Here’s a fun youth hitting drills post to help STOP bat drag for beginner baseball and softball players. Easy at home indoor use with limited space. Learn how to fix dragging back elbow for 6 year olds on up. Discover batting instruction tips for what is bat drag and what causes it.
Okay, I’ll admit it…
It took 30-mins to clean up my Sophomore in High School, Zack May’s, Rear Racing Elbow using Reactive Neuromuscular Training (RNT)…
The one hitting fault that is a bugger to fix is,
Rear Racing Elbow.
Unfortunately: I find that a baseball hitting instruction fix for one player with this challenge, may not work for another.
Fortunately: I do see symptoms that tend to haunt specific Rear Racing Elbow bat drag hitters.
Unfortunately: I also find that the same combination of symptoms may not be present for every hitter.
Fortunately: For this baseball hitting instruction drill to work, the symptoms must be present.
In this post:
We’ll define Rear Racing Elbow,
Look at the symptoms of this particular case study,
Front knee action at landing: slightly bent or straight? and
How we fixed the issue in one 30-min session, using RNT…
What is Rear Racing Elbow?
It’s when the rear elbow “races” passed the hands towards the middle of the body (see “BEFORE” image up and to the right).
It can cause the hitter to:
Dump the barrel prematurely, which leads to flares OR misses completely to the opposite field, OR
Roll over or get jammed on inside pitches.
It’s a nasty bug to fix with conventional baseball hitting instruction, and one my readers sounded off on at the following two HPL posts:
Frustrated with fixing BAT DRAG? Beat it!
Swing Study reveals how majority of hitters are correcting 'racing back elbow' bat drag within 1-2 weeks WITHOUT overhauling swing mechanics OR buying fancy and expensive hitting aids.
Click button below to access FREE video that has been downloaded over 20K times!
In this particular baseball hitting instruction case study, one of my local hitters Zack May, a Sophomore in High School, over the past year, has been haunted by these three things…NOT getting the:
Front leg to straight at or passed impact,
Back knee to 90-105 degrees during the turn, and
Downhill shoulder angle before landing, and
Post UPDATE: Over-rotation is a BIG issue we see with the over-coaching of rotational mechanics.
Front Knee Action at Landing: Slight Bend or Straight?
Mark McGwire front knee bend at impact. Photo courtesy: Elsa/ALLSPORT
This is a major baseball hitting instruction debate among instructors I respect. They teach their hitters to keep a slight bend in the front knee at or passed impact.
They point to big sluggers like Mark McGwire (pictured to the right) and Mark Teixeira, among others, as examples.
The amount of bend in the front knee up to impact will depend on the amount of forward momentum (FoMo) the hitter uses.
The more FoMo a hitter uses, the more Ground Reaction Forces (GRF) are needed to transfer planes of motion from the Frontal/Coronal* (sideways) to the Transverse* (twisting). In which case, a straightening of the front knee would be highly recommended. Hitters like Jose Bautista and Josh Donaldson come to mind.
On the contrary though, like a lot of big sluggers, the less forward momentum (wide to little striders), there doesn’t seem to be a need to straighten the front knee during impact.
Think of a wide receiver running a 10-yard 90-degree cut route. He uses GRF and FoMo just like a hitter, but he’s transferring from Sagittal* (front) to the Frontal/Coronal* (sideways) plane of motion. In this case, he’s reaching a maximum forward running speed (FoMo), then has to cut very quickly, so you’ll see his plant leg go from bent to straight as he uses Ground Reaction Forces. Evidenced by him dropping down (or getting shorter) before making the cut.
My hitter Zack is both tall (6’4″), and uses quite a bit FoMo. So, for him, when that front knee doesn’t get to straight, that’s a problem. Coupled with the issue of not getting sufficient bend in his back knee during the turn causes the pelvis to not fully rotate. And as a result, his back shoulder and arm feel like they have to do extra work. And Rear Racing Back elbow is born!
*CLICK HERE for a more in-depth overview of planes of motion on Wikipedia.
Post UPDATE: we’ve since moved away from the front knee action having to get straight as an absolute to fixing bat drag or contributing to significant power, for that matter. We see hitters like Bellinger, Seager, Rizzo, Pedroia, and Beltre all keep significant bend in the front knee when getting a ball below their belt line.
Baseball Hitting Instruction: How We Fixed Zack’s Bat Drag in 30-Mins…
Baseball hitting instruction and RNT drill we used with Zack,
We used two long resistance bands positioned as close to his pelvis as possible (high up the thigh without damaging “the goods”),
Both resistance bands pull in opposite directions (feeding the mistakes – front knee wants to stay bent, and back knee wants to straighten during the turn), and
We worked on getting him to “resist the resistance” during the turn.
One thing we also used that seemed to be the permanent fix was finger pressure (see below…)
Baseball Hitting Instruction SAFETY Issue: Please be careful with this drill. The person facilitating the front band is in the way of a swinging bat!!! To be done with adults who know better, not teammates. Please watch video above for clarification on this.
Post UPDATE: one other concept we’re had even BETTER results with fixing dragging back elbow bat drag is the concept of wrist snap or pronation. We kind of talk about the concept here.
Grab 'Finger Pressure' Video
Frustrated with fixing BAT DRAG? Beat it!
Swing Study reveals how majority of hitters are correcting 'racing back elbow' bat drag within 1-2 weeks WITHOUT overhauling swing mechanics OR buying fancy and expensive hitting aids.
Click button below to access FREE video that has been downloaded over 20K times!
https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/baseball-hitting-instruction-zack-fix-racing-rear-elbow2.png1280720Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2022-05-02 09:15:032022-05-02 18:27:02Fun Youth Hitting Drills To STOP Bat Drag For Beginner Baseball & Softball Indoor At Home Limited Space | How To Fix Dragging Back Elbow | 6 Year Old Batting Instruction Tips: What Is And What Causes It?
The baseball batting stance video post was sparked by my friend, whom I admire and respect as a man AND hitting instructor, doing great work in the San Diego-California area, Ryan Lehr (@thepureswingsd).
He’s worked under the hitting tutelage of Reggie Smith for over 15 years, and really has a fantastic grasp of the absolutes to the swing.
For those of you who don’t know Reggie Smith’s teachings, he’s as much of a ‘science-guy’ as we are.
And yes, this works for fastpitch softball as well as baseball.
The point of this video post, is to look at being in an athletic baseball batting stanceand its effect on reducing strikeouts.
We’ll be looking at:
Effective baseball batting stance context,
Metrics of low-strikeout high-ISO hitters, and
Which low-K% high-ISO MLB hitters to model?
Effective Baseball Batting Stance Context
Easier to Hit Difficult Pitches
At Ryan Lehr & Reggie Smith’s Christmas hitting clinic, Kevin Sweeney talked about how getting more athletic in his baseball batting stance allowed him to hit difficult pitches…
Mike Sweeney talking about how he became great. Stopped standing tall, & got in an athletic position! pic.twitter.com/la5njg4wVG
Taylor Gardner, founder of the Backspin Batting Tee, says that a first baseman stretches toward the thrown ball when receiving it. Knees are bent and the eyes are getting on level plane with thrown ball and receiving glove.
Gravitational Forces are acting on the ball at ALL times.
Here’s something that may piss off some fastpitch softball pitching coaches and pitchers…
Taylor Gardner came to the conclusion that a ‘rise-ball’ is a myth. And I AGREE!
And if you don’t believe us:
Find your fastest fastpitch softball pitcher,
Video record her throwing a ‘rise-ball’ from the side angle where you get her and the catcher in the same frame, and
Track the trajectory of the ball’s flight to the catcher’s glove on slo-mo software…
I guarantee the apex of the pitched ball’s arc will be above where it’s caught by the catcher.
It’s because of GRAVITY!!!
Sure the arc will be less, the harder the pitcher throws, but there will still be an arc nonetheless.
Who Else Gets into an Athletic Position?
2015 Michael Brantley in triple flexion. Photo courtesy: MLB.com
I ask my players what knee position they’d start in if they were:
Defending against a quickly advancing soccer striker,
Defending a fast wide receiver five-yards off the line,
The only one between a breakaway power forward and the hoop in basketball,
Going to throw a 16-pound Shot Put as far as humanly possible, or
Receiving a blazing serve from Roger Federer?
CLICK HERE for Speed Coach Lee Taft (@LeeTaft) blog post on why bending the knees is important to force production.
Votto has one of the best swings to model if you want to cut down on ground-balls, strikeouts, weak fly balls, and just want to get on base more and make more frequent solid contact. He’s the ultimate Pitch-Plane Dominator!
Grab 'Finger Pressure' Video
Frustrated with fixing BAT DRAG? Beat it!
Swing Study reveals how majority of hitters are correcting 'racing back elbow' bat drag within 1-2 weeks WITHOUT overhauling swing mechanics OR buying fancy and expensive hitting aids.
Click button below to access FREE video that has been downloaded over 20K times!
I wanted to compare the Strikeout Percentage and ISO metrics to see if we could find a correlation between the baseball batting stance and hitters who rarely strikeout, but also maintain some element of power.
One of the biggest MYTHS is that you can only be a contact hitter, or a power hitter. And that you can’t be both. Nowadays, SABERmetric people conclude that when homers go up, so does the rise of strikeouts.
My belief is there CAN BE more going on between the numbers…
When looking back in time, we saw quite a few examples of fusing minimal strikeouts and raw power…Hank Aaron, Ted Williams, Joe Dimaggio, and Babe Ruth to name a few.
Okay, so what is ISO? Isolated Power, according to FanGraphs.com basically describes a hitters “raw power”.
