Weight Transfer

Some hitters may be more weight transfer then rotational. They want to get on top of their front foot and transfer their weight through the ball. You’ll see these hitters on top of their front leg more dramatically than others. The hitters who use a greater percentage of weight transfer, generally speaking, hit more singles and doubles. I have racked my brain to try to give you an example of a Major League weight transfer hitter and I can’t think of any. Some might argue that George Brett was a pure weight transfer hitter, this is a misconception. If you can get ahold of old footage of George, he is definitely a combination of the two. While editing this section, Jordan thought Frank Thomas was a good example of a hitter who utilizes more weight transfer then rotation. I agree, however, he is not purely weight transfer. If you were to arbi-trarily assign percentages to his swing, he would be more of a 60% weight transfer, 40% rota-tional - he uses both.

Rotation

A total rotational hitter will have more power than the weight transfer hitter simply because he uses his hips and legs more and of course you know that is the core part of the body from which power comes. However hitters who are rotationally dominate, will generally have a longer swing, pull off the ball more and be more inconsistent - therefore they will have more holes in their swing. They will not be able to use their hands to react to different locations and types of pitches. Dave Kingman, who played in the 1980’s, is a good example of a pure rota-tional hitter. Dave would hit 40 homeruns a year and hit .200 for average. I can’t think of any current Major League hitter who hits purely rotationally, although both Barry Bonds and Greg Vaughn utilize more rotation then weight transfer. Now they would be more in the percentages of 60% rotational, 40% weight transfer. They still use both.

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