During the 2015/2016 off-season, I spent some time talking to a minor leaguer whose swing caught my eye. I have pictures of him in what is basically a perfect position; one that matches up extremely well with Josh Donaldson's swing and the swings of other great hitters, including Mickey Mantle.
Minor Leaguer
The picture above shows a hitter who is powering his swing with the large muscles of his hips and shoulders, not the much smaller muscles of his arms, wrists, and hands.
However, in 2015 he didn't hit nearly as well as I expected him to, and I reached out to him to try to find out what was going on with his swing and see if I could help him.
As it turns out, he's been a long-time visitor to my public site.
I totally didn't realize when you first messaged me, but I used to spend hours on your website looking at the frame by frame shots you've got!! It didn't click until I saw the Pujols one with the word mark on it...so now this is even cooler than I originally thought.
The problem is of late he's being taught to be all/extremely hands-y.
My big coaching point now, and the thing that keeps me in the proper position is trying to keep my front shoulder in and on top. I have a tendency to leak my front side, which causes barrel drop and that's when I get in trouble with the 4-3 roll over. I got a drill from ______ that I've really like. Basically anchor both feet in the ground and just hit with the hands. It forces me to take a direct line to the ball, and removes the ability for my body to spin off the ball. I'm forced to get into the slotted position in the picture you sent, and work through the ball to a good extension.
I feel like everything recently that I've been hearing is to be more "handsy" and not let me body be what's generating power...to be looser with my hands and let that create whip.
While these cues and drill are very common, in my experience working with AA and AAA hitters they are pretty much guaranteed to kill a swing, as I first learned with Andres Torres.
Andres Torres
Update 2016.8.30. The hitter I mentioned above, whose swing caught my eye due to its resemblance to Mickey Mantle's, stopped hitting, was released, and is now out of affiliated pro baseball. Which is a terrible waste of a great swing and a player with real potential.