Mike Trout is the best player in baseball.

He also, interestingly, has one of the most unique swings in baseball; he’s not only hitting the ball better than just about anyone in the Majors, but he’s doing it in a way that no one else does — or even can. In fact, Trout’s swing is so unique and his talent so prodigious, he’s compiling one of the more bizarre hot zones in MLB history.

Brooks Baseball uses PITCHf/x data, which is by far the best and most accurate in the business. NB: the unorthodox date range simply represents the current season.

Every batter has his favorite and not-so-favorite hitting zones. But this? This is … something else.

What Trout has done thus far this season is a virtually incomprehensible combination of utter dominance in the lower part of the zone and historic futility in the upper part. Exactly how this asymmetrical convergence of beauty and horror came to be is a subject of great fascination, and one certainly worth exploring in further detail.

Let’s take a look at the basics of Trout’s swing before diving into what it all means:

STANCE

Here stands a man who is significantly more athletic than you.

Trout starts from a relatively standard big-league position. There’s not much to note here. His pre-swing movement is minimal, and his hands and bat angle are fairly normal. He’s perhaps a tick more upright than most, but there is nothing else that is particularly atypical.

STRIDE

Trout’s leg kick is above-average in height and exceptional in length. He gets way out there with his front foot, leaving him with a wide base. Most lesser athletes would fly too far forward with their torsos with this kind of stride, but Trout is able to maintain exceptional full-body balance despite the huge horizontal distance covered with his foot. The last item of note is the late inward pronation of his left leg (watch the front foot at the 12 second mark). This helps Trout get his foot planted more firmly so that he can generate maximum torque with his lower half.

That inward pronation, however, doesn’t come without risks. Most inward pronators are vulnerable to too much internal rotation with their front shoulder. This leads to weaker contact, less plate coverage, and a higher incidence of pitches pulled foul. Trout, though, is athletic enough to avoid such excessive internal rotation. As such, he can squeeze out all of the juicy power from his swing without worrying about the drawbacks mere mortals tend to suffer from with this type of movement.

SWING

The aforementioned torque generated by Trout’s inward foot angle also helps him fire his hips as hard as possible once his front foot hits the ground. Considering that he’s linebacker-strong — he’s 6-foot-2 and 230 pounds — it’s an extremely significant hip explosion, which creates a domino effect that goes from Trout’s lower body to upper body.

Like most good hitters, Trout’s hips fire first, then his hands follow once the hips are well on their way. The resultant whip-like effect is but one of the many reasons why Trout is fourth in MLB in average home run distance.

This 489-foot tank is MLB’s longest this year, and second-longest since 2009.

Moving to the upper body, we find the area where Trout is perhaps more distinctive than any hitter in baseball. Watch closely. Once the swing starts, Trout’s back shoulder dips rapidly and significantly as his hands start to move forward.

All hitters have some back shoulder dip, but Trout’s is huge—the biggest in baseball, perhaps even by far.

Yes, this pitch went for a home run. (MLB)

It is this dip that gives Trout a swing path that is characterized by a sharp vertical angle. It’s worth noting that even if Trout’s swing is far more vertical than most, that doesn’t mean he’s swinging a straight up-and-down bat. Though he’s on the extreme vertical side, his bat angle is rarely sharper than 45°.

It’s probably easiest to understand this kind of swing path by looking at the path from contact to finish. We’ll use this helpful Trout vs. Troy Tulowitzki (whom we’ll profile in detail next week) side-by-side to illustrate Trout’s markedly vertical swing path. Both of the swings are home runs on pitches in similar locations.

Here’s the contact point on each swing: