What has changed from Ted Williams' day is we now have the technology to measure the matching of the hitters swing plane to the angle of incoming pitch. That's it, folks.
from drivelinebaseball.com
https://www.drivelinebaseball.com/2018/05/using-swing-plane-coach-hitters-deeper-look/
Swing plane is a commonly used, and certainly not a new, idea. Ted Williams famously discusses it in his book The Science of Hitting in 1971 and includes this awesome graphic. Swing plane is incredibly important, but the swing plane problem is much more complex than how it’s being discussed.
Same is in pitching where we now have better tools to measure a pitchers velocity than we did back in Williams day where we measured Bob Fellers fastball by running a motorcycle with a speedometer on a track next to Feller throwing a ball. Real precise measurement tool back then.
BTW, pitchers may not be throwing harder than back in the day as we need to adjust for the inadequacy of the tools being used to measure the speed which reduced the speed number by anywhere from 3-5 MPH. There are certainly more pitchers throwing harder since these days the pitching gurus are entirely focused on throwing harder whereas back in the day the "pitching guru wars" focused on how to throw more efficiently i.e.: with "perfect mechanics". The focus has shifted.
The advancement in technology has led to a regression in the value, worth and efficiency of most modern day baseball gurus in my opinion, but only time will tell.
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