The Pitch Behind Drill

The purpose of this drill is to prevent timid hitters from backing out at the plate.

The timid little league batter always seems to assume that backing out will automatically prevent him from being hit by the pitch. He usually starts his getaway before he has any notion of where the pitch is really headed. I have had some success against this tendency by throwing behind the timid batter’s back. After all, he will get plenty of these pitches at the little league level, and you don’t want him backing into them and getting hurt.

Start out using spalding or tennis balls. At first, throw a lot of pitches behind him, then gradually decrease the frequency of these pitches as he starts to break the habit. Soon he will realize that he had better not back up until he sees where the ball is really going.

This will make him safer and more confident at the plate. And while he’s watching the ball more closely, he’s going to realize that he doesn’t have to hide from the good pitches, but can stay put and hit them.

Front Foot Down

As young hitters watch many different hitting styles in the Major Leagues, they will inevitably pick up some ideas for hitting stances, loads, and swings that might work for them. Many fundamentals of hitting are the same across all of these styles, however, and it is not always so easy to see these constants when watching a game on TV. An example of one of these tough-to-spot constants  that any good hitter must always practice is keeping the front foot down on contact.
While this is not thought of as a big problem like “stepping in the bucket” or bailing out during the swing, rest assured that many young hitters lift the front foot off of the ground during contact and immediately afterwards.

To test and see if your young hitter suffers from this issue, just throw them some brief batting practice and look for the front foot to raise up at contact. Sometimes it will just involve the toe raising off of the ground, and other times it will result in the hitter completely moving the front foot to another position right at or just after impact.

Why is this bad? It is impossible to drive your weight into your “frontside” if that frontside is lifting off of the ground.This weight transfer into a firm “frontside” is required for a swing to have maximum speed and power. If the front foot lifts off the ground and lands in another spot during contact, you know that there is no weight whatsoever being transferred into the frontside. If the front toe elevates off of the ground, most young hitters are doing so by shifting weight to the back leg at contact. (Note: some professional hitters lift their front toe at contact, but do so without shifting weight to the back leg. This involves serious strength and most any young hitter cannot replicate this)

So, for any hitter that is suffering from this swing flaw, there are a few things that can be done to address it immediately:

* Have the hitter take a practice load and stride. When the stride lands, stop the hitter and mark where the front foot hits on the ground. Use a piece of tape, a mark in the dirt, or whatever you can to indicate where that landing point is.

* Using the tee or soft toss, have your hitter take some swings with the sole intention of keeping the front foot on top of that mark every single time at contact. Emphasize that the entire foot must be down, including the toe. Forcing the front foot to stay down during swings might cause the hitter to put too much weight ‘over’ his front leg instead of ‘against’ the front leg. For the purposes of this drill and the hitter’s development, this is okay as you would rather have the hitter end up with a little too much weight over the front leg then no weight transfer into the front leg at all.

* Another drill that can be used in conjunction with the above instructions is the Swing & Hold Drill. A hitter can do this while actually hitting or just with dry swings. The main point is this – they cannot hold the finish of the swing if they are moving the front foot or fall away from the front foot. By forcing the hitter to hold the finish, you will see that the hitter naturally keeps the front foot down during the swing.

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Filed under Hitting (11-14 Years Old), Lesson of the Week, baseball

Tags: baseball, Free Baseball Instruction, Hitting Instruction, Youth Hitting Instruction
March 11, 2009
Lesson of the Week: Top Hand Release
Types: Tee, Front Toss, Soft Toss, Live Batting Practice

* Have hitter assume normal stance and position batter’s box.

* Instruct hitter to aim to hit ball on a line directly back through the middle of the field. Err on the side of oppo. side with contact.

* Hitter should approach ball to hit at (game speed – 10%).

* Hitter should strive for contact with two hands on each swing, regardless of live, toss or tee.

* After contact, the top hand should focus on releasing for the finish.

* Hitter should focus on allowing bat to extend through the zone with bottom hand after contact – bottom hand and bat should “release” with no stress or force making the swing stop.

* Bat should finished extended out and behind body at approximately shoulder level. Avoid low or very high finish positions which inhibit smooth, efficient release of the bat head straight through the ball.

Goals:

* Feel the hands release and extend through the zone on each swing – avoid ‘muscling’ or ‘jerking’ the bat.

* Promote fluidity.

* Keep the barrel from leaving the zone too early due to too much “top hand” in the swing.

* Prevent the “rolling over” of the top hand at contact.

* More consistent line drive contact through promotion of these hitting concepts.

Hitting Drills: Advanced Tee Drill Tips

As many high school and youth league baseball players begin practicing for the beginning of the new season, there are some additional tips that any hitter can use to get the most out of the swings they take off of the batting tee. These tips are geared towards hitters ages 12-18, but younger hitters who are a bit advanced can apply some of these same principles.

1. Everytime you place the ball on the tee to hit, always place the ball so that the seams of the ball point in a straight line directly at the pitcher. This will give you a “two-seams” effect that you can use to better visualize how to attack the baseball on every swing. After placing the ball using the “two-seams” alignment, attempt to strike the baseball with the barrel of your bat directly through the seam closer to you as the hitter.

What this will accomplish is the reinforcement of staying “inside the baseball.” If the hitter is able to strike the inside seam of the ball with the fat part of the bat, the barrel will continue onward with a good path through the strike zone. The result will be line drives hit with authority – line drives that go back up the middle and towards the opposite gap. Note that the hitter shouldn’t try to miss the rest of the baseball, but instead just make first contact with the inside seam. In an ideal world, the end result will be a swing that actually strikes the ball fairly flush without much sidespin at all. The compensation to the inside half of the baseball reinforces this tough-to-master technique while producing a swing that at its best will produce rockets, and at its worst produce solid contact to the opposite field.

2. Another advanced technique to use with the batting tee is to move it back towards where the catcher would be, or “deeper” in the hitter’s stance for hitters who are having a tough time keeping a short, compact bat path to the baseball.  The tee can be moved as far back as the middle of the hitter’s batting stance and still be useful for a hitter. Use this occasionally for a hitter who is extending his arms too early or “looping” the swing. Another no-no this can help treat is a hitter who dips his back shoulder when hitting.

With the tee deep in the hitter’s stance, have the hitter try to hit a hard, well struck low line drive or ground ball to the opposite field. If that is done, it will reinforce a short, direct path to the baseball. With the tee this deep, there will result more ground balls than would normally be good to see off the tee, but in this case it is okay. Make sure, however, that the hitter doesn’t “chop” to the ball or skim the top of the ball.Even worse, the hitter should never hit underneath the ball in this drill. If those types of results are present, have the hitter keep swinging at this deep tee drill until the hard line drive/ground balls are routinely produced.

As always, hitters should get the majority of their practice swings off the tee – it is best way to control all variables and allow the hitter to work on grooving his swing.