Vlog 171 – Swing Analysis of Aaron, Mays, and Griffey

In this video, I analyze the swings of Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Ken Griffey Jr., the only three guys in the 600 home run club who weigh less than 200 pounds.

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All right I thought this was an interesting group of hitters guys who weighed less than 200 lb and hit 600 or more home runs you know that I mean to be in this group you have to be doing something mechanically that is very correct it’s real hard to be in this

Group and not be mechanically very sound they’re getting the most out of their body weight so the first one we’ll go through is Hank Aaron as everyone knows Aaron hit uh 755 and uh let’s take a look at Aaron’s mechanics or uh stats so Ops plus of 155

Another thing that’s interesting is all these guys had really good a good batting averages be you know so often people just assume that you need to you need to sacrifice power for consistency and I’m just not seeing it these are out of all these guys I

Believe Ken griffy Jr is the is the heaviest and has the least amount of home runs of the three and the lower batting average of the three the lowest batting average you know this whole idea that you need to sacrifice power for consistency or vice versa I just don’t

See it uh Hank Aaron had a career batting a average of 305 that’s better than Pete Rose and Pete Rose people think of Pete Rose as like you know the consistency guy so that’s something that I’m always trying to convey out there is don’t feel like it’s a it’s a big

Sacrifice of consistency to swing the style of swing that that I advocate we’re talking about you know I’m looking at the guys I’m looking at consistency just as much as anyone else and a lot of people they look at the pound-for-pound equation and they think that it’s void

Of consistency it’s not void of cons consistency these guys consistently hit home runs they’re squaring up the barrel very consistently so you know I I just don’t I think that the main thing is great hitters the best hitters consistently hit the ball hard that’s it and uh and once in a while

You’re going to get a home run you know it’s almost uh it’s almost like it a home run is a mistake but it doesn’t really matter the key is is that you’re delivering the most possible Force to the ball on a consistent basis so I don’t really separate out average and and

Power I think that with uh yes there is another style of swing that pretty much only optimizes consistency I just don’t think that that route is a is a prudent way to go about it and uh and these guys are proof that it doesn’t really matter your size you

Should your goal should be to hit the ball as consistently as possible with the most possible force and that’s it so 305 batting average 755 home runs what a beast this guy was an average of an Ops average over his career of 155 I always find it interesting some of

These monster hitters sometimes they only have one MVP award like Babe Ruth there another one but looks like Hank Aon is one too um often times hit over 300 led the league in in 56 led the league in 59 with a 355 batting average this whole idea guys that you need to sacrifice

Power for consistency it’s just a myth and with a certain swing style you can pretty much optimize both so let’s go to uh to look at his swing here this is his 700 I don’t know you guys will probably know was it the one to beat Ruth I think

It was the one to beat Ruth but let’s look at look how much his head moves this is what I think about when I think of Hank Aaron look at the head movement look at the head movement mate that is ridiculous it’s so ridiculous I get an

Australian accent when I look at it look at that it moves like I don’t know at least a foot and a half it could be 2 feet and hitters of today are hanging back on that back leg and the head hardly moves at all can you imagine Hank

Aaron would definitely not have the same amount of home runs if he wasn’t moving like this and guys say that well you can’t be as quick to the ball I’m just wondering why why can’t you start your movement before you know if you’re going to swing at the pitch why why do you

Have to be completely still before you know if you’re going to swing at the pitch in order to be as fast as possible to the pitch I don’t know but that’s what swing instruction is is teaching right now and everyone’s on board with the you know what method out there and

It’s uh you know keeping your head back or weight back and keeping your head from moving um I just don’t think it’s a good idea little bit of a bat tip there Aaron had mostly in the hands it looks like it’s neither here nor there for the most

Part you know the the key is you know at this point is he’s getting some weight into it you don’t have to get a whole bunch of weight into it but if you want more power you probably want to that’s where you probably kind of there’s a little bit of risk

