By Todd Graham
Owner: SwingMechanics

Key 1 - Grip & Whip
In this article, we are going to talk about how to correct your grip, and how the grip combined with how you accelerate the bat determine whether you whip or cast. The grip is one of the most important and most overlooked parts of the swing. It is the point at which you hold the bat, and it is responsible for acceleration and control of the bat. As important as it is, most players don’t think twice about their grip, they simply use the same grip that they used when they played baseball growing up.
Before we get into the grip itself, let’s debunk a common misconception. The moment you 'roll your wrists' the bat starts to slow down. Because of this, you want to roll your wrists just after contact. It makes complete sense when you think about it, you want to hit the ball as the bat is still accelerating, and you want to accelerate through the ball. Many people still try to hit the ball as their wrists are rolling, which robs them of lots of power. They believe that you put spin on the ball by rolling your wrists at contact. That is absolutely false. Spin is created by the ball rolling off the top or bottom of the bat. It is simply a product of where the bat makes contact with, and then passes through the path of the ball. Since we want to hit the ball just before we roll our wrists, then it makes sense to roll your wrists as late in the swing as possible. This gives you the most distance in which to build up speed.
The single most important aspect of the grip is lining up the 'door knocking' knuckles on each hand. There are countless acceptable grips. Some drop fingers off the bat, some interlock fingers, some overlap fingers, and some do all three. The important thing about all of them is that the knuckles are aligned correctly. This allows your wrists to roll over very late in the swing. Too many hitters line up the “door knockers” on one hand with the “punching” knuckles on the other. You can see an example of this in the first picture. This results in a short swing path with the wrists rolling over very early in the swing. Grab a bat and hold it in your normal grip. Chances are your knuckles are not lined up correctly. Loosen only your top hand and push your wrists and elbows together so that your knuckles are aligned correctly. Now re-grip with your top hand. Your hands should be in a position similar to the second picture. Slowly swing the bat, and notice how much longer your swing feels. You should also notice that it now feels like you are going to make contact further out in front of the plate. That is what gives you more time and more distance to create bat speed. This grip will feel a little uncomfortable at first, but with a round or two of BP, it will get comfortable pretty quickly. The big adjustment will be changing your point of contact with the ball.
Now that your knuckles are aligned properly, let’s work on whipping the bat. Whipping and casting are the two ways you can swing the bat into the hitting position. They are mutually exclusive, meaning that you can only do one or the other. You can’t do both. The more you whip, the less you cast, and vise versa.
Casting is when the bat head swings out very early in the swing, and then is dragged through the hitting zone. Casting robs you of lots of power, since you don’t take advantage of the momentum created by the bat swinging into the hitting position. Whipping the bat is essentially waiting until very late in the swing to rotate the bat. It will add some serious POP to your swing.
The first thing you need to do in order to whip the bat more is take a look at how you accelerate the bat. First, the old coaching tip 'attack the ball with the knob of the bat' is dead on. If you want to whip the bat, this is extremely important. You want to use both hands to accelerate the bat, but you want to use them during different parts of the swing. Early in the swing, use the bottom hand to accelerate the knob toward the ball. Then at the last moment, use the top hand to “throw” the bottom hand. This will swing the bat out into the hitting position. This must be done late in the swing. If you throw your bottom hand to early, you will cast the bat. This is why people who try to drive their swing with a dominant top hand always cast.
There is one other thing you can do to get even more whip. However, we have to re-visit your grip for this one. In my hitting video 'Power SwingMechanics' I do an exercise that very clearly demonstrates how the grip contributes to the cast or whip in your swing. Start by taking a bat and holding it with your bottom hand on the knob like you normally would, but put your top hand about eighteen inches up the bat. Make sure that your knuckles are lined up correctly. Slowly swing the bat into the hitting position. It should be very obvious that this causes you to cast. You may also notice that your swing path is limited by your back shoulder. Now slide your top hand down so that it is about six inches from your bottom hand. Slowly swing the bat again, and you should notice that you still cast, but not nearly as bad. Now slide the top hand down so that it is touching the bottom hand. When you swing the bat this time, you should notice that you are starting to whip the bat a little. Notice, however, that your back shoulder still limits the swing path. In order to get more whip in your swing, try out an overlap grip.
In an overlap grip the top hand wraps around the bottom hand. I have included a front and back view of my grip. This puts both hands on the bat at the same point. This allows you to get more whip in your swing. As you may have noticed, it is the next logical step in the exercise we just did. It keeps the back shoulder from limiting the swing arc at all. If you convert to this type of grip, it changes the dynamics of your swing in such a way that the bat rotates around both shoulders. This means that neither shoulder is limiting your swing arc. When you get used to it, you will really be able to whip the bat.
One word of caution; anytime you change your grip, or your swing for that matter, take some light swings first. Slowly work your way up to full cuts. And more than anything else if you have pain, stop. The swing should never be painful.
So there is your first Key to Power; Grip and Whip. Remember that any time you make changes to your swing, it will take some work. Be committed to the change. Don’t just try it for a round of BP and give up on it. Really work at it. Your consistency may suffer in the short term, but you will be much better off in the long term. You can be a better, more consistent, more powerful hitter, all you have to do is make the commitment.