Discover an online hitting lessons swing science program for baseball and softball players. Learn where to find a remote hitting instruction coach to teach kids how to increase bat speed and power.
I know you what you’re thinking, “Okay, so what’s wrong with hitting at the batting cages?”
We’ll get to that, but before we do, let me set the stage for what I’m about to share with you. A glimpse into an online hitting lesson I gave to my hitter Stephen at The Feedback Lab.
I was granted permission from Kyle (Stephen’s dad), to share his 12-year-old son’s latest online hitting session with me. They’re out of New Jersey…
In the above video, I mentioned the difference between comparing a swing off the tee versus at the batting cages. It’s not really an apples to apples comparison, BUT if they can repeat what we’re trying to get them to do off a tee, then the feeling to repeat it is there. Here’s what his analysis showed:
Coaches, this is critical!! Athletes don’t just need to be broken down all the time. Build them up first, then offer up the constructive criticism.
And I’m not talking about Happy Gilmore style…
Someone smart once said:
“Practice like you play, so you play like you practice.”
Most coaches have their players do what’s referred to as “massed practice” versus “training ugly” at the batting cages. For example, if you needed work on hitting off speed and breaking pitches, a massed practice would look like the following scenario…a pitcher throws each hitter:
But this isn’t what it’s like in the game. The hitter rarely knows, with 100% certainty, which pitch, speed, and location they’re getting. So practice MUST reflect this dynamic in training. And hitting at the batting cages limits the amount of variance we can work into our practice.
I do a few things with my more advanced hitters (mechanically speaking), to mix things up:
We may not practice all these at once. Coaches, our objective with our hitters is to move them to the verge of “meltdown” with variance. Then bring them back. Then rebuild. The other thing is, during batting practice, the tendency is to take rounds of 10, 20, and 30+ to get a hitter’s timing and rhythm down. This IS NOT good. This is marathon training. Hitting is more like sprint training. Rounds of 3-6 swings is more like it – with 30+ seconds to rest between rounds.
I hope this helps!
Joey … I really like this young man’s swing, and I like what you’re doing with him. The advice you gave him is dead on. I like that he’s getting his front foot turning before it lands, and his back elbow is coming down to start his swing. If he takes your advice and gets the bat angle more vertical to start his swing, I think he’ll be ready to move to a wood bat – or at least a wood barrel, composite handle like the Louisville or the one Mine Bats makes. Make sure you remind him that being a stride hitter is the way to go, and it’s a little trickier when you’re starting out, but the payoff is worth it. Also remind him that as a stride hitter, your goal is to move your entire weight into the direction of your stride, with the objective being to get yourself moving. I say that because I’m seeing a little reaching from him with his front leg. Don’t let that leg shoot, or kick out – bring your whole body forward together.
Stephen … 3 MPH may not sound like a lot … but it is. Ball exit trajectory is very important too. We like to see backspin on the ball for travel, but … if it goes down it will dig in and slow down – where as a ball hit with top spin may skip or pick up speed after it hits the ground. It’s nice looking to have a level swing and all that, and hit the ball right back at the screen in a batting cage when the thrower is only 20 feet away, but in a field you won’t have much success hitting like that. You need to be able to get the ball out of the infield in the air. As the fielders you’ll face get better, they will eat ground ball hitters up. You have to have the mindset that your hits will be un-playable. That means hard over the infielders heads to gaps, or just plain old take ’em right out of the stadium.
Agree with Bob on the hitting the ball in the air. I don’t know the stats on ground balls, but as you progress up the levels of baseball, the ground ball gets you out more and more often. 10 mph of exit speed completely changes a hitter. It gives you about 35′ at the little league level and about 40′ with a MLB baseball. The MLB baseball goes further because of the lower rolled seams.
Amen. Ball exit speed is another monster in itself…but I read somewhere on a science based site that every 1-mph of bat speed translates to 4-8-feet of batted ball distance (this depended on pitch speed). Every 1-mph of pitching velocity translates to only 1-foot of batted ball distance. Of course, we’re not factoring bat weight/length, none, one, or both arms extended at impact, but the truth is a hitter has control over how far they hit the ball. I always thought that it was harder to hit a slower pitching farther, but pitching velocity is a small factor in the equation.
Agree Joey… One formula that I think works well is this…
Added exit speed you get for pitch is .2 x pitch speed.
60 mph pitch = 12mph additional to your tee exit speed
90 mph pitch = 18mph additional to your tee exit speed
at exit speeds up to 70 mph you get around 3.5′ distance per mph
as exit speeds go up, the 3.5′ moves to around 4.3′ distance per mph at the highest exit speeds recorded by Hit Tracker.
One of the highest exit speeds in MLB last year was around 120 mph. 120 x 4.3 = 485.9′
Swing plane is important to get correct launch angle.
Joe
Agree, you got to vary pitches in bp. Batting cages create a grooved swing and do not promote a hitter’s ability to adapt to changes. Train a hitter with varying speeds, locations, planes, and pitches.