For you SABR wannabe math nerds (like me!), here’s a simple formula to compute ISO in two different ways:
ISO = SLG minus AVG, OR
ISO = Extra Bases divided by At-Bats
Here’s an excel spreadsheet I put together, using FanGraph.com’s metrics, on the top-5 highest and lowest strikeout percentages among 2015 hitters, their ISO’s, and dinger totals:
We analyze the highlighted hitters in the above video. Daniel Murphy and Michael Brantley having virtually above average ISO’s…
What’s plain as day is how ‘awful’ the top-5 highest K% are. Eee-gads! Not even trying there 😛
The silver lining though, is that there are a couple top-5 lowest K% that have virtually above average ISO’s, and one I’m excited to see perform in 2016 with a change in his baseball batting stance toward the end of the 2015 season…
Which Low Strikeout MLB Hitters to Model?
Notice Joc Pederson baseball batting stance change – left image is halfway through 2015 & right image is at the end of 2015. Photo courtesy: MLB.com
As Tony Robbins says, “Success leaves clues”. He also said,
“If you want to be successful, find someone who has achieved the results you want and copy what they do and you’ll achieve the same results.”
If you’re the coach (or hitter) who’s goal it is to reduce strikeouts among your hitters, while also preserving some elements of power, whose swing should you model?
…At least from a baseball batting stance point of view?
After analyzing the metrics, my answer’s are:
Daniel Murphy,
Michael Brantley, and
Joc Pederson(the end of 2015 baseball batting stance version).
Watch the video above for more in-depth analysis of these hitters.
I’m not sure how many strikeouts Joc Pederson had without ‘triple flexion’ in 2015 versus with it, but I’m anticipating way less strikeouts for him in 2016 if he keeps this principle in his baseball batting stance. He’s a special hitter, and not a very big slugger (6’1″, 215-pounds).
Also, I know that correlation may not equal causation in this case, but it’s worth looking into. So I’d love your thoughts and analysis on other low K% hitters with above average ISO’s…
To be continued… 😉
Grab 'Finger Pressure' Video
Frustrated with fixing BAT DRAG? Beat it!
Swing Study reveals how majority of hitters are correcting 'racing back elbow' bat drag within 1-2 weeks WITHOUT overhauling swing mechanics OR buying fancy and expensive hitting aids.
Click button below to access FREE video that has been downloaded over 20K times!
https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/baseball-batting-stance-daniel-murphy.png407491Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2022-05-02 09:00:212022-05-02 17:46:32Proper Youth Batting Stance How To Improve Power For Baseball & Softball 2022 | Best Open, Square, Closed, Wide, Elbow Up Or Down Hitting Tips
Discover some of the best youth batting stance drills for baseball, fastpitch softball, and slowpitch softball. In the video below, Josh Donaldson addresses proper swing hitting mechanics such as power, elbow up or down, closed stances, and hitting lefty or righty.
13 Josh Donaldson Gold Nuggets: You Didn’t Have To Be A Professional, To Teach High Level Baseball Batting Stance & Hitting Techniques
(I apologize in advance…PLEASE set aside about 14 minutes of reading time for the following baseball batting stance & hitting techniques post. It’s a bit of an emotional RANT 😉
Josh Donaldson talks hitting with Mark DeRosa on MLB Network. Photo courtesy: MLB.com
We FINALLY have validation!!! To have 2015 AL MVP Josh Donaldson affirm A LOT of what we teach here at HPL! Some of you may have seen the above video already. If you HAVE NOT seen it, then please watch.
In the following baseball batting stance & hitting techniques post, I go into more depth about the 13 talking points Josh Donaldson mentions about the “NEW science of hitting”, beginning where Ted Williams left off.
I want to address the few ex-Pro and MLB player TROLLS that wrongly tear myself, my colleagues, and my readers down on the socials for bringing up things Josh Donaldson addresses in the above video.
Without further adieu, from my baseball batting stance & hitting techniques video notes…
Note #1: Back knee inside foot or weight inside back knee?
Is Buster Posey’s back knee being prematurely shifted inside his foot in the ‘Float’? Photo courtesy: InWriteField.com
This was a question from Mark DeRosa…
Josh Donaldson responds that he focuses his weight on his back heel and back hip.
I HATE when hitting instructors PREMATURELY force the back knee of every hitter they instruct, inside the foot (even in the stance).
There are phases to the swing, and Donaldson is talking about what my hitters refer to as the ‘Float & Fall’…
Matt Nokes calls it the ‘Ride & Stride’.
During the ‘Float’ or ‘Ride’, the hitter DOES NOT have to prematurely push their back knee inside the back foot…or focus the weight on the inside of the back knee.
CLICK HERE for a baseball batting stance & hitting techniques post I did on this, dealing with a Twitter Troll.
NEWS FLASH…
Self proclaimed elite hitting instruction doesn’t rest on taking a ton of ‘quality hacks in the cage’ and/or debating over millions of hours of video analysis footage of ‘only the best hitters’.
WTF does ‘quality hacks’ and ‘only the best hitters’ mean!!!!!?
Are we suppose to take your word for it that you know what you’re doing?!
Nah.
I’d rather watch The Kardashians.
Okay, back to focusing on where the weight is in the Float…
Prematurely forcing weight on the inside of a ‘dumb joint’, like the knee, can really put undo stress on the ligament material.
Coaches…please DO NOT wear holes in your players’ knees. This is really important for those FP softball hitting coaches.
And on that note,
FP softball coaches, CLICK HERE for a great BreakingMuscle.com post titled, “Women: Protect Your Knees With the Sprinter Stance Squat”.
Note #2: Not thinking about hands going towards the baseball
Derek Jeter is one of the few having a lengthy career with an extreme handsy approach. Not too many hitters could get away with how he did what he did. Photo courtesy: BaseballByTheYard.com
I totally agree!
ALL the following baseball batting stance & hitting techniques coaching cues are destructive for youth swings:
Hands to the ball
Knob to the ball
Be short to the ball
Hands inside the ball
Yes! Especially the last one…
WHY?
Like the others, it gets the hitter thinking about doing something with the path of their hands.
Some of you use this cue when instructing hitters, and may get occasional positive results…
However,
Any coaching cue that requires an extensive explanation or doesn’t get predictably positive outcomes, is INEFFECTIVE.
I’m looking for cues that with a minimal number of words, gets my hitter to do what I want them to do, even if the concept is new to them…over and over.
Note #3: When Josh Donaldson begins his fall forward, that’s when he goes into loading his upper half (his ‘coil’)
Andrew McCutchen ‘showing his numbers’ while his lower half is beginning to turn counter-clockwise. Photo courtesy: MLB.com
YESSSSS!!
I get asked this baseball batting stance & hitting techniques question quite a bit…when does the ‘load’ start?
And this depends on your definition of a load. But in Donaldson’s context…
The timing of Donaldson’s load, or ‘coil’, isn’t necessarily the rule,
It’s one of three options…
Option #1: Some hitters start in the ‘coiled’ position (highly recommended for younger hitters):
Yoenis Cespedes,
Hunter Pence, and
Ben Zobrist (from the left side)…
Option #2: Some hitters move into the ‘coiled’ position similar to Donaldson:
Bautista,
Cano, and
McCutchen…
Option #3: Some hitters move into the ‘coiled’ position later, like Dustin Pedroia.
The objective is that at landing, or what Josh Donaldson refers to as ‘heel plant’, the hitter is in this ‘coiled’ position.
And it requires the lower half to be open at landing (pelvis on down), and the upper half (above pelvis), to be closed.
Additionally, I LOVE Jose Bautista’s timing cue of loading ‘slow and early’ (CLICK HERE for a post I did on that).
More on the lower half landing open a bit later…
Grab 'Finger Pressure' Video
Frustrated with fixing BAT DRAG? Beat it!
Swing Study reveals how majority of hitters are correcting 'racing back elbow' bat drag within 1-2 weeks WITHOUT overhauling swing mechanics OR buying fancy and expensive hitting aids.
Click button below to access FREE video that has been downloaded over 20K times!
Note #4: Creating bat speed with shoulders, NOT hands (effortless bat speed)
Josh Donaldson’s swing illustrating the spinal engine and Springy ‘X’ Pattern discussed in the next section. Photo courtesy: PicPlayHost
This is VERY important…
WHY?
Because EVERY human movement is driven by the spinal engine…pelvis-spine-shoulders.
According to Dr. Serge Gracovetsky in his book The Spinal Engine, the spinal engine can move in a vacuum.
However, it’s the relationship between arms, legs, and Gravitational Forces that amplify how explosive an athlete can be.
Quite a few hitting instructors talk about hip thrust or loading and exploding the hips.
But what are the shoulder’s function in all this?
Being passive?
I don’t think so.
Some would say a right handed hitter’s front shoulder at landing should be pointing at the pitcher.
This is an ineffective hitting mechanic, shown in this Zepp swing experiment (CLICK HERE) where I observed an average 6-mph boost in Bat Speed at Impact showing my numbers to the pitcher versus pointing the front shoulder at the pitcher (not showing numbers), over 200 swings.
Don’t get me wrong, YES, the pelvis does ‘lead the way’ as Ted Williams said in The Science of Hitting.
But it plays a much smaller role than coaches believe.
Think about how we walk…
If I told you to fire your hips as you walked, what do you think your shoulders would do?
They’d FIRE also!
How about if I told you to fire your hips while walking, but don’t let your shoulders move…
Would that feel awkward?
Dr. Serge Gracovetsky talks about the coupled motion of the spine…
Meaning, while the hips rotate when we walk (albeit small to the naked eye), the shoulders counter-rotate the pelvis.
This is why your right arm and left leg swing forward at the same time.
To have effortless bat speed, like Josh Donaldson says, you MUST teach your hitters to take advantage of these natural laws of human movement.
DON’T use baseball batting stance & hitting techniques to coach them out of them.
Note #5: Rubber band effect, ‘stretching’, creating tension at the finish of his load
Another YESSSSS!
Although Josh Donaldson uses different baseball batting stance & hitting techniques terms, he’s talking about the compression/tension forces in the body via connective tissue called fascia.
