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Mo Sez:

Modern golf analysis teaches us that there is an optimum launch angle for every velocity. Find that optimum angle and you win the kewpie doll. Guys today "dial in" that angle by changing driver loft, shaft and ball configurations to get it just right. Ball changes allow you to optimize spin rates to ball velocity. It makes a difference. A big one. It is one reason guys are so much longer today on the average. A few minutes in the machine gives you tons of info for tweaking your equipment.

I wonder if Smoak's launch angles are "tweeners," not enough to get the ball to the 4th row and too much for the ball to a smoking rope gapper. Spin rates? What do they look like?

does anybody study that stuff in baseball? Matty?

Of course you can't "dial in" the perfect combo, but it would be interesting to see.

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In other words ... "IOW" means "if you don't feel like looking it up" ...  if you're playing golf and you hit the ball 130 MPH, then there's an ideal trajectory.   (Maybe) 8 degrees produced the farthest distance at 130 MPH, the lab rats found.  (A change to 12 degrees might cut up to 20 yards off the ball - a big, big difference.)

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1.  It would be nice to have extra length, but ... an even more important question is whether the ball "hangs" or floats."  Only a few balls go over the fence.  We were talking about Smoak's dozen balls caught on the warning track.

Of course, golfers actually want the ball to land softly, with any shot but most tee shots on pars 4's and 5's.  Not so the batters, ever.

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2.  I have had certainly had the impression that Smoak has lousy angles off the bat -- "floating trajectories."  Those would come with backspin.  His swing does indeed look the reverse of a topspin swing, and the trajectories look floating, also.

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3.  If Smoak has a "backswing" drive, it's just his bad luck, not his fault.  You see things like this happen in baseball - Ian Snell's height, the young Felix' tendency to throw fadeways to lefties, etc.  Often it just puzzles everybody.  This smacks of that syndrome.

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4.  Only suggestion here -- work that low-in area.  You ain't gonna backswing those.  And he doesn't.  The "screen drill," serendipitiously, may help.

BABVA,

Dr D