Another season and another opportunity for Bryce Harper to make pitchers look silly. In just the first week of the season, he had a stint of hitting three home runs in just five plate appearances. In the other two, he drew walks.
If you take a close look at this swing, Harper changes up his usual long stride, maximum torque approach. Instead he takes an early stride and lightly touches his front toe to the ground. When he does this, he leaves his head back and all of his weight is on the back foot.
Youth and high school players use this type of stride quite commonly. The problem for those players is that often they never re-establish balance. They way you know this is when they leave the head back and closer to being over the back leg instead of in the center of the hitter’s body.
As Harper drops his heel, he allows his head to drift forward closer to the center of his body and still manages to keep his front shoulder down. This helps him to maintain torque in his body as well as shift his weight forward into the swing.
It is an unusual approach for Harper, but the usual result of a ball hit out of the park.