Thomas Myers in his book Anatomy Trains describes, what he calls Tensegrity (Tension-Integrity), like this:
I don’t like to think of the body as a rubber band, but rather like a spring.
But what Donaldson is describing is correct.
I refer to this as the Springy ‘X’ Pattern.
CLICK HERE for this video post describing this using Adrian Gonzalez’s swing as a model.
Note #6: Creating the timing to hit the pitch
Most people probably missed this point in the video…Donaldson briefly mentioned it, but I find it VERY important.
TIMING FOR HITTING IS EVERYTHING.
This is why I don’t like rapid fire soft toss OR 15-pitch marathon rounds batting practice.
It’s NOT about quick hands either.
Look, a baseball player may only see one pitch every 12-20 seconds.
A fast-pitch softball player may see one pitch every 8-15 seconds.
In games, swing intensity EVERY swing matters.
I can take a hitter with seemingly slow hands, adjust his or her timing, and have them barreling the ball more.
Of course, we’ll have to address their still ineffective mechanics at some point in the future, but the point is, it’s not about fast hands.
It’s about using the shoulders to speed up the hands.
The opposite IS NOT true.
Coaches handicap hitters by using ineffective drills like rapid fire soft toss, drop toss, and/or marathon B.P. sessions.
Again,
TIMING IS EVERYTHING IN HITTING.
CLICK HERE for “The Dead Simple Guide To Optimizing A Hitter’s Timing In Games”.
Note #7: Front foot is open…hips can’t separate from upper half
Miguel Cabrera is one of my favorite swings to model, except for landing closed (less than 45-degree angle). However, he’s a physical beast, and most definitely succeeds despite one ineffective mechanic. Photo courtesy: MLB.com
Another baseball batting stance & hitting techniques golden nugget from Josh Donaldson.
However, there are quite a few other coaches getting their panties in a bunch about this comment.
CLICK HERE and follow the thread of one of my Facebook posts.
CLICK HERE and follow a Facebook post thread of my friend and colleague Taylor Gardner, founder of the BackSpin Tee. Actually a lot of really good discussion happening on this one.
They’re reinterpreting it as Donaldson is saying to ‘point the landing toe at the pitcher’.
This may be what it looks like in the video, which we also have to be careful of camera angles…
But the point of the matter is, that Donaldson is saying to ‘land open’.
And this is where, us coaches, must define terms.
I say if the landing foot is opened less than 45-degrees, the foot is closed.
If the landing foot is opened more than 45-degrees, the foot is open.
Chris Welch at ZenoLink says the front foot should land open, roughly around 65-degrees (at about 2-min mark):
And I agree.
I do think hitters like Donaldson and Bautista are more on the open side than others.
With my definition of landing foot closed versus open, I’d rather have my hitters err on the side of open, than closed.
CLICK HERE for another Zepp swing experiment where I tested this and found an average bat speed boost of 3-mph boost when landing open, over 200 swings.
Kyle Harrington, dad of one of my online hitting lesson students Stephen, who’s currently 13yo, 5’7″, 130-lbs…
Recently, increased his Ball Exit Speed 5-mph in the last 5 months off the tee, to now 77-mph.
I asked Kyle, what were the two biggest contributors to the increase…and he responded with:
“He grew about 2″ but he’s only 5’7”. I think the main thing is that he is not stalling the bat. In the 3D testing with Chris Welch [of ZenoLink.com] his peak bat speed slowed almost 10 mph before impact, which is common. So he is decelerating the barrel less coming into impact. He was blocking with the front hip and all the speed was too early . So he’s actually moving the bat speed forward in his swing more (where impact is) rather behind the ball before impact. That’s the main reason.”
This can happen for a few reasons:
Too much forward momentum (yes you can have too much),
Landing closed with the front foot, and
Inward turning (coiling) the pelvis towards the catcher (shifts our 45-degree optimal impact zone too deep into the swing).
When the hitter lands closed, as Donaldson said, it’s more challenging to optimize the body’s natural springy fascia.
It’s also worth noting that the front ‘foot shape’ will change depending on pitch location at impact.
For instance,
On an outside pitch, we’ll see the foot more flat, and possibly more closed, than on an inside pitch.
Note #8: 10yo kid told to get on top of the ball, tell them NO…don’t get paid for hitting ground-balls
Ground-ball Coaches, if you spent more time instructing 10-degree launch angles and boosting Ball Exit Speeds, than you do telling hitters to always hit the ball on the ground, our hitters will be in a better position to crush pitchers.
For me, this tip was definitely the highlight of this video.
There was a comment on my baseball batting stance & hitting techniques Facebook post that is worth noting:
Reader A: “If I’m coaching a team of 10 year olds, and either the kid (or parent) tells me no, they ought to start looking for another team to play for. If you allow a kid to tell you no at that age, the kid will become uncoachable when he gets older.”
And here was a great response from another readers to this person:
Reader B: “If a teacher tells your kid 2+2 is 5, you don’t want him to have the courage and character to question the teacher? This society man, anyone that questions authority is deemed to be at fault…how dare they!!!”
I agree with Reader B…however, I understand there are ignorant parents, as well as players, out there as well.
However, speaking in the context of what Donaldson is saying, I agree with Reader B on this.
If you’re a coach that’s teaching hitters to ALWAYS hit the ball on the ground, you’re being ineffective as a coach. And you MUST get educated because if you’re aren’t growing, then you’re dying.
Note #9: Relaxed in stance…time that arms get engaged with the body is during his ‘coil’ (mentions ‘scap load’)
Jace, one of my 11yos, weighs 67-lbs, and hit his first homer over a 180-foot fence. We fixed his racing back elbow bat drag with connecting his hands to his spinal engine through finger pressure.
I totally agree.
There’s a time to be relaxed, and then there’s a time to connect the body (driving engine) to the “things” holding the bat…the hands.
CLICK HERE for another Zepp swing experiment that talks about what I teach to my hitters as ‘finger pressure’, and how we’re banishing racing back elbow bat drag with this technique alone.
It’s ALL about “connection” folks. Quite a few of the young hitters I see just aren’t connected.
But when they get connected…this is when we can triple their body-weight in distance (see Jace image above).
Grab 'Finger Pressure' Video
Frustrated with fixing BAT DRAG? Beat it!
Swing Study reveals how majority of hitters are correcting 'racing back elbow' bat drag within 1-2 weeks WITHOUT overhauling swing mechanics OR buying fancy and expensive hitting aids.
Click button below to access FREE video that has been downloaded over 20K times!
Note 10: Hands load it (versus shoulders), then barrel tips too much…leads to getting underneath balls
Josh Donaldson is talking about getting into his load (or ‘coil’) with his shoulders and not his hands.
When he uses his hands to get there, he feels it leads to an excessive ‘barrel tip’ (click following link), and to getting under the ball too much.
CLICK HERE for an AthleticsNation.com article titled, “Josh Donaldson: Changes in Approach & Mechanics”.
In this article, Jerry Brewer from East Bay Hitting Instruction compares Donaldson’s swing and metrics from 2013 to 2014.
The one big difference being an excessive barrel tip in 2014, leading to drops in his BA, OBP, & SLUG metrics by something like 50 points EACH.
By the way, Jerry is right on with the swing as well.
Note 11: At landing, wants bat to be at 45-degree angle, and to split his head from behind
I agree.
I don’t really want to get into this, but I thought it was a good little baseball batting stance & hitting techniques nugget from the video.
Note 12: Swing down to create backspin
This is where I see Josh Donaldson picking up where Ted Williams left off. This is a well known graphic from Williams’s book The Science of Hitting.
This is something Josh Donaldson is against, and I agree.
Yes, every once in awhile, a hitter can swing down on a ball and launch one.
Did you read the keywords there…? “Every once in awhile.”
Do you know what the majority outcomes will be doing this?
Ground-balls.
And if you read my Ground-ball RANT, then you know how inferior default teaching your hitters to hit them is, unless of course you have hitters who run like greased lightning, or in a Hit & Run type scenario.
The biggest argument here, comes from Little League coaches saying, but the ground-ball is the hardest hit ball to field, throw, and catch.
And my rebuttal is, what happens when your ground-ball hitting team meets a team that can play catch?
It doesn’t matter anyway, because a majority of pitches are taught to keep the ball down in the zone to hitters.
WHY?
Because PITCHERS WANT HITTERS DRIVING THE BALL INTO THE GROUND.
Note#13: Intent – damage at all times
I thought this was a HUGE baseball batting stance & hitting techniques gold nugget.
When asked if Donaldson makes educated decisions to commit on pitches or against pitchers, he says, yeah it depends…
BUT,
His intent is to do damage at all times.
“Why wouldn’t I?” He smirks to Mark DeRosa 😛
Double and Dinger damage.
That’s what the Blue Jays pay him for.
Our objective as hitting coaches should be to get our sluggers hitting the ball as hard as their physical ability will allow them…as frequently as possible.
To return this baseball batting stance & hitting techniques post full circle, let me repeat:
You Don’t Have To Be A Professional, To Teach High Level Baseball Batting Stance & Hitting Techniques Today
You just have to understand human movement principles that are validated by science, and apply these “rules” to hitting a ball.
Circling back to the headline of this post, looking at proper swing hitting mechanics: power, elbow up or down, closed stances, and hitting lefty or righty…
Power – at HPL we believe 70-80% of consistent power comes from properly moving our spinal engine, power doesn’t mostly come from the lower half as some would believe.
Back elbow up or down – what’s important is hitter gets a slight downhill shoulder angle by stride landing(6-10 degrees down). Lifting the back elbow can help with this, but if lifting the back elbow keeps shoulders level, then it doesn’t matter.
Closed stances – I know Donaldson and I differ on this, but I like the closed stance to restrict hip movement. Some hitters OVER rotate their lower half and lose out on directional force.
