Kagan: It’s physics: the batter’s grip doesn’t matter

From SABR member David Kagan at The Hardball Times on September 11, 2018:

I know you’re angry before you even read this article. How could a responsible baseball site allow the publication of such heresy? Let me try to cool your jets so you can read what I have to say. Then feel free to judge.

Please understand, I’m only talking about the effect of the batter’s grip during the short time of the ball-bat collision – less than one-thousandth of a second. The grip certainly does matter during the one-third of a second or so needed to get the bat from the ready position into the hitting zone. That, however, is a topic for hitting instructors, not physicists.

Physicists have long made the argument that the grip of the batter during the collision between a well-struck ball and the bat has no effect on the outcome of said collision. Probably the first published article to make this argument was by Brody in 1990.

Read the full article here: https://www.fangraphs.com/tht/its-physics-the-batters-grip-doesnt-matter/



Originally published: September 19, 2018. Last Updated: September 19, 2018.