Best Swings and Hitters

ProV1Colt

ProV1Colt

CTG Super Moderator
Staff member
Chatting with a buddy that has 2 boys that are starting to play baseball.
We were discussing hitters and the best baseball swing.

His sons will be have accces to one of the guys I grew up and played with, really admired his swing. Todd Helton.

Who are some of your favorite swings or hitters.

Growing up i I loved watching Will Clark swing the stick.
I will throw a few more out but would really love everyone's thoughts.
Rod Carew
Rickey Henderson
Bonds
Ted Williams (of course but never saw live, just highlights)

i could go on but wanna hear others!
 
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I used to imitated Eric Davis & Dale Murphy's swing playing wiffel ball.
Davis had that quick wrist action.

How about Strawberry too
 
the RH hitter I like to watch is Miggy. I don't think it's the prettiest, but I think mechanically, he's the best. old Pujols was really good too - tougher to emulate for a young hitter though.

from the left side, i like Votto.

for pure simplicity, kris bryant.

guys who have taught me a lot by watching them - dexter fowler and bryce harper
 
If you don't include "The Cape" Will Clark in your discussion of the prettiest swing, you are not informed about baseball.
 
While not smooth Reggie Jackson's swing was a thing of beauty....when he stepped into the batters box he was there to do violence.

Off the beaten path but Travis Lee had a beautiful swing.
 
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I thought Vlad's swing was great, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

The obvious sweet swings have been mentioned to this point, Griffey and Will were great to watch and as mentioned, lefties just always seem to have that down better than righties, kinda like the lefties have the slider mastered as well.

Surprised Gwynn hasn't been mentioned too, contact hitting is an art
 
Griff and Will the Thrill are good ones.

I think the crazy good contact guys are interesting to watch. Ichiro, Gwynn, Boggs, Carew. For a swing though, fuck smooth, give me violent mashers. Anyone from Wily Mo Pena to Reggie Jackson. As I think Rob Deer put it, swing hard in case you hit it.
 
KJ said:
I thought Vlad's swing was great, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

The obvious sweet swings have been mentioned to this point, Griffey and Will were great to watch and as mentioned, lefties just always seem to have that down better than righties, kinda like the lefties have the slider mastered as well.

Surprised Gwynn hasn't been mentioned too, contact hitting is an art
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Funny you said that

From an artistic standpoint...Griffey

If I'm going to pay to watch a guy take 5 at-bats....Vlad
 
Two guys I knew were gonna reek havoc every time and couldn't stand them in critical situations against my team:

Jeff Kent
Placido Polanco

Oppo field stuff that was no doubt scoring the guy from 2nd with two outs. That swing is impressive to me and they were so good at it, unlike Rob Deer. I understand this thread is about power swings, but those aren't the best swings imo.
 
George Brett has to be on this list...I think Clark (who I agree had a swing that was beauty to watch) actually modeled his swing off of George...
 
We've been talking about sweet swings, but how about making contact. I saw Bo Jackson live and I've never seen or heard a ball come off a bat like his from anybody else.
 
vk said:
He could hit pitches off the bounce.
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Vladdy one of my top 5-7 favorite players of all time. Top 3 is untouchable... Bonds, Rickey, Ichiro....then Grumpy/Vladdy/A-Rod/Hamilton/Mays (never saw him obviously, just my kinda player).


<iframe width="854" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dj99F-nx9KQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
Hardest hit ball I've ever heard hit live was from Alfonso Soriano in the Arizona Fall League 1998 off of Chad Harville who could bring the heat...sounded like an explosion and Soriano probably weighed 160 pounds at the time. Hardest I ever heard live in a MLB game was from Fred McGriff.
 
Off the top of my head, most fearsome swings I've ever seen are Jack Clark and Richie Sexson.
 
ArizonaKid said:
Hardest hit ball I've ever heard hit live was from Alfonso Soriano in the Arizona Fall League 1998 off of Chad Harville who could bring the heat...sounded like an explosion and Soriano probably weighed 160 pounds at the time. Hardest I ever heard live in a MLB game was from Fred McGriff.
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when sori connected, he prob had the most beautiful RH swing, esp the finish. I was going to mention him, but I'm not sure you would want to teach the way he hit to kids with the big leg kick.

same thing with tony gwynn. you don't want to teach kids to slap line drives the other way. let em mash.
 
cubsker said:
when sori connected, he prob had the most beautiful RH swing, esp the finish. I was going to mention him, but I'm not sure you would want to teach the way he hit to kids with the big leg kick.

same thing with tony gwynn. you don't want to teach kids to slap line drives the other way. let em mash.
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What?

