So when the player decides not to swing because they are not ready, they get yelled at. When they finally do take a full and aggressive swing at practice, the coach will already be throwing the next pitch before the player has a chance to reset. Time and time again they fall victim to the "practice culture" in baseball and softball. They cut out their rhythm, their forward motion, and their finish to get ready for the next pitch. Too many of our hitters will see us during the season, after months of training, and all of a sudden they have a shorter yet weaker swings with no finish.īefore they even get their shoulders fully rotated, they are slowing down and hopping back into their stances. As a hitter, it feels great knowing you can make mistakes and still get on base.Ĭoaches have to remember that practice time is the hitter's time to get better and not their time to see how many swings they can take in two minutes. The baseball and softball players that we work with daily start to learn how to hit doubles on purpose, and their mishits become hard singles. Don't be afraid to see how a player can develop over time with this kind of practice. Less fear and more aggressive hitters should be what any baseball or softball coach should strive for. Not only would the players have ready their aggressive mindsets, but they would also have a lot more fun knowing they have the freedom to go for it. Immediately after a brief situational round, allow your hitters to "let it fly." Get them ready to do what they will most likely have to do in the game, Hit! I think many coaches out there would be surprised in the performance of their hitters if they introduced more power rounds in their practice or even dedicated one to a home run round. These rounds will create mental and physical issues in most baseball and softball hitters that could take a long time to overcome. The "backside approach" round can work for particular timing issues but usually not for the whole team. Then when the game comes around, the coach wonders why his team can't drive the ball. Again, being afraid to disappoint the coach, the hitter will adopt a weak backside mentality, creating a slower delayed turn of the barrel to flick the ball that way. In rounds like those, the hitter is forced by the coach's demands to hit every pitch, even inside pitches, to the backside of the field. Now, if you are dedicating the opening round of batting practice to a few bunts and one or two hit-and-runs, that is one thing, but making entire rounds dedicated to hitting the ball backside on the ground can be detrimental to a good swing. Again these are times that may only happen one or two times a game, hence the name situational. But baseball and softball teams often spend countless hours of hitting/batting practice time on nothing but hit-and-runs, slashes, bunting, two-strike approaches, etc. However, if the hitter's mechanics are already bad, I am afraid these types of machines can only cause more frustration and negativity.Ī lot like bunt coverage practice, there is a definite time and place for situation hitting practice. If your mechanics are already good, you can still work on lots of other parts of the swing like hip rotation, front and back leg action, and barrel path, just to name a few. ![]() For players, if you can't work on good timing with a negative to positive move forward, then my advice would be to start with your front foot already down. This is a tough one because I do understand the need to take swings with a moving ball and as mentioned earlier, and good throwers can be hard to come by. Months of training and money have been wasted. Ultimately the once good swing is now sliced down to a panic-induced wrist snap. No baseball or softball player out there wants to look bad in front of his teammates and coaches, so they will begin to strip away movement from their swing. Unless you are very in-tuned with your body and timing, there is very little hope for consistent or powerful contact. The ball will suddenly appear which gives it the perception as fast, but the speed of the ball is normal to slow, causing the hitter to suddenly jump forward but then realize they are super early getting their front foot down. These can be extremely frustrating to a hitter with movement. Any machine that shoots the ball out without any warning is one to watch out for. ![]() ![]() ![]() There are many different types of pitching/batting machines out there, and some are better than others.
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