=== HAND LAUNCH ====

On this pitch, the second one in the video, Ackley's hands come through fairly early -- maybe it was a 94 fastball -- but on an offspeed, he'd simply delay the hand launch a tick.

It's a basic principle of golf that you want your hands ahead of the ball.  Notice that Ackley's right forearm is wayyyyyyyyy out in front, creating the opportunity for leverage.   This is maybe the single most beautiful aspect of Ackley's entire gorgeous swing.

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The extreme cock of the bat unsnaps smoothly and with terrific, well, "snap" leverage.  Maybe that's why the guy can break aluminum bats with home runs.

It's a shame that fans look only at size when projecting power.  Some players, like Ichiro, have far more power than their size.  Mays and Aaron weighed 185 pounds.

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Ackley's swing plane, at least on this swing, is insanely parallel to the ground.  A 30% line drive rate is wonderful ;- ) but a few homers would be nice, too.  

This is the quibble, the only one possible that I see, is the plane of the swing.  It's conducive to .320 hitting with doubles, but not to 30 homers.  The good news is, hitters can choose to alter their swing planes.

Prediction here is that if Ackley's hand-eye is as good as they say he is, that sometime around 2013 or 2014 he'll start lofting mistakes (as Edgar did when he hit his prime).

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=== Extension ===

Why should followthrough matter?  Because it dictates what's happening earlier.

Just picking a couple of things for time's sake:

You don't want your back palm to wind up facing the ground (rolling the ball over).  Notice how Ackley's back palm is beautifully "throwing" the ball against the fence.

In fact, in this video, this is almost not enough rollover at the finish of the swing.  It's pretty and it creates a "throw the ball where you want it" effect.

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The chin-down effect at contact creates extra shoulder power, and locks the eyes in as the bat makes contact.  Ackley can see the ball hitting the bat.  I wonder what that's like.  :- )

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A golf swinger will wind up with his weight barely on his back toe.  Ackley comes up off his back foot, but not extremely.  Here too you can see gap power as opposed to upper-deck power.

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=== Deceleration ===

Remind us to write an article about Michael Saunders' funky deceleration some day ... :- )

The final extension is where guys Ackley's size leave balls on the warning track or over the fence.  Seriously.  A little extra "preying mantis" blossom effect is the difference for them.   (Ken Griffey Jr. used to finish with his back facing the pitcher sometimes; now he doesn't release much at all.)

Ackley's swing, especially the reduced make-contact swing on the left side of the Baseball Intellect video, has the Thomas / Griffey aspect of top hand off to allow for extra power at contact without straining the back.

Ackley's decel, IMHO, allows for him to go for the big ones when he gets his pitch.

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=== Big Picture Dept. ===

Compact, balanced, with power is the summary here. 

In many ways, Ackley's swing reminds of Ichiro's, if you were to put them side-by-side.  The major difference would be that Ichiro would rotate his shoulders more in the load, but except for that, you'd see all kinds of echoes.

"Moving without motion" is the concept of muscle load without going through exaggerated windups.  Ackley's swing is just about textbook for that.

Cheers,

Dr D