Reward uh give and take there you know if you want more power you might have to shift a little bit more weight but you’re going to maybe be off on timing maybe a little bit more so maybe there is is a little bit of a compromise but you certainly don’t have to move

Your head as much as Hank Aaron does you don’t have to shift as much weight but look at how much he is Shifting weight that’s just very interesting I tend to lean towards go ahead and gamble go ahead and gamble you get three strikes you get more swings if

You’re hitting foul balls you get it plenty of chances go ahead and gamble I mean you are not going to be on on every swing it’s it’s almost like hitting is so much of a contest of can you just let it go and can you just not give

Yourself such a hard time for swinging and missing allow that to happen Ruth didn’t care at all about that stuff I’ve read enough of his biographies to know that he just didn’t care he didn’t care about his past at bats and I think a large reason why he didn’t care is

Because his mechanics were so good he knew that the aages would average out for him in favor of him um look at so this positioning it’s kind of hard to see his arms but the barrels obviously starting to really flatten here um and then look how connected he

Is at contact now that the moving of the weight forward is in large part allowing him to be that connected at contact if you hang back on your back leg then you’re going to have to push out with your hands what else is going to hit the

Ball you see how it’s a it’s a little bit of a if this doesn’t move well then something else has to come in and pitch in right a lot of Swing mechanics is is that way and uh and he’s able to achieve this extremely connected position at contact and by the

Way I mean he’s really there’s no backward movement in Hank aon’s swing we need to get more of this in today’s swing we are so sold on the you know what theory of the swing that people are just hanging back like crazy and uh we’re not getting as much

Power as we should be we’re losing against teams that have less than half the half the population of the us and this is our Pastime this is our Sport and I think so much of it is re I know it seems like it’s oversimplifying it

But that’s I don’t think it is I think it almost is entirely the way we are teaching the swing we need to shift our weight look at how much weight he’s getting into it watch it look there’s no backward movement he’s pushing through with his torso into the

Hit you saw the same sort of action with uh with Sahara o who also got a tremendous I mean he’s the Hank Aaron of of Japan and he got as much of his body weight into it too I believe he was around 180 in body weight here’s another view

Of Aaron showing how much of his body he just pushes into the ball look at that and you know he’s not hitting a strike here you know and he’s hitting it so many people say well with your style swing how would you hit the high and inside pitch

You’re look Aaron’s doing it I mean let’s this whole idea of like how would you hit this pitch if you employed this particular swing style you can hit any pitch with any swing Style and what is the fascination with that whole idea and swing instruction of like you have to be able

To hit all kinds of pitches with your swing so make sure you structure your swing to hit all sorts of pitches it’s just BS I mean what are we talking about here you know a difference that doesn’t even you think Hank Aaron even know I mean does this even look like he’s

Hitting a high and inside pitch right here like just hit the ball as hard as you can but employ the best possible swing mechanics and people think of Swing mechanics as like the if it’s the best possible swing mechanics and it’s real tight and everything is moving very stiff and and

Geometrically sound no the the best swing mechanics is something like Aaron who’s very you know it it almost looks sloppy but he’s doing what matters he’s doing what matters and he’s adjusting to all different kinds of pitches and he hits this one well out in front and sends that one I’m sure over

The yard uh here he is this is a great angle that I recently posted on Instagram because it showed the real big move that separates I I mean that that is missing from today’s swing and that is like a shift of the weight a thrusting of the

Torso into contact and like look his head isn’t really on the ball oh no he’s he’s not mechanically sound who cares if your head is down at the ball who cares like haven’t we established that you don’t see the last 10 ft of the ball traveling anyways who really cares rotate through

Contact open the front shoulder I mean here he is hitting the ball looks like to the opposite field and he’s just rotating towards Third Base hard and he’s getting a lot of his his body weight into it if Little League coaches saw a kid swinging like this they would absolutely