Hitting righty or lefty – I don’t have a preference for this. The hitter will figure it out either way. However, I do have an opinion on switch hitting…I don’t believe switch hitting is all it’s cracked up to be because they get waaay more at-bats on the left side early on because there aren’t that many lefty pitchers, so the righty swing significantly suffers. Evidence of this lack of lefty pitchers is shown in the majority of lefty hitters struggling against lefty pitchers.
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Now, this Jose Altuve hitting analysis post isn’t about the ‘laser show’…however,
Standing in at 5’6″,
…and weighing in at a soaking wet 165-pounds, we’ll look at Jose Altuve(his height and weight numbers are a little closer to reality I think).
Although,
I do think Jose Altuve has one thing over the ‘laser show’, and that’s dancing (parental guidance is recommended 😉:
In this Jose Altuve hitting analysis video, we’ll go over:
Jose Altuve stats,
Presents of Forward Momentum (FoMo)?
How well he dominates the plane of the pitch,
Where his power comes from, and
Does he practice Pitch Recognition?
FYI: the pitch Jose Altuve is hitting in the video analysis looks like an 87-mph FB straight down broadway, and it does look like he’s on-time.
Without further adieu, here are the notes for the…
Jose Altuve Hitting Analysis Stats (the averages of averages)
CLICK HERE for the FanGraphs.com post I pulled the following stats from*:
ISO = +20 points
BABIP = +34 points
GB% = +4%
LD% = +1%
FB% = -6%
HR/FB% = -3.5%
(*a (+) denotes how many points OR percentage points or above league average, and a (-) denotes below league average.)
Presents of Forward Momentum (FoMo)?
Is FoMo present?
Shifting foot pressure (mentioned landing with closed front foot), and
Moving Center of Gravity (COG).
How Well he Dominates the Plane of the Pitch
Knee Action – ‘getting shorter’ and ‘staying shorter’
Barrel Plane – keeping barrel on plane for as long as possible
Where his Power Comes from…
Showing numbers,
Hiding hands from the pitcher,
Hunch – Posterior Pelvic Tilt (PPT), and
Down shoulders? (not so much here).
Does he Practice Pitch Recognition?
My friend Aaron Miles, who was small (5’8″, 180-lbs), and played 9 years in the Bigs, talks about how his High School coach was forward thinking…in that he did Pitch Recognition training with his troops, and Aaron’s coach said he had the best PR on the team.
My hypothesis in this Jose Altuve hitting analysis is that he does some sort of PR training, OR has a God given early pitch recognition ability that allows him to hit the ball so hard, so often.
Sure, according to this Jose Altuve hitting analysis,
…Altuve may not hit over 30 homers per year, but he sure will hit a boat load of doubles, which is just as good to contributing to team wins…just look at his above average (average) ISO and BABIP scores above!
'Add 40-Feet' To Batted Ball Distance
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https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/jose-altuve-hitting.jpg15802048Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2022-04-20 09:30:072022-04-20 20:48:36How To Increase Hitting Power Stats Like Jose Altuve Swing With Fundamental Baseball & Softball Drills In 2022
Zepp Swing Experiment: Here’s a Quick Way to Fix a Flat Bat at Landing (and WHY!)
Discover fundamental how to coach quick hands, contact, and power hitting drills, techniques for beginners, and basic youth drills for baseball and softball players in the 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 year old age range, in 2022. This Zepp swing experiment targeting a ‘flat’ bat at stride landing is VERY age appropriate for the ages previously mentioned.
Fundamental Baseball Question: How Does a Flat Bat at Landing Effect Bat Speed, Ball Exit Speed, & Time To Impact?
Using the Zepp (Labs) Baseball app and Pocket Radar Ball Coach, I wanted to employ the Scientific Method to analyze how a hitter’s “Flat Bat at Landing”, or toe touch, adds or takes away from keyswing performance metrics including Bat Speed at Impact, Time To Impact, Attack Angle, and Ball Exit Speeds.
Let me define what I mean by ‘Flat Barrel’ versus a ‘Vertical Barrel’…
A ‘Flat Barrel’ at landing is anything less than a 30-degree angle (like Cargo in the above video as an example),
A ‘Vertical Barrel’ at landing is anything more than a 30-degree angle.
Now that we’ve defined the parameters, let’s look at the…
SCIENCE-BASED TRAINING:
Improve your hitting strategy dramatically by applying human movement principles.
Learn not only how and what to train but also the science behind the methods.
Notice where the “dot” is drawn on the two static images left side, and where it’s drawn on the two dynamic images right side. Photo courtesy: GymSmartsCommunity.com
My background research is more experiential, rather than academic.
I have hitters do a mini-experiment by holding the bat in their bottom hand, laid flat (parallel to ground) over their back shoulder. And then ask them to hold the bat, using the same hand, but vertical. I then ask them which bat position is heavier/lighter? Of course they say the vertical bat is lighter. I then ask WHY? And I get a few different answers…
What is the fundamental baseball answer? Because we’re not adding or taking weight away from the bat by doing this…
It has to do with center of mass of the bat in relation to the hitter’s. A ‘Flat Bat at Landing’ pushes its center of mass behind the hitter’s. A human’s center of mass is generally around the belly button. To find the bat’s center of mass you can balance it between your thumb and forefinger.
I’ve also observed when adjusting a hitter’s ‘Flat Bat at Landing’ to a more ‘Vertical Bat at Landing’, there’s a bump in Ball Exit Speed, which I measure at the beginning (before instruction is given) and end of a hitting lesson. My hitter’s also share they feel quicker to impact, have a little more ‘pop’, and that it’s easier getting the ball in the air.
It’s also interesting to note that I see quite a bit of early barring of the front arm when the hitter lands with a flat barrel. I also see the hitter “wrapping the bat” around their head. In my opinion this is a compensation to manipulate the shifted center mass of the bat from behind the hitter.
CLICK HERE to watch this fundamental baseball video on how to fix a ‘Flat Bat at Impact’.
Hypothesis
Look at the difference in bat angle at landing between Carlos Gonzalez (left) – “Flat” and Cody Bellinger (right) – “Vertical”. Just because a Big Leaguer does it doesn’t mean it’s effective or optimized. Oftentimes they succeed despite ineffective mechanics. Photos courtesy: MLB.com
In support of the Background Research above, I’m hallucinating that we’ll see a bump in Bat and Ball Exit Speeds, in addition to a reduction in Time To Impact. I also think that we’ll see a more positive move in the barrel’s Attack Angle.
Flat Versus Vertical Bat at Landing Experiment
Equipment Used:
Zepp Baseball app (to measure Bat Speed, Hand Speed, Time to Impact, & Attack Angle),
Yellow dimple ball feedback markers to keep starting footwork the same = bat length…I used two yellow dimple ball markers to make my stance setup consistent. One was placed inside my back foot, close to the plate. The other was placed one bat’s length ahead of the back marker.
Backspin tee was set one baseball’s length behind the front feedback marker, and tee height was about mid-thigh
We stayed as consistent as we could with keeping the ball height and depth the same for most swings.
I broke each swing down into a couple steps: 1) Get to landing, 2) Pause for 2-secs, and 3) Swing. The reason for this was to control the bat either flat or vertical at landing.
The two tests in the swing experiment were counter-balanced. Which consisted of eight blocks of 25-swings done in the following order ABBA BAAB. ‘Flat Bat at Landing’ was letter ‘A’, and ‘Vertical Bat at Landing’ was letter ‘B’. 200 total swings were completed in the experiment, 100 per test. Counter-balancing helps remove the “getting tired” and “warm up” factors.
The objective of ‘Front Facing Swings’ was to start the ‘belt buckle’ pointing at the pitcher, and to minimize pelvic movement.
Fundamental baseball Experiment Day-1 on 7/5 we completed 150 total swings (75 ‘Flat Barrel at Landing’ & 75 ‘Vertical Barrel at Landing’). Experiment Day-2 on 7/10 we completed 50 swings (25 ‘Flat Bat at Landing’ & 25 ‘Vertical Bat at Landing’).
We had to break the 200 total swings into two days, with the second day coming 1 week later, because of time constraints.
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Data Collected (Zepp Baseball App & Ball Exit Speed Readings):
‘Flat Bat Swings’ Days 1 & 2 side by side…
Flat Barrel at Landing swing averages of the averages: 76-MPH Bat Speed at Impact, 26.5-MPH Hand Speed Max, .209 Time To Impact, -32* Bat Vertical Angle at Impact, & 8.5* Attack Angle.
‘Vertical Barrel Swings’ Days 1 & 2 side by side…
Vertical Barrel at Landing swing averages of the averages: 76-MPH Bat Speed at Impact, 27-MPH Hand Speed Max, .206 Time To Impact, 30.5* Bat Vertical Angle at Impact, & 8.5* Attack Angle.
CLICK HERE for the Ball Exit Speed Google document. The findings?
Flat Barrel at Landing AVERAGE Ball Exit Speed = 79.01-MPH
Vertical Barrel at Landing AVERAGE Ball Exit Speed = 81.08-MPH
Difference = 2.01-MPH Ball Exit Speed bump with more Vertical Barrel at Landing
Data Analysis & Fundamental Baseball Conclusion
Zepp data analysis comparing the averages of averages:
We saw NO change to Bat Speed at Impact between the two swings,
We saw a 0.5-MPH boost to Hand Speed Max when holding a ‘Vertical Bat at Landing’,
We saw a .003 second reduction in Time To Impact when holding a ‘Vertical Bat at Landing’,
We saw a +1.5-degree increase to Bat Vertical Angle at Impact when holding a ‘Vertical Bat at Landing’,
We saw NO change to the Attack Angle between the two swings, and
We saw a 2.01-MPH increase in Ball Exit Speed when holding a ‘Vertical Bat at Landing’.