Lol u wouldn't want your kid to hit like tony gwynn.

Ok....
 
no, of course not. if you're trying to turn your kid into a real player, someone who would garner attention from MLB scouts or college recruiters, a Tony Gwynn swing is not going to work very often. You want to mash dongs, not hit singles. It's like making Kyle Hendricks your role model. Guys that throw 87 are the exception. You want to throw 97.
 
cubsker said:
no, of course not. if you're trying to turn your kid into a real player, someone who would garner attention from MLB scouts or college recruiters, a Tony Gwynn swing is not going to work very often. You want to mash dongs, not hit singles. It's like making Kyle Hendricks your role model. Guys that throw 87 are the exception. You want to throw 97.
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ok bud
 
Lol and cubsker teach your kid to 'mash'
he will strikeout more than 50% of the time.
u know anything about fundamentals? I am guessing not. U weren't an athlete
 
i wasn't a great athlete. i slapped singles, got on base like 50% of the time, got guys out on the mound throwing a whole bunch of junk. pros don't have the arsenal of offspeed pitches that i had when i was in high school. why do you think that is? because they're too busy throwing 95 to have to learn how to throw sidearm sliders. When I was 12, in a league of around 200 kids, my swing was rated the best, fundamentally. I hit hard ground balls and line drives. It was garbage. I wish someone had told me to concentrate on mashing and throwing gas when I was 12...I would have gone a lot farther than I did.
 
cubsker said:
i wasn't a great athlete. i slapped singles, got on base like 50% of the time, got guys out on the mound throwing a whole bunch of junk. pros don't have the arsenal of offspeed pitches that i had when i was in high school. why do you think that is? because they're too busy throwing 95 to have to learn how to throw sidearm sliders. When I was 12, in a league of around 200 kids, my swing was rated the best, fundamentally. I hit hard ground balls and line drives. It was garbage. I wish someone had told me to concentrate on mashing and throwing gas when I was 12...I would have gone a lot farther than I did.
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ohh boy
 
Never had my swing rated in little league at 12 yrs old, never heard of that but i was a kid in the late 80s early 90s in little league
No technology lol
 
coaches (prob ones obsessed with fundamentals) evaluated at tryouts and over the course of the season for the league all star team. my dad was the head coach of the all star team, so I was aware of what those evaluations said. they were worth about as much as the paper they were written on.

Do what the best hitters in the world do. Try to elevate the ball and hit dongs.
 
This doesn't necessarily qualify as a "beautiful" swing, but Jeter had a really unique one. Could stand up there fighting off 5 straight 1-2 pitches and then inside out a 3-2 fastball down the right field line for a double, just very very difficult to get out with the patience inherently built into his swing.
 
think about griffey. he had big leaguers teaching him how to hit from the time he was 4. now think if we started teaching all kids to hit like big leaguers do from the time they were little kids instead of the crap we do teach them. the problem is that the avg youth coach doesn't understand shit about how big league hitters actually hit and they teach them a bunch of crap like 'swing level', 'plant that back foot', blah blah blah.
 
sorry, i live right by youth baseball fields and I walk down there a lot on family walks and have to listen to the same bullshit year after year from these guys. it's irritating.
 
What's not to like about opposite field hitters? They are the irritating ones if you're up against em. I respect that.
 
hitting to the opposite field is fine. having your goal when you go into the box to hit to the opposite field is stupid.
 
I have two girls and neither are into softball so I don't have to worry about helping them with hitting. There is no chance if I had a boy learning to swing/bat that I would say hey kid, don't hit the ball to the opposite field. Just stand up there n try to pull it 400 feet. yeah thats smart teaching

its like telling a kid playing basketball to practice shooting 3's don't worry about the mid range game or the 8 footers off the glass
 
dudleysdad said:
I have two girls and neither are into softball so I don't have to worry about helping them with hitting. There is no chance if I had a boy learning to swing/bat that I would say hey kid, don't hit the ball to the opposite field. Just stand up there n try to pull it 400 feet. yeah thats smart teaching

its like telling a kid playing basketball to practice shooting 3's don't worry about the mid range game or the 8 footers off the glass
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reading comprehension, how does it work?
 
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