Coach it out of him nice and well connected there at contact now we have Willie Maye let’s go to Willie Ma’s stats so 170 by the way Willie May is the lightest of the three here and here again again a 301 batting average there is no need to sacrifice

Power for consistency or vice versa 660 home runs weighing just 170 probably got up to about 180 um as his career went on maybe 185 who knows but they didn’t gain weight like guys do today uh back then so let’s uh let’s go through maz’s swing here

As you can see kind of an Albert Bell casting of the bat move there he doesn’t get a whole lot of bat lag as he goes into the forward swing front arm compressed up against his body for the most part at this point and there you can see I think a

Key position in the swing you want to be in a position here like you see in in maze where the barrel has flattened completely um if we go back to Aaron I was going to point out that look at the barrel actually goes below parallel you know a lot of people say

That that’s a that’s a no no you you saw Josh Donaldson even say when he was saying the key move is the flattening of the barrel he says but you don’t want it to flatten too much see again people are just too um inculcated in this idea of not not dropping the barrel

Behind you um and not you know it’s it’s hard for people to actually go to the complete opposite side but the fact is is there’s nothing wrong with the barrel dropping below parallel at this point look how low it is here you see this in uh Ted Williams you

See it in Babe Ruth you see it in Mike Schmidt these guys dro the barrel at this point real low look at Ted Williams if you guys want to see that Ted Williams really in in a lot of his swings you can clearly see that he drops

The barrel and it it drops way below parallel at this point and then as he goes towards contact he straightens it out and it’s like it might even provide an extra slap into the hit in some way so a little bit of of a casting move it looks like by May’s key position

Right here where the back arm is just nice and by his side you know it’s not over erting it’s almost in that it’s in sort of that just tucked position and for the most part if you could step inside maz’s swing he would be feeling the front side pulling that’s that’s the

Reason why the front arm progression is so valuable these guys felt more than other hitters the front side pulling rather than the back arm pushing it’s not that they felt no back arm pushing it’s just they felt a lot less and here he is at

Contact I wish I had better video of of ma if you guys can find any better video from the side that’d be great but look how connected he is here and then goes into a nice wide finish very aggressive with the finish another move that we are missing in

Today’s swing go ahead and finish the swing hard go all the way around and here he is uh from another angle a very aggressive weight shift into the ball not crazy not an irresponsible amount of weight shift necessarily but I think everyone out there all you guys could H

Could try going to the Other Extreme and shift a lot of weight and you’re going to find that yeah maybe you’re out in front of some pitches maybe you need to work on the secondary cushion but maybe try being okay with being off on on your

On timing the problem is is people get off on timing with a big weight shift and then they they quickly you know get scared and and they start not shift I don’t want to be off on timing on any pitch I want to be on time on every single

Pitch you just in that respect you’re going to have to shift some weight learn a secondary cushion for sure but also just be okay be more okay with being off on your timing the point of hitting is not to never miss a pitch or never be off on

Timing the point is over the course of a season that you’ve produced a high level of Power with a high level of consistency and you’re going to have to accept the misses to do that look at that would you say his head is starting to rotate and he’s not

Looking at the pitch sure looks like it to me and he’s just rotating into it here he is that contact looks like he’s pulling his head looks like he’s pulling the shoulder out and then we get to griffy let’s go to griffy and see his stats so griffy um probably of the three

Hitters you’d have to say he’s the least accomplished which is crazy but uh you know griffy fought a lot of injuries 155 Ops Plus for Hank Aaron and 155 I didn’t know that they both have the same Ops plus huh Willie Ma and Hank Aaron I would say about a level and a

Half better than Ken Griffey Jr I think every 10 points of Ops plus is about a level of hitting and I think Ops plus is the best measurement of a hitter’s overall value at the plate so griffy you know 14 points less than I’m sorry uh 19 points less than Aaron and

Maize pretty significant that’s almost two full levels um pretty crazy and I’d have to say the difference might be in his consistency if you had if he had like a 301 to 305 batting average I think that that would probably put him up in in the other guys category in terms of Ops