Based on the above Data Analysis it looks like my Hypothesis was proved right when it came to a boost in Hand Speed Max and Ball Exit Speed, and decrease in Time To Impact, but wrong when it came to Bat Speed at Impact and Attack Angle. I think the increase in Ball Exit Speed can be attributed to the decrease in Time To Impact.
When we see ineffective movement at the Big League level, we have to understand that these high level hitters are succeeding despite ineffective movements, not because of them.
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https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/carlos-gonzalez-cody-bellinger-flat-versus-vertical-bat-e1499868435121.png265450Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2022-04-20 09:00:492022-04-20 19:51:21Fundamental How To Coach Quick Hands, Contact, & Power Hitting Drills, Beginner Techniques, & Basic Drills For Youth Baseball And Softball 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 Year Olds In 2022
“The locked out front knee is a more consistent method that results in a hard transfer of weight creating more power and less variation since it is the same every time. Coach Joe Brockhoff’s system is a great example.
I teach to lockout the leg when the heel hits the ground. I think if this method is causing too many ground balls there is something else going on with it. With the proper weight distribution and rotation throughout it is the most natural and consistent method.”
And I mostly agree. However, I think there’s some confusion about what the front knee position should look like at landing.
In this baseball hitting mechanics for youth post, I want to address my top-6 reasons for landing bent:
Engaging springy fascia in the legs,
Pitch adaptability to off speed pitches,
Shrinking the strike zone,
Using Ground Reaction Forces,
Getting eyes closer to lower pitches in the zone, and
How humans change directions and planes of motion…
And, at the end, I wanted to clean up WHY I like my hitters to straighten their front leg at impact, however please note this IS NOT an absolute, especially when looking at a hitter like Cody Bellinger (he’s not the only one who does this)…look at the catcher’s glove which shows pitch location (down)…
1. Engaging Springy Fascia in the Legs
Watch Thomas Myers, from his book Anatomy Trains, explain the importance of fascia (said like Fashia).
If you aren’t analyzing baseball hitting mechanics for youth based on the rules of fascia, then you’re wasting your hitters’ time.
It’s not enough to base the swing off firing fast twitch muscles fibers. Repeatable power is in how we load fascia and fast twitch muscles.
For our purposes in this post, a hitter MUST be bending the knees at landing to engage, what Thomas Myers calls, the Spiral & Deep Functional Lines extending down as a stirrup under the feet.
My friend Lee Comeaux, who works with professional golfers out in Texas, has studied Thomas Myers’s book more extensively than myself, and he’s found the amount of bend in the knees at landing must add up to 45-degrees.
Same with the arms.
But my baseball hitting mechanics for youth point is, there has to be some bending in the knees at landing to activate the springy fascia contained in the legs. And the amount of bend will depend on the amount of Forward Momentum, and whether we’re talking a fastpitch or baseball hitter.
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In the above baseball hitting mechanics for youth video, I use Hanley Ramirez to demonstrate how important the bending of the front knee is to making timing adjustments to off-speed pitches. CLICK HERE for the full HPL post.
In his book Positional Hitting, Jaime Cevallos called the hitter bending into the front knee at landing, or to buy more time, the:
‘Cushion’ (normal timing), or
‘Double Cushion’ (off-speed timing).
JK Whited and Chas Pippitt of the Baseball Rebellion calls it ‘pushing the pause button’.
And we typically see this if a hitter is sitting fastball, and adjusting to off-speed or breaking balls.
3. Shrinking the Strike Zone
Watch the above baseball hitting mechanics for youth video I did February 13, 2014 of Barry Bonds ‘getting shorter’. It’s received over 47,789 views on YouTube. You can also find this ‘getting shorter’, OR shrinking the strike zone, approach with (pay attention to the action of their landing knee)…
Josh Donaldson
Jose Bautista
Mike Trout
Bryce Harper
And, Dustin Pedroia
Please do a baseball hitting mechanics for youth experiment for me…
Go into your bathroom with a bat (don’t worry, I’m not going to make you swing it)…
Get into your stance facing the mirror, as the pitcher…
Now, draw a line on the mirror just above your head, using a dry erase pen.
Okay, so now stride and land with a straight front leg… (make sure you have an athletic gap between your feet after striding).
Note the gap between where the top of your head is now, and the line you drew on the mirror.
Now, stride and land with a bent front leg,
How much of a gap there?
If you observe this little experiment with your hitters, you’ll see how we’re effectively ‘shrinking the strike zone’ by landing, what I call, ‘shorter’.
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Watch Chris Welch from Zenolink give a simplified background on Ground Reaction Forces (or GRF’s).
Basically, you push into the ground, and the ground pushes back, with equal and opposite force.
It’s VERY difficult to harness GRF’s when your knees are straight.
Try jumping as high as you can with straight knees.
Try running as fast as you can with straight knees (you’d look like Forest Gump with his leg braces on!!!) lol
Try defending a forward in basketball…
…a soccer striker…
…and an offensive Lineman on “the line” in football…
…with straight knees.
My baseball hitting mechanics for youth point is, you have to be athletic to hit. And landing with a straight front leg doesn’t allow the hitter to optimally use GRF’s.
This also goes for the hitter’s stance. I like my hitters to start with bend in their knees, regardless of the width of their feet.
5. Get Eyes Closer to Lower Pitches in the Zone
Taylor Gardner of the Backspin Tee brought this to my attention. Watch what happens to the first baseman’s head when receiving a throw…
The first base person strides forward toward the incoming ball, and bends the front knee (‘gets shorter’) to get the eyes closer to the ball.
A hitter MUST do the same thing, although the ball isn’t coming straight at them like the first baseman in the video.
The pitch is coming in sideways.
And to be more consistent with hitting the ball hard, we have to teach our hitters to bring their body – somewhat – down to the pitch’s level.
In other words, you don’t hit a low pitch consistently well by landing on a stiff front knee.
6. How Humans Change Direction & Planes of Motion
Pay attention to how Armanti Edwards and other NFL wide receivers change direction while doing a “Route Tree Session” with trainer Gari Scott…
Watch them run routes from a big picture point of view. In other words, not looking for any specific arm or leg angles.
Watch them ‘get lower’ when changing directions, or cutting.
They land on a bent plant leg, then push off the same leg, extending it, to accelerate again.
Three main planes of motion. Photo courtesy: goldsgymwebsterny.wordpress.com
There are three main human planes of motion:
Saggital – divides the body into right and left halves
Frontal (a.k.a. Coronal) – any vertical plane that divides the body into ventral and dorsal (belly and back), and
Transverse (a.k.a. horizontal plane, axial plane, or transaxial plane) – is an imaginary plane that divides the body into superior and inferior parts. It is perpendicular to the coronal and sagittal planes.
In changing from one plane of motion to the other, there MUST be a ‘getting shorter’ of the body’s stature, as the athlete plants and pushes off the ground to change directions.
The wide receivers above are changing from the Sagittal (front to back) to Frontal (sideways) Planes. While a hitter changes from the Frontal (sideways) to Transverse (rotational) Planes.
In other words, just like an NFL wide receiver goes from a bent plant leg to straight at push off, a hitter MUST go from a bent landing leg, to a straight leg at ‘push off’. You don’t see these wide receivers keeping a ‘slight bend’ at the end of their push off.
So this brings me to the million dollar baseball hitting mechanics for youth question,
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CLICK HERE for a Zepp experiment I did where I looked at the Discus technique of ‘blocking’. ‘Blocking’ is basically the action of going from a bent front leg at landing, to straight at impact.
I took 100 swings landing bent versus landing straight with the front leg…
Results?
As you can see, landing bent with the front leg, then moving to straight at impact, added an average of 6-mph of bat speed!
CLICK HERE for another HPL article I did on ‘blocking’ analyzing Edwin Encarnacion’s swing.
Okay, so now that you’re following me on this,
Let’s look at the function of the front leg at impact, and WHY I choose to teach my hitters to straighten it versus keeping it bent…
Homer Kelly wrote The Golfing Machine. He was an aeronautical engineer for Boeing during the Great Depression, and fell in love with golf, and applied his engineering principles to the golf swing.
About ‘Knee Action’ Homer Kelly says:
“The slant is up in the direction of a straightened Knee. The slant of the Hips affects the degree of the Hip Turn. Actually, the primary function of Knee Action – as with Waist Bend – is to maintain a motionless Head during the Stroke.”
There’s a lot going on in that statement that you can run with…
But did you catch the bolded part?
We slant our body up in the direction of the straightened knee. And this is assuming we’re working with enough bend in the back knee during the turn.
In other words, the pitcher is throwing downhill, and also yes in fastpitch the ball is falling down by the time it reaches the last 20% of ball flight.
Photo from “The Science of Hitting”, book by Ted Williams
So if the hitter wants to be consistent, they MUST match the downward pitched plane with a positive barrel attack angle (barrel traveling up to impact), not negative (or down).
And according to Homer Kelly, the front knee must get to straight before impact, in order to slant the hitter (or golfer) up.
This is WHY I teach my hitters to land bent, then straighten the front leg at impact. Big Leaguers don’t all do this of course.
There are many BIG slugger examples of keeping a slight bend in the front knee at impact, Mark McGwire and Mark Teixeira to name a few…
But I work with A LOT of smaller hitters that can’t afford to be mechanically ineffective at driving the ball. I base my hitting program on human movement principles that are validated by science. Not on theory, philosophy, or what I think is right or wrong.
I hold my hitters’ swings to a higher standard. A standard that’s validated by science.
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Swing Study reveals how majority of hitters are correcting 'racing back elbow' bat drag within 1-2 weeks WITHOUT overhauling swing mechanics OR buying fancy and expensive hitting aids.
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https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/planes-of-movement1.jpg18722268Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2022-04-16 09:48:402022-04-16 16:48:35Proper Front Foot Stride, Knee, Leg Position When Batting In Baseball & Softball | Hitting Drills To Keep Feet Still During Swing
STOP Pulling Off The Ball, Increase Batting Average, and Boost Power By Using The Closed Stance?
