Every coach has said it: he rolled over. Coach Bass does not treat the rollover as the problem. It is what the ball shows after a different mistake.
What Coach Bass means
In baseball you always hear, 'he rolled over.' There is no such thing as a roll over in hitting. All this means is you did not let the ball get deep in the zone and went out to get the pitch.
The rollover is not the cause. The hitter went out to get the pitch instead of letting the ball travel to the proper attack point. The rolled-over ground ball is the result, and it tells you what happened.
A very important piece of the hitting puzzle is that the ball will tell you exactly what you are doing.
The chain behind the so-called rollover
Coach Bass describes it as a chain:
- The hitter goes out to get the ball instead of letting it get deep.
- The front, bottom hand and the knob stop.
- The arms have already extended.
- The swing becomes all back hand.
- That produces the pattern people call a rollover.
The bottom hand and the knob should stay in constant, fluid movement through the whole swing. If they stop, that is a strong tell that the hitter went out to get the ball.
Coach Bass does not teach the rollover as its own swing defect. The underlying issue is going out to get the ball instead of letting it get deep, and the stopped front hand and knob are the visible evidence of it.
Coach Bass sets the two patterns side by side:
- What he wants: the momentum goes in the right direction, the hitter gets behind the ball, the ball reaches the right attack point, and the hands work through the ball.
- The so-called rollover: the hitter goes out to get the ball, the front hand and knob stop, the arms are already extended, and the swing becomes all back hand.
Compare that with what Coach Bass wants. Contact happens with the back arm bent, like the position of the arm 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 position only, not the direction of the swing.
Let the ball travel to the attack point
Coach Bass's three attack points are the same for right-handed and left-handed hitters:
- Inside: the inside front knee.
- Middle: the belly button.
- Outside: the inside back knee.
The ball is in front of the hitter at all three. Coach Bass does not teach a hitter to make contact with the ball out beside the body. Hitting the ball out beside the body leads into the pattern people call a rollover.
The rollover and the pop-up are the same mistake
If you're looking middle and away, you will not roll over or hit the pop up because you are looking at attack location versus just swinging and hoping you hit it.
The straight-up pop-up and the rollover share one underlying mistake: the hitter goes out to get the ball instead of letting it get deep enough. The contact is what differs. Nicking the bottom of the ball produces the pop-up. Hitting it square while the wrists roll produces what people call a rollover.
What the hitter works on
The approach is simple: focus on middle and away, and react on an inside pitch. Looking middle and away gives the hitter a specific attack location instead of swinging and hoping.
The momentum goes where Coach Bass wants it, toward the second baseman for a right-handed hitter and toward the shortstop for a left-handed hitter, so the hitter can get behind the ball.
The bottom hand throws the knob to the ball and keeps going through extension and the follow-through. The back hand throws the barrel to the ball at the same time. Neither hand goes first.
Why it takes video to know
Whether the bottom hand and knob stopped is something Coach Bass reads from the swing itself. When a video does not let him see the hand and the knob, the honest answer is that it cannot be determined from that video, never a guess. Ball flight, direction and the contact result are evidence too, because the ball tells you what the hitter is doing.