In Coach Bass's teaching, bat speed comes from the hands. Not from the body pulling the hands around, and not from a bigger, longer swing.
Bat speed starts with the hands
Bat speed begins with how efficiently the hitter moves the bat. The hands have to get the swing started. The goal is not to create extra movement. The goal is to move the bat faster through a direct path.
The hands start the swing, and the hands are actually what turns the body.
Two hand actions, one swing
The bottom hand and the back hand do two separate jobs at the same time:
- The bottom hand pulls and throws the knob to the ball.
- The back hand throws the barrel of the bat straight to the ball.
Neither hand goes first. When those two actions work together, that is the swing. For a right-handed hitter the left hand is the bottom hand and the right hand is the back hand. For a left-handed hitter it is the other way around.
Coach Bass may look at the bottom hand and the back hand separately to see what could be better, but that order of looking is never an instruction that one hand acts before the other.
The bottom hand: pull from the elbow to the hand
The bottom hand pulls the knob as hard as the hitter can, throwing the knob to the ball, and the pull comes from the elbow to the hand. That is where Coach Bass looks when he evaluates bat speed.
Once that action begins, the front hand and the knob do not stop. They stay in constant, fluid movement through contact, through extension and through the follow-through.
The front hand pulls from the elbow through the hand. That pulling action creates whip. The hitter should feel speed being created through the hand path instead of trying to muscle the barrel around the body.
The body is never described as starting first. Body movement itself is not wrong; the question Coach Bass asks is whether body momentum is being used to get the hands moving.
What the pull is not
We are not pulling like playing tug of war, trying to get our hands moving by moving our shoulders, trying to start the hands with momentum.
Pulling as hard as you can is not the same as using the shoulders or the body to drag the hands into the swing. The hands do the work, and the hands turn the body.
The back hand: Hammer and Nail
If the ball was a nail and the bat was a hammer, you are throwing the barrel head to the ball.
The back hand throws the barrel of the bat straight to the ball and through the ball. When the barrel is dragging, Coach Bass teaches the hitter to use the wrist like using a hammer: the wrist throws the head of the bat to the ball while the bottom hand is throwing the knob.
The back hand supports and delivers the barrel. Think about driving a hammer into a nail. The front hand creates whip and the back hand helps deliver the barrel through the ball.
At contact, the barrel is parallel with the hands, almost like the barrel and the hands are at the same place. Contact happens with the back arm bent, like the arm position before throwing an uppercut, and extension comes after contact as the back hand throws the barrel through the ball. The uppercut comparison describes the arm only, never the direction of the swing.
Coach Bass evaluates the back hand through the barrel. He does not need to see the hand itself: what the barrel does during the swing carries the evidence. Is it getting to the ball, or dragging through the zone?
Faster does not mean longer
A hitter can swing harder without making the swing longer. If the hands cast, the head moves excessively or the hitter pulls off the ball, the extra effort is not helping. Increase speed while preserving the same swing pattern.
Direction still matters
Bat speed only helps if the barrel is moving in a useful direction. Maintain the middle-away approach, stay behind the ball and let the increased speed work through the hitting direction.
Game speed is controlled speed
The fastest cage swing is not automatically the best game swing. The hitter still has to recognize location, adjust to speed and make a good decision. The goal is controlled speed that survives in an at-bat.
Where bat speed sits in Coach Bass's order
When Coach Bass works through a hitter who keeps swinging and missing, bat speed comes after attack point, momentum, the load and the back hand throwing the barrel to the ball. If those are right and the bat speed is there, his answer is that the hitter won't be swinging and missing after that.