What’s the best batting stance for power? How do we STOP a hitter from stepping in the bucket (out of the box) when hitting a baseball or softball in 2022? This post will shine light on how to see the ball better, keep the front shoulder in during the swing, and will suggest the best batting stance for power…
I know, I know,
Some well meaning coaches will think, “Well, a closed stance cuts off a hitter’s vision, and/or restricts hip movement”…
I get it. I used to believe the same thing a couple years ago,
…But what I found in my research was counter-intuitive, yet very promising for hitters.
Giancarlo Stanton using his “closed stance”. Photo courtesy: MLB.com
You don’t know what you don’t know, right?
My process is to chew and digest the science, observe how elite hitters apply the movements, and then try it out!
As you’ll soon find out, Giancarlo Stanton did his homework before making this particular change in his swing.
Since there may be many of you raising the same objections I started with, I wanted to discuss:
Addressing the above “Study of Planes” video, then we’ll move on to…
Analyzing the small change that has netted BIG results for Giancarlo Stanton this season.
Study of Planes
My good friend Seo Perales shared the above video with me a few years ago. By the way, he’s a multiple level black belt in Brazilian Jujitsu.
We love comparing notes because we both like to seek and explore human movement principles that are validated by science. The only difference is, in his line of work as a Jujitsu instructor, he wants to learn how to break down the body, and I’m into maximizing its effect.
The above video demonstrates the science of movement planes. What are considered weak and strong planes of movement from a Judo perspective.
I think you’ll find the video enlightening.
Now, you may be thinking, “A Judo video? Really?! What can I learn from a video about Judo?”
If you find yourself camped out in ONLY baseball or softball circles, then you’re missing out on A LOT of useful information that will take your hitters to a whole other level.
The video is very applicable to hitting.
Furthermore,
My good friend Lee Comeaux from Texas, who teaches professional and amateur golfers, also brought the power of movement planes to my attention about a year ago…
He told me draw an “X” in the batter’s box from opposite corners, and have the hitter stand on either line when hitting. He’s very versed in Thomas Myers’s book Anatomy Trains. He says hitters standing on one diagonal leg of the “X” encourages the springiness of fascia. He taught this to his 15yo daughter, who has hit over .600 the last couple years playing Fast-Pitch Softball in Texas, which is one of the hotbeds for both baseball and softball competition in the country. Oh and by the way, she also hit a half dozen homers as well.
The second part of this post, I wanted to share the tipping point in addressing Giancarlo Stanton’s new closed stance…
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You can go there and read the full article, but I wanted to tease out the quotes from Giancarlo Stanton (and some of David Adler’s commentary), and how Stanton arrived at the batting stance change…
“I just said I was going to try it. Honestly, I had about 30 minutes of work, maybe 45 minutes, before the game,” Stanton told MLB.com Sunday, when he crushed his Major League-leading 45th home run against the Mets at Citi Field. “And then 10 minutes before the game, I was like, ‘This feels more comfortable.'”
Stanton was already having a helluva year, so it’s interesting to me that he made the change when he did, typically a change like this follows a slump. However, this wasn’t a spur of the moment decision – like it sounds from that quote – he did his homework, which you’ll read about shortly…
“My best striking position is closed,” Stanton said. “It’s not smart to try to completely change something in the middle of the season. But if you are 100 percent committed to it … well, you’ve got to be. You’ve got to trust what you’re trying to do. If you change something, you want results right away, otherwise you try to go back. But I trusted it completely and let it ride.”
Sounds contradictory doesn’t it? To have the attitude that you can’t completely change something in the middle of the season – especially when you’re already doing well!! But then he says you MUST commit to giving the change time – that is – IF you’ve done your homework beforehand.
I’ve heard some parents and coaches say mid-season changes aren’t smart. I don’t like to think that way…WHY? Because if you don’t guide the hitter, the hitter will make changes on their own. And if they don’t get highly resourceful on the subject, then this could lead to DISASTER with all the junk hitting info on the net these days.
David Adler did fantastic research illustrating the evolution of Giancarlo Stanton’s closed stance in this Tweet:
You’ve seen how Stanton’s closed his stance by now. But it’s still cool to look at the different stages this season. All these are home runs pic.twitter.com/1xxFGgwIUL
“Stanton’s closing of his batting stance has correlated with his massive power surge. On June 18, he had 17 home runs in 282 plate appearances; since June 19, he has 28 in 236.
When Stanton hits from those positions [open or straight up], his front side can come open before the pitch arrives, leaving him exploitable.
The closed stance is a natural counter. When Stanton is already turned inward to start, his rotation drives him into the pitch, instead of causing him to fade away from it.”
By the way, for those not doing the math:
From start of season to June 18th, he hit 1 homer every 16.5 plate appearances, and
From June 19th on, he hit 1 homer every 8.4 plate appearances…
He cut his rate in half!!!! The closed stance was the ONLY change to his swing in that time frame, so this makes an interesting case study with a decent sample size of plate appearances. See for yourself with the following David Adler Tweet:
Even w/ Giancarlo Stanton’s new closed stance, his swing’s the same. But his feet force him in, help him stay on the ball. L: Aug. R: April pic.twitter.com/v5eXYpq5YB
David Adler adds some terms of comparision you may be familiar with…
“With his adjusted stance, Stanton has been driving the ball in the air more often. His rate of fly balls and line drives, per Statcast™, has risen from 41.5 percent prior to June 19 to 50.3 percent since. Stanton’s average exit velocity on those balls has increased from 97.6 mph to 100.8 mph, the highest in the Majors over that time.”
I don’t care that Stanton is a beast, if you increase your Line Drive and Fly Ball Rates (Launch Angle), and Ball Exit Speeds that much, you’ll make a lot of Ground-ball teams VERY VERY upset. Small hitters CAN and DO take advantage of this formula too. Statcast has given hitters the cheat codes to increase offensive productivity!
Furthermore, in the Adler article…
“[His stance] gets him in the position he wants to be in. It looks like it’s keeping him on the ball more, and he seems like he’s seeing it better,” said Christian Yelich, who’s played alongside Stanton as long as any current Marlin — since 2013, when he was 21 and Stanton 23. “Some guys have different problems than others. You go about fixing them or covering them in different ways. It’s all about feel. That’s what works for him, that feel.”
Look at that bold sentence once more because that is one of the most critical keys to this whole thing. Yelich is also tapping into making extreme adjustments, for example, Stanton’s challenge in the past has been pulling off, maybe because of when he tragically got hit in the face a few years ago. Whatever the reason, the extreme adjustment (a closed stance), helps him stay on the ball longer.
CLICK HERE for a video I did on how to make adjustments…the scientific term for this is “Paradoxical Intention”.
Now, here is where the article gets into the research that brought Giancarlo Stanton to the point of taking the stance change seriously…
“But at a level of the game where emulation is fundamental, success begetting imitators, Stanton found his prototypes: Nolan Arenado, Matt Kemp, Adrian Beltre, prominent hitters who do close off. He recognized past greats, too: Hall of Famer Andre Dawson works as a special assistant to the Marlins, and he hit with a closed stance in his playing career. Stanton didn’t copy the technical aspects of their batting stances, but their accomplishments gave him precedent to actually make the change himself.“
Some on Twitter have written this change off as a band-aide, avoiding a true fix. A true fix? Are you kidding me?! Cutting his home-run per plate appearance rate in half IS NOT a true fix!? Dude!! Success leaves clues. These people are saying Giancarlo Stanton is “playing to the slice”, where a golfer who chronically slices the ball will angle his body at setup so they don’t have to fix the real problem…which is not squaring up the club face at impact.
This is a poor attempt to protect an inflexible teaching philosophy, and sheer laziness on their part to get educated on their craft they claim to know a lot about. You instructors seriously think Giancarlo Stanton is not “squaring the ball up” at impact since June 19th and is just “playing the slice”? That is laughable. You don’t know what you don’t know, right?
This is the problem I have with instructors with inflexible hitting systems…they’re WILLFULLY IGNORANT to experimenting with things that could push their hitters forward, especially movements validated by science. We’re ALL in this together, and we’re ALL helping hitters. It’s NOT about your ego or protecting “your brand” coaches.
But I digress…
Here’s some insight into Giancarlo Stanton’s thought process with the change…
“I just know the guys with success,” Stanton said. “Arenado and Kemp, those guys, you know you can have a high average with it. So that kind of gave me the green light to try it…I knew it could work. Not very many people did it. But I know people like Hawk and them did it in the old days — and it worked for them, too.”
The Bottom Line…
A day or two after re-tweeting Homer Bush’s Tweet about Giancarlo Stanton’s closed stance, I received this response from @Omaha_Outlaws4…
I understand your objections that a closed stance may cut off a hitter’s vision, and/or restricts hip movement. You’ve heard me talk a lot about “keeping the back foot sideways”, well, this plays right into that.
Matt Nokes is religious on restricting hip movement to the point of impact with keeping the back foot sideways. Homer Bush agrees in this interview. So are the Backspin Tee guys Taylor and Jarrett Gardner. LIGHT BULB! The closed stance does this naturally.
The main benefit of restricting hip movement at impact (includes keeping back foot sideways) that you’ll hear from Nokes, Bush, and the Gardner Brothers, is to keep the barrel in the hitting zone longer. This increases BA and Slug%.
Here’s my advice:
Chew and digest the science,
Observe how elite hitters apply the movements, and then
Try itout!
If it doesn’t work after giving it the ol’ college try, then toss it.
As many of you know, I will gladly eat crow and change my hitting system IF you can show me the science, swing experiments, and many elite hitting examples that I can’t ignore the issue.
