So there’s this factor known as the previous man check. It’s been round for at the least 5 or 6 years, however it’s making the rounds on the Web once more. The concept is straightforward sufficient. You must put in your socks and footwear with out letting your toes contact the bottom as you accomplish that. You increase your left foot and maintain it within the air whilst you attain all the way down to the bottom to seize your sock, put it on, attain all the way down to the bottom to seize your shoe, put it on, and tie it, then you definately do the identical factor along with your proper foot. It assessments your stability, power, flexibility, and all these different issues our bodies are presupposed to have. Should you fail the check, then you definately’re an previous man, I assume? Possibly you immediately flip into an previous man? Possibly a wholesome previous man simply seems proper outdoors your window to level and snicker at you? That half’s much less clear.
I have a tendency to purchase into the concept the previous man check is measuring one thing essential, simply because at any time when I’ve needed to do bodily remedy, I’ve been compelled to do loads of one-legged workout routines. Should you’ve ever been in bodily remedy, I guess you’ve needed to do them too. There’s nothing bodily therapists love greater than turning up the problem stage of an in any other case easy train by forcing you to do it whereas standing on one leg. When you get good at doing it one-legged, they’ll make you stand on a bouncy ball or one thing, and should you nail that, they’ll actually simply begin shoving you to make it even tougher. Actually, nobody on earth is hornier for stability than bodily therapists.
I deliver all this up as a result of I seen one thing enjoyable about Steven Kwan whereas enjoying round with Baseball Savant’s batting stance graphics the opposite day. The graphics take after ballroom dancing diagrams of previous, exhibiting enjoyable little footprints for every participant at three factors: their resting batting stance, when the pitcher releases the ball, and when their bat truly intercepts the ball. Right here’s Kwan’s 2024 graphic:
Kwan has one of many narrowest batting stances within the recreation, so his entrance foot strikes out towards the mound fairly a bit, however apart from that, nothing about it stands out all that a lot. He’s a bit of man with a bit of stance, movie at 11. However that is the calm earlier than the storm. Right here’s the identical graphic for this month. Preserve your eye on the blue footprint:
I used to be so confused once I watched this. Is Steven Kwan truly stepping on dwelling plate because the pitcher releases the ball? It appeared like one thing I’d’ve seen earlier than, however there was that blue footprint, proper on prime of dwelling plate, clear as day. How may anybody begin a swing with their physique so closed off? And is it even authorized to step on dwelling plate in the course of your swing? That positively looks like it might be unlawful. I pulled up the rulebook and began wanting earlier than I noticed what was truly happening. Should you’re conversant in Kwan’s swing, I’m positive you already know the reply, and it brings us again to the previous man check.
Kwan doesn’t step on dwelling plate, however he has one of many recreation’s most dramatic leg kicks, and proper in the course of it, he dangles his foot straight over the plate. There’s no option to point out in a two-dimensional diagram that his foot is eighteen inches off the bottom. Generally, and I’m not exaggerating right here, Kwan’s whole foot is contained in the strike zone whereas the ball is already on its option to dwelling plate. No batter has ever come nearer to tying their shoe in the course of a pitch:
I went again to Baseball Savant and watched each single certified participant’s batting stance diagram, a whole lot of cleats dancing throughout the batter’s packing containers, black to blue to purple. I’d very roughly estimate that half of right now’s hitters don’t transfer their entrance foot all that a lot, however that also leaves scores and scores of gamers with dramatic leg kicks, their blue entrance toes transferring each which course. None of these gamers does what Kwan does. None of them does something remotely resembling what Kwan does. When batting from the appropriate aspect, Ozzie Albies does place most of his left foot outdoors the batter’s field, however that’s largely as a result of he units up 5 inches nearer to the plate than Kwan does, and his foot remains to be nowhere close to dwelling plate. No one’s diagram appears like Kwan’s as a result of no person’s leg kick appears like Kwan’s.
Right here’s Kwan’s secret. He doesn’t simply have a leg kick. He has a leg kick, after which, proper in the course of it, he has second leg kick. It’s a double kick. A standard leg kick simply entails lifting your foot off the bottom, and it’s possibly price noting that it is a little bit of a misnomer. All over the place outdoors the baseball diamond, there’s a distinction between elevating your leg and kicking. In baseball, they’re one and the identical. Regardless, Kwan does that, pulling his knee straight up till his femur is parallel with the bottom, however he’s simply getting going. At that time, he kicks his foot ahead towards dwelling plate and sweeps it out towards the pitcher in a round movement as he places it down:
Kwan has a leg kick, after which he has a foot kick. It could not be in any respect unfair to say that he places his proper foot in and shakes all of it about. It’s a powerful show of stability, and as far as I can inform, it’s distinctive. I didn’t simply watch all of the diagrams. I watched the swings of each participant I may consider who has a giant leg kick. I watched YouTube movies that compiled large leg kicks of the previous. The closest leg kicks I may discover belonged to Alek Thomas and Gary Sánchez, each of whom transfer their entrance foot whereas they get into their swing, however they’re removed from doing a double kick. Nobody else does this.
Kwan didn’t begin executing the double kick all of sudden. It looks like it’s been approaching for some time now. When he was drafted out of Oregon State in 2018, Kwan had a small, managed leg kick, with no double kick in sight. I can’t discover any video of him from the following two years, however he began 2021 with the very beginnings of a double kick:
It’s very delicate within the video above. By the point Kwan debuted in 2022, the double kick was there to remain, however it’s nonetheless evolving. As he advised the MLB Community throughout spring coaching, he went into the 2024 season trying to influence the ball tougher, and that meant a extra aggressive leg kick. “Earlier than, I’d rise up after which I’d simply put it proper again down,” he mentioned. “So then my fingers are capable of work and I can manipulate the bat as I have to. However final yr, I attempted to – hitter leverage, early within the depend – actually attempt to get that stride out, and now I’m going out to get it. I can keep within the legs, after which now I can keep slotted, catch it out a bit of extra in entrance.” The humorous factor is that within the video, at the same time as Kwan demonstrated the leg kick (which he known as a leg elevate), he wasn’t doing the double kick. He might not even know he’s doing it. It’s solely within the warmth of the sport that the double kick occurs.
This give attention to going out and assembly the ball earlier is probably going the rationale it solely began exhibiting up on the Baseball Savant diagram this season. It has to do along with his timing. This yr, the second kick truly looks like it’s not fairly bringing his foot as far ahead or as excessive, however it’s additionally faster. If Statcast may present us its full path, it might possible look practically equivalent to the 2024 or 2023 path, however it’s solely exhibiting us its place in the intervening time the ball is launched. At that time, Kwan is additional alongside, so his foot is already over the plate. He’s additionally getting his foot down a fraction of a second earlier, and it’s attainable that getting began that little bit earlier is a part of the rationale he’s working a career-low reverse discipline charge.
Watch any baseball recreation and also you’ll see 18 totally different hitters with 18 totally different timing mechanisms. No one’s precisely the identical, however they have a tendency to fall in a few classes. There are gamers with quiet toes, gamers with toe faucets, and gamers with leg kicks. These leg kicks take their toes in just about each course. Some gamers elevate their leg straight up, some pull their foot means again as a cocking mechanism, some use the leg kick to true up a really open stance, some begin slender and push their foot towards the pitcher. However Kwan is the one one who simply dangles his foot there, then kicks it out into the strike zone earlier than he assaults the pitch. It’s a feat of ingenuity in addition to a feat of stability. On the very least, he needs to be each bodily therapist’s favourite participant.