Run Production Is Ultimate Metric In Hitting

By DR. COOP DeRENNE
University of Hawaii
(Third Of A 4-Part Series)

HONOLULU, Hawaii — We are in the era of analytics and the strikeout.

Major League Baseball tracks every pitch and swing for data. 

Universities and high schools follow their lead.

Thus, hitting mechanics have been diagnosed, dissected and discussed more than any baseball topic except possibly pitching mechanics.

How should you swing the bat? Research gives us the answer.

Humbly, our research teams at the University of Hawaii have conducted as much scientific research as any group in the country since 1980.

The best Hall of Fame hitters since 1900 have been analyzed under pure research conditions, using the best high-speed cameras and 3-D motion analysis equipment in the world.

Wheel Isn’t Broken
Our journey began in the mid-1980s.

We began the pursuit of using scientific evidence to help provide answers to the following questions:

• Biomechanically, how do the best hitters of all-time past and present hit a baseball?
• How do we train a hitter to become a more successful hitter?

Our quest for truth led us to Dr. Tom House, pitching coach of the Texas Rangers at the time. 

Together with additional staff, and high-tech equipment, we formed Bio-kinetics, Inc., a think-tank biomechanical research company in Laguna Hills, California.

In 1987, we began studying Major League hitters and pitchers during live game performances and collected valuable film and video on past and present Hall of Fame hitters and pitchers.

The analytical process was based on collecting live game performance swings and analyzing these swings using high-speed cameras and the Ariel Computerized Biomechanical Motion Analysis System.  

By using the Ariel System, we were able to measure and analyze the kinematics (time and space factors in the motion) of the hitters’ swings. 

The kinematics included were linear and angular displacements (the change in a body’s location in space in a given direction), velocities and accelerations.

Over the course of the past 32 years, we have been able to categorize hitters into the following sub-categories:

• Elite lifetime high average (.300 +) and power (average per year 35 home runs) hitters.
• High lifetime average hitters (.330 +).
• .275 to .300 average lifetime hitters.
• Sub-.250 lifetime hitters.

As we studied the swings of the players in each sub-category, we were able to identify the common scientific four absolutes of the swing and the common seven swing components residing within the four absolutes that all successful hitters possess. 

To read more of this article, purchase the March 11, 2022 edition of Collegiate Baseball or subscribe by CLICKING HERE. Dr. DeRenne explains what the 4 absolutes of successful hitters are, what the goal of hitters should be, the danger of high launch angles and much more.