This is an informal Part-1 to a Zepp swing experiment I’ll be doing on the Giancarlo Stanton closed stance in the near future. So stay tuned…
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https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/giancarlo-stanton-closed-stance-e1503613446475.png338500Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2022-04-04 09:10:442022-04-05 20:52:52STOP Stepping In The Bucket & Out Of The Box When Hitting A Baseball Or Softball 2022 | How To See Ball Better, Keep Front Shoulder In During Swing, & Best Batting Stance For Power?
Discover how to use the legs when hitting a baseball or softball in the 2023 year. Does a powerful swing depend on footwork, hitting against a firm front side or a straightened front leg, front foot, or do the hips play a big role. Learn batting drills to optimizing legs ARE NOT what you may think…
Answered: “How To Get My Kid To Stop Rising And For Him To Utilize His Legs More During Batting?”
Here’s what we cover in the above video:
Legs DO NOT equal power – water polo example,
What is leg function in swing & Adjusting to pitch height,
Distance between the feet equal more control over line drives,
GRF’s but not as much as you think,
Buying time – back foot sideways, directional force, & pushing the “pause” button, and
How to utilize the legs in the swing?
Hey, what’s going on. It’s Joey Myers again from ‘Hitting Performance Lab’. In this video, we’re going to answer the following reader question:
“How to get my kid stop rising, and for him to utilize his legs more during batting?”
Now this is a question that comes either through a form, survey, or email or even from my local lessons. The coaches out there in the high schools tend to meddle a bit too much, subscribing to the hitting myth that: ‘it’s all about the legs’, or ‘you need to use your legs more’.
In this video, I want to talk about what that means, and what is the function of the legs…
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Legs are only 20-30% of the consistent power equation, and most of that is in the function of the pelvis. If you’re a coach and power is the deficiency in your hitter’s swing, then it’s the spinal engine you want to focus on. The Catapult Loading System is where 70-80% of consistent power is found. The best example I like to share can be found in water polo.
What is Leg Function in Swing & Adjusting to Pitch Height
Now a couple things, one is they help to adjust to pitch height. If you’re looking at hitters like Cody Bellinger of the Dodgers, Joc Pederson of the Dodgers, Corey Seager, looking at Anthony Rizzo of the Cubs or some of the past players like Adrian Beltre or Pedroia. When the pitch is down in the zone, you tend to see them bend their front knee to go down and get it. They tend to do that consistently on those pitches, those lower in the zone pitches, not locking out their front knee like many teach.
I’ve seen these same hitters Rizzo, Bellinger, I’ve seen them with a bent front knee hit balls 440 to 460 feet. So, locking out the front knee IS NOT all about power. So, this raises a question of, if you want a hitter to use their legs more often because you think it has to do with power, well that is just not true – that’s not what we’re seeing. So, adjusting to pitch height, and you can study the hitters discussed as examples.
Distance between the Feet Equal more Control over Line Drives
Distance between the feet, this is a big one, that we can use the legs or utilize the legs to allow hitters to hit more line drives. The problem happens when, say if we are teaching our hitters to skip their back foot that they end up skipping their feet too close together. Or it could be they don’t stride that much. They don’t skip at all and, so their feet tend to be closer together. What we want is what you see with the top 50, top 100 hitters in the big leagues….
You’re going to see distance between their feet. So, whether that is a longer stride and their front foot moves away from their back foot. Whether they don’t skip but they don’t stride as much, you still see that wideness of their feet. You see them scissor, you see different things like that, but what they all have in common, all the top hitters in the big leagues, is they have distance between their feet. When the feet come close together, it makes the hitter taller, which this reader is asking how to keep the hitter from “rising”. The taller the hitter gets, the more in the ground the ball is gonna get hit.
If the hitter knows better, and they try and get the ball in the air, even though they have narrow feet during their turn. Then they’re gonna do something unnatural with their hands to try and get under it, which we don’t want them to do either. Because that is going to cause uppercuts. It’s going to cause inconsistencies in their swing path.
GRF’s, but not as much as you think
I just mentioned that hitters don’t have to lock their front knee out for power. When you think about ground reaction forces (GRF’s), they DO play a role. I’m not taking away from ground reaction forces, or saying “Oh, well the legs don’t do anything in the swing”.
No, they do. It’s about a 20 to 30% increase in power by using the legs. Most of that though is in the pelvis, and the rest in the spinal engine. I tell my hitters that the spinal engine, their combination of your shoulders and how you use them. Neck, shoulders, and pelvis account for about 70 to 80% of the power. That gets you to the wall. The legs help get you over the wall. So, you do need the legs, and it’s like what Dr. Serge Gracovetsky, the author of the ‘Spinal Engine’ said, that locomotion, the arms and legs aren’t necessary for locomotion, they’re an enhancement, they help enhance movement of the spinal engine.
So, we’re not taking away from the legs, the use of the legs, and how they can benefit the swing. It’s just that they’re an enhancement to the spinal engine, the taller the player is, the longer the levers, the more the force multiplier at the end of that lever. So, guys like Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton are gonna have longer levers, if they lengthen those levers at impact. When we’re talking about the front arm shape, they’re gonna hit the ball pound-for-pound, apples-to-apples swings farther than Jose Altuve with the locked out-front arm. It’s just because the longer limbs enhance more, they’re more of a force multiplier.
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Buying Time – Back Foot Sideways, Directional Force, & Pushing the “Pause” Button
Buying time. So, the lower half, the legs can help buy time. Jamie Cevallos in his book ‘Positional Hitting’ way back, I think it was in the early 2000’s or mid to late 2000’s. He talked about this idea of a ‘Cushion’. You’ll see a hitter especially, if they’re looking fastball, and they see a curve ball or changeup. You’ll see them actually bend, sink, or cushion into their knees. They use their knees by bending them to buy them a little bit of time to get on time a lot better. It’s pushing the ‘pause’ button.
The other thing we want to do to buy time, is keep the back foot sideways.
We talked about this idea of directional force, Matt Nokes, he says that to hit a ball 400 feet, it takes 8,000 pounds per square inch of force in one direction. In hitting, both in baseball and softball, we have 90 degrees to work with. The other 270 degrees is in foul territory, it doesn’t do a hitter any good or a team any good to play in that 270 degrees outside of a fair territory. We have to stay between the 90s, we have to stay between the lines. If you think about a bowler, every single professional bowler out there, “scissors” their legs.
I’m not saying that all hitters have to scissor. I just give my hitters that option. But if you think about bowlers, they bowl between a two-foot Lane. I don’t know if that’s correct or not, but it’s somewhere around that. They also put a spin on the ball, so if they over rotated their lower half, not keeping their back foot sideways, they’re over rotating their pelvis. Then what you would see is that ball bouncing into the outside lanes. Try scissoring your legs, then try and open your hips up more, and it’s almost impossible.
You want to make sure that we’re creating directional force, and that’s another thing the legs do. They help us stay between that 90 degrees, and use all 90 degrees effectively. That comes in handy at the higher levels when hitting to the opposite field is a lot more important, and when we see shifts. Most of the time, hitters are not very good about going the other way. You can see the hitters that do go the other way very well, their batting averages seem to be higher.
How do we Utilize the legs in the Swing?
Now again, if it’s power you want, this isn’t the place. You want to look at the Catapult Loading System, and harness the power of the spinal engine. If you want a majority of power, 70-80% of consistent power.
Getting Shorter, Staying Shorter
To properly utilize the legs in the swing, you want to look at getting shorter and staying shorter. You see most great hitters when you draw a line over their head before they stride, by the time they get to stride landing, you’re gonna see distance between where they started, and where their head is at stride landing. You’re gonna see what we call ‘Getting Shorter’.
Then as they swing, it’s almost like that bottom ladder rung they create at landing, they tend to stay under that line. What we do is, we could take a PVC pipe. We can put it at the start of the hitter swing, before they even stride…we can put it maybe at their nose or their chin, and we can have them practice getting the top of their head under that PVC pipe. As they swing, stay under that PVC pipe. I’ve also had my hitters get next to a piece of furniture that’s about the same height, then have them stride, and get their head to where, now they’re under the top of that, say dresser or whatever, or picture frame, could be anything around the house.
When they swing, do some slow motion swings, and they stay under that line. That’s a way to get shorter, stay shorter.
Okay to “bend the knee”
It’s okay to bend the knee, I also get my hitters to do this if necessary. We don’t really practice this, but I tell them it’s okay to bend the knee, if the pitch is down in the zone.
Distance between the feet
Also working distance between the feet, you can either get them to stride longer, or you can cut down on their skip. We usually try to manipulate one of those two things or both things to get that distance between the feet, so that allows them to hit more line drives or at least control their line drives.
Keep back foot sideways
Then keeping their back foot sideways. You can use the VeloPro, they use it in pitching a lot. But in hitting, we use the VeloPro.
We tell the hitter to make sure they keep their back foot, their back heel on the ground as they swing. Almost like you would see with George Springer, or Altuve, or Mike Trout, any of those kinds of hitters or in softball Sierra Romero. They keep their back heel on the ground and it turns sideways, so they stay sideways. They do a better job of staying between those 90 degrees.
One last thing on keeping the back foot sideways, as mentioned, scissoring helps with that as well. So, that’s something that you can play around with, and let your hitters’ experiment with.
Hope this answered the question of “How to get my kid to stop rising, and for him to utilize his legs more during the swing”. Make sure that we’re swinging smarter by moving better, and before I let you go…
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https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/use-legs-more-in-swing-e1573766476979.png259500Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2022-04-04 09:01:082023-01-04 19:58:27How To Use Legs When Hitting Baseball Or Softball 2023 | Does Powerful Swing Depend On Footwork, Firm Front Side Or Straight Leg, Front Foot, Or Hips? | Batting Drills NOT What You Think
1) Can we improve launch angle hitting path (angle batted ball takes off the bat) for baseball and softball by swinging “down”? 2) What kind of swing plane drills or cues can we use to optimize batted ball distance? And 3) What is the ideal home run formula?
