot. I believe that while doing
this is better than having a completely dead lower body, it’s not what the best hitters in the world
do. Rather than squishing or crushing the bug at the point of contact, when you look at their
good swings they are either on the tip of their back toe or their back foot is completely up
in the air.
SQUISH THE BUG? (Continued)
SQUISH THE BUG? (Continued)
SQUISH THE BUG? (Continued)
SQUISH THE BUG? (Continued)
HANDS TO THE BALL?
Some coaches teach their students to take, or even throw, their hands at the ball. The idea is
that the hands should travel toward the pitcher and the ball in a fairly linear manner. However, if
you study overhead views of the best hitters in the world, hitters like Pete Rose, you don’t see a
linear hand path. Instead, what you see is a circular hand path. The hands start out by, and
turn with, the back shoulder.
SWING ANALYSIS – ALBERT PUJOLS
To reinforce some of the things I talk about in this presentation,
let’s break down a home run swing by Albert Pujols and see how
It reinforces the ideas I talk about in this document and doesn’t
comply with some commonly-held ideas like swinging level,
extension at the point of contact, and squishing the bug.
01

This is a home run swing.

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Albert Pujols’ front heel is just starting to leave the ground. Notice that his
hands are roughly at the same level as his shoulders and are back by his
back shoulder.
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Albert Pujols front toe has just come off the ground and he is pushing off
of the side of his back foot toward the pitcher to get his hips and his
Center Of Mass (the orange dot) moving toward the pitcher. This weight
shift will help his hips rotate around his front leg as it stiffens.
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Albert Pujols’ front toe has just landed back on the ground. His front toe
moved maybe 3 or 4 inches toward the pitcher (the distance between the
two white dots) during his “stride”.
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Albert Pujols’ back elbow (the blue/green dot) is just starting to drop.
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Albert Pujols’ front heel has just planted. His hands have just started to move, his back elbow is starting to
drop significantly, his back heel has just come off the ground and his back leg is starting to internally
rotate (and his back knee is starting to bend) while his shoulders have not yet started to rotate, indicating
that his hips are rotating (just) ahead of his shoulders. IOW, he swings Middle-Out (from the hips) rather
than Top-Down (from the shoulders) or Bottom-Up (from the feet). His back shoulder (the pink dot) is
starting to drop and his front shoulder is coming up as he starts to rotate his shoulders around his tilted
spine. IOW he leans or tilts forward over the plate to match his swing plane with the plane of the pitch. His
hips have moved forward roughly 9 inches (the distance between the two blue dots).
19

Albert Pujols’ shoulders are rotating increasingly quickly around his spine, which is causing his hands and
the bat to start moving. His back shoulder has dropped significantly. His Center Of Mass (the orange dot)
moved forward roughly 9 inches during his stride and weight shift.
20

Albert Pujols is on the toe of his back foot. This is due to a pull from his hips and the rapid internal rotation
of his back upper leg, not because he pushed off of his back foot.
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Albert Pujols’ bat is in the lagging position, pointing back toward the catcher. This is due to the rapid rotation to his
shoulders and thus his hands (and not because he is trying the bring the knob of the bat to the ball). His front knee is
stiffening and the inside of his front foot is starting to come off the ground. The stiffening of the front knee coincides with
the acceleration of the rotation of his shoulders. Notice how Albert Pujols’ hands and the knob of the bat (the red dot)
are well ahead of his back elbow (the green dot). IOW, and as you would expect, Pujols shows no signs of bat drag.
However, his hands are still relatively close to his back shoulder. Notice how steady his head (the yellow dot) is from
this point through the point of contact.
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Point Of Contact: Albert Pujols’ shoulders (the pink dot) have pretty much stopped rotating. This sounds
counterintuitive, but it’s critical because it causes the head of the bat to rapidly whip out (due to conservation of
momentum). His back elbow is by his back hip and his back upper arm is maybe 15 degrees off of the vertical. His
hands are still relatively close to his back shoulder, which means he did not throw his hands at the ball. His back toe is
up in the air at the Point Of Contact (not squishing the bug). His weight is being born by his front foot, but his Center
of Mass (the orange dot) is located roughly midway between his front foot and his back foot. The mass behind the front
foot is counterbalanced by the mass of the bat as it rotates in front of the front foot. His back heel is vertical and his
back knee is bent around 90 degrees in the shape of a backwards upper case L. His back elbow and forearm are also
forming an upper case L. His swing plane is aligned with tilt of shoulders. His front palm is facing down. There were 5
frames from front heel plant and the start of his shoulder turn to the Point Of Contact.
23

Albert Pujols’ front hand is still palm down. There is no sign of significant
rolling of the wrists.
24

Albert Pujols is making the “Power V”, but 2 frames after the Point of Contact. The centrifugal force of the
bat has overcome the ability of his arms to apply centripetal force, which has caused his hands to fly out
toward the pitcher and his arms to make the “Power V”. In other words, the “Power V”, and the
movement of the hands toward the pitcher, are the EFFECT of his powerful swing, not the CAUSE.
His back toe has just touched the ground again.
25

Albert Pujols’ back foot is starting to bear some weight again.

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Albert Pujols just let go of the bat with his back hand.
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Now Albert Pujols is squishing the bug, but well after the point of contact.
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I love how Albert Pujols finishes his swing, with just one hand on the bat.
There’s absolutely no chance that he cut his swing short and that the
head of the bat was decelerating at the point of contact. Talk about
swinging through the ball!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chris O’Leary is a youth baseball coach and private pitching and
hitting instructor who has worked with pitchers and hitters through the
Minor League levels. As a result of his extensive research into proper
pitching and hitting mechanics, Chris has worked with a number of
major league scouts, advising them on proper pitching mechanics and
helping them to prepare for the Major League draft.

Chris O’Leary’s writings about hitting and pitching can be found on his
website http://www.chrisoleary.com.

Chris O’Leary can be contacted via…

E-Mail: thepainguy@gmail.com
Cell: 314.494.1324