Newer coaches like to dispel older teachings in the game. I agree that some cues are probably better left in the past. However, if you look deep into some of the older cues you can find a lot of truth in them. With modern high speed video and technology we can really get a sense of what’s going on in a swing and our interpretation of the swing is becoming more objective. Before these tools were available, players and coaches would pass down their knowledge by word of mouth and through the things they felt. This often leaves the cues open to interpretation, which is why depending on how you interpret the cue it could be considered either good or bad. During this series of posts we will unpack some of the old cues that still have relevance based on my interpretation. Plus it’ll give us a chance to dig deeper into some mechanics. Let’s start with staying back.
When you first hear staying back it probably has a negative connotation with it. We get pictures of players leaning back with no forward move into the ball in our mind. If this is how you interpret it, then I’d agree that it’s not a great cue. This would cause a player to limit or even negate their weight shift, which would mean a loss of power and they wouldn’t be able to stay on the line of the pitch with their swing path. However, what if we thought about the cue differently. What if we think of it as staying back as we go forward. This is where the cue has some value for me. Let’s take a look at a few players that seem to highlight this idea really well.
Christian Yelich
Francisco Lindor
Cody Bellinger
Mike Trout
These patterns are very similar. The back knee gets to the inside of their back foot, which stays firmly on the ground. In some of the videos you can see the foot staying flat but in others the weight is more into the heel and to the outside of the foot. Either way the foot is acting like an anchor while the body moves away from it. The back leg isn’t driving the body forward. Instead the body is riding the back leg out while the hips move forward and coil which turns the belt buckle turns towards the catcher. The head also moves forward as it stay slightly in front of the bellybutton. It’s almost like a tug of war. The back foot is holding its ground and keeping the weight anchored into the back side while the hips coil and move forward away from it. I describe this tug of war as going forward while staying back, which is where I find the staying back cue having some validity. I think that hitters in the past felt like they stayed back even though the video shows them moving forward. Maybe it was just our simple or better yet literal interpretation of the cue that made it wrong. Maybe…just maybe they were way ahead of the game and we didn’t get them enough credit.
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