Plus but um also again the weighs the most um out of the three so let’s take a look at his swing I but I think you know hitting is more than just a swing contest and I think griffy showed us the pretty much the best possible way to swing

Um and you can see here not as much weight shift maybe but still he’s getting some weight to that front side nice long front arm and really the mechanics are very similar between Aaron Ma and and uh griffy and here’s that position that I was talking about in maze where the back

Arm is just again just down by your side front arm nice and uh pretty straight and uh the barrel flat almost like it’s feeling like it’s coming from your back hip almost and again the front side pulling is happening more than the backside pushing and then he just rotates into it

Beautifully connected at contact and then extends well after contact here’s a top view of griffy and a lot of people you know they have all sorts of arguments for barring the front arm they say how are you going to hit at the inside pitch how are you

Going to go the other way you’re only going to pull the ball you’re only going to come around the ball where what is are people just not looking at any film at all I don’t know what that whole where’s their reasoning what’s their what’s their um evidence for that

I don’t know but here he is going the other way and you can see just like with Hank Aaron swing he’s going the other way but still the same basic swing on the ball he’s just hitting it at a certain point that makes it go the other way but

It’s still the same basic swing maybe he stops his he halts his rotation a little bit early but there is absolutely no reason why you can’t hit the ball the other way with a barred out arm or a more body controlled swing that I teach or you can’t hit the inside

Pitch or the whatever I I just think that those are those are the the other argument that I often hear along those lines is that’ll work at that level but not at this level and that’s bs2 do you think keng Griffey Jr learned this swing because it wasn’t working at the lower

Levels and I’m sure he got a lot of people saying well that’s working at the high school level but you’re going to have to change at the major league level in fact somebody I think recently showed me yes somebody showed me a scouting report of griffy and it said something to that

Effect um that you know he he tends to I don’t know get long in his swing I think were the words we know what long in his swing means we know you’re talking about the front arm why don’t you just say it why are people with without video people

People are just so um obscure and ambiguous in how they speak like he’s long in his swing and it’s like just say it you’re he’s long in his front arm and I don’t think it’s going to work at the major league level that’s what the guy said in his in his scouting

Report of griffy but uh look if it works at the Little League level it’s probably going to work at the higher levels I know that that doesn’t people are going to agree with that and people like to kind of act like they’re in the no and I

Know something you don’t and that might work at that level but it’s not going to work when you get up to the levels that I’ve seen it’s BS man it’s BS um so anyways thank you guys for watching look uh you know obviously it’s real interesting to me

There’s an industry that seems like it’s on the completely the wrong page and I think that what’s exciting about that is that means that what’s coming soon is a at some point whether it’s me or somebody else who brings it about is some sort of Revolution within this industry the baseball swing instruction

Industry and uh it’ll be interesting to see how it all unfolds but right now you know Common wisdom is is like 180° off it’s real real interesting so look I’m I’m just bringing these videos out I’m going to edit a little bit less because it doesn’t allow me to

Really get as much information as I want out there uh fast enough and I think you all need to need to hear some of this stuff that that swing instruction is just not on the right page and uh I think the more information that I can

Get out the faster I can get it out the better um and uh look I may not be saying things that you want to hear uh you may have invested a lot of time and money into a method that is the conventional method and uh and you might not want to

Hear what I have to say but a lot of people have been reaching out and saying that it’s working what I’m teaching is working work a lot of people were incredulous and they even tell me that they say I saw you on YouTube and I thought what is

This guy talking about and then they slowly change and so um it’s looking like we are changing the battleship uh Direction with a wooden ore but it is still turning and uh at some point the floodgates are going to open um it’s going to take uh probably guys work at

The higher level on what I’m talking about and that is happening and uh I’m going to have some some results for you guys at some point but uh anyways I thank you guys for your support um and I’ll see you next Time