ANSWER – listen closely to Barry Bonds’ answers to Alex Rodriguez’s questions… (I’ve included my video stamped notes below)
ANSWER – CLICK HERE for Paradoxical Intention and CLICK HERE for how to properly teach ‘launch angle’ swing (not what you think)…
ANSWER – CLICK HERE for the ideal home run formula…
This baseball swing video where Alex Rodriguez interviews Barry Bonds was a two parter to this video post. Here are four of the interview’s finer points:
“X” factor. Why top hand and back shoulder have to communicate with front leg,
Per-fect swinging down because it’s easy to go up,
200+ Stikeouts as long as you hit 40-homers? And,
How bunting can ‘line up’ your hitting.
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At about the 1-min, 40-sec mark, Alex Rodriguez asks Barry Bonds about the “Ferris wheel” v. “merry-go-round” swings. Bonds says he’s more of a down-angle swinger. “Down” means to flatten out the barrel path. Not talking about swinging straight down.
At about the 3-min mark, Barry Bonds goes into what he calls the “X” factor and the “center-line”. Back shoulder going to communicate with front leg. And front shoulder with back leg.
At about the 4-min, 15-sec mark, Alex Rodriguez asks Barry Bonds if he hits off his back leg. Causes head to fly open, front shoulder, and uppercut. Bonds talks about using top hand as “guide” hand, bottom is power. Top hand (back shoulder) and front leg have to communicate. If they don’t, then head can pull open.
At about 6-min, 30-sec mark, Alex Rodriguez asks Barry Bonds about the advice Barry give him about not dipping his back shoulder too much. Bonds expects hitters to work chopping ball off ground during tee work. It’s easy to go up. Over exaggerate down on a consistent basis. “Per-fect” the down level swing.
At about 9-min mark, Alex Rodriguez asks Barry Bonds about in today’s game it’s okay to strikeout over 200 times per season, just as long as you hit 40-homers. A-Rod asked Bonds how he developed the discipline and balance at the plate. Game has changed. Don’t blame the players, they adapt to the environment. In Barry’s day, had to hit .300, strikeout less than 100 times per season or you were sent down. Bonds was told growing up to be a great hitter. Home-runs don’t matter. Tony Gwynn was a big influence to Barry. Use line to line, that will open the gaps.
At about 11-min, 30-min mark, Barry and A-Rod talk about bunting against the shift. Bonds adds that bunting can always get you lined up for hitting. Playing “catch” with the baseball. Bunting slows things down. My buddy Aaron Miles tells a story about this.
At about 13-min mark, Alex Rodriguez asks Bonds that if he was graduating from Arizona in 2020, gets drafted by the Giants in a Sabermetrics heavy environment, would he have listened to his dad? Baseball is a eye hand coordination sports. Computers are limited on what they can predict.
At the 15-minute mark are Alex Rodriguez’s “takeaways”.
'Add 40-Feet' To Batted Ball Distance
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How Fast (or Slow) Until a Data-driven Swing Replaces an “Old School” One? (Baseball Analytics Shenanigans)
Baseball Analytics Photo courtesy: HittingNow.com
Why extremes are ALMOST never good
(Estimated reading time: 18-minutes)
Has the new way of baseball analytics changed baseball in 2022? Or are they ruining sports? I want to present a how to guide that translates data science metrics into hitting mechanics. Old school versus new school.
How did we get here with baseball analytics? The ‘Launch Angle’ era. Where did it originate? What was the tipping point of choosing Sabermetrics over traditional scouting? You’ll find out in the coming post. But first,
We’ll be discussing what a data-driven swing looks like – we’ll be covering:
Story of Minor League hitting coaches having almost ZERO hitting experience,
Pros of a data-driven swing,
Cons of a data-driven swing, and
How it’s bad (or good) to track ball exit speed and launch angle in the batting cage.
Once upon a time in the Minors…
Story of Minor League hitting coaches having almost ZERO hitting experience
I have an interesting story to talk about. A true story. In an almost magical land called the Minor Leagues. At the time, a little birdy playing for a National league professional organization whispered in my ear. This little birdy told me…
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Their are budding baseball analytics hitting coaches sprouting up in some professional organizations – having almost zero hitting experience. No this isn’t fake news. These whirlybird propeller seeds are traveling by wind from the sparkling land of economics … planting their baby hitting coach seeds in fresh dark batter’s box soil. With a little gray water, bright sunlight, and the swift tap of a fairy’s wand… instantly sprouts an economics hitting fairy!
These magical Econ-hitting fairies are now happily coaching professional hitters on what they need to be feeling as a hitter … regardless of whether they’re hitting line drive after line drive … AND, with no more playing experience than Little League. Imagine the Mathlete schooling the High School Baseball Jock in everything hitting. And the Jock MUST listen or … YOU’RE FIRED!
Okay, so I may have embellished the story a bit. The Minor Leagues ARE NOT magical lands – just ask any Minor Leaguer. It wasn’t a little birdy that shared the story – it was a professional baseball human being. And sorry to kill your hopes and dreams, but magical Econ-hitting fairies aren’t born by adding gray water, sun, and the tapping of a fairy wand. C’mon man, everyone knows those aren’t real! Magical Econ-hitting fairies, I mean. Fairy wands are VERY real.
It is true though – how this story sounded in my head. It was an interesting story coming from a single-A ballplayer. That is, the state of professional baseball in the so-called ‘Launch Angle’ era. It does beg the question…
How are these baseball analytics Econ-hitting fairies, who have zero college, professional, or Major League experience, finding themselves coaching professional hitters on what they need to be doing, and how they need to be doing it? Listen, this may sound counter to what I just spent a few sarcastic paragraphs mocking. But listen closely…
As a coach you DO NOT need to have extensive experience to teach hitters to be effective in their movements. Just as long as you understand how to apply human movement principles that are validated by real science to hitting the ball. In other words, as long as you understand the rules of the human movement game, you can help hitters at all levels succeed, regardless of experience.
So what is happening?
From my understanding, these data-driven Econ-hitting fairies with extensive backgrounds in economics DO NOT understand the rules of the human movement game. Let me take you back to the future…
For those with your head in the sand the last two decades, there’s been a revolutionary baseball movement since 2001. Just after Michael Lewis wrote Moneyball. You may or may not have read the book, but may have seen the movie starring the always dreamy Bradley Pitt.
At the heart of the story is former General Manager of the Oakland Athletics, Billy Beane (played by Bradley Pitt). Beane reached out to Paul DePodesta, a Harvard alum, with a background in economics. And coincidentally had a knack for baseball statistics. DePodesta would soon become Beane’s first analytics department.
And it was here, Billy Beane transformed a low budget, bottom of the barrel, SEEMINGLY professional franchise known as the Oakland Athletics, into a real David and Goliath story. Beane and DePodesta used key player statistics to recruit. Stats that optimized scoring more runs, and as a result would win more games. Like how often a hitter gets on base – or On-base Percentage. And how often a hitter gets an extra base hit – known as Slugging Percentage. Think about it. How do you score more runs? Get more runners on base, and have hitters who can drive them in. Nowadays there are more advanced stats that measure run scoring value, but the point is this changed the game forever. For the better, and for the worst. I’ll get into why in the coming pages.
Furthermore…
This helped the baseball analytics powered A’s be highly competitive against top budget franchises. I apologize, but I’m going to spoil the ending … this was until other big market teams caught on. Oops! The cat was out of the bag. Yuge budget teams like Boston and New York were able to take the same system, but now pay BIG sums of money for the same undervalued players Oakland was getting at a steep discount. Yes, Oakland shot themselves in the foot. It wouldn’t be the last time. The jig was up. The A’s magic run was over. But not before Billy Beane and the A’s proved the system worked. Regardless of a franchise’s budget. Like a fairy’s wand, player valuation metrics transformed the game.
And it was a good thing at the time, because you had players and coaches still in the game or retired, that were helping teach the game through their personal experiences. They’re now considered “old school” coaches. Filling a gap on the coaching side of things that the Econ majors and analytics departments weren’t able to do. It was a healthy debate between old and new school methods. Friction and debate in a system are a good thing. But now this friction is like the political climate between Republicans and Democrats. Toxic.
This healthy balance of baseball analytics debate went MIA somewhere along the way. Like crabgrass in your lawn, metrics soon took over. Pushing many of the experienced baseball minds out of the game. Labeling them dinosaurs. Or maybe, the experienced minds couldn’t keep up. Or didn’t want to keep up. In my humble opinion, player valuation using metrics has its place. But it should not be the totality of scouting, recruiting and developing players. I’m not a Math-hater or numbers-denier. I love Math. Love Geometry, Economics, and Statistics. I did hate Algebra 2 though. My point is, data without context is not optimized. Data is a puzzle piece. NOT the whole thing.
Teaching hitters isn’t just about metrics. Doesn’t have to be completely data-driven. AND, teaching isn’t just about old school teaching methods. It’s a blend of both. Mutually inclusive. Not mutually exclusive. We can use data AND we can also use old school teaching methods to help hitters at all levels. We don’t have to be on one side or the other. You don’t have to be Tom OR Jerry. Bert OR Ernie. Han Solo OR Chewbacca. When it comes to hitting, the following will replace ‘Or’ with ‘And’.
Let’s make the Mathletes happy and discuss the…
Pros of a data-driven swing
Here are some pros to a data driven baseball analytics swing. Famed business management consultant, Peter Drucker once said,
“You can’t manage what you can’t measure.”
You business owners and managers understand this. You understand that you can optimize certain operations. You can optimize certain metrics in a business, it could be using Profit First in finances, it could be building Software as a Solution (SaaS) in technology, it could be optimizing sales funnels in marketing. Optimization is working on the right things, and then doing those things right.
How can numbers help hitters? Swing experiments. In online marketing, we can run what’s called split A/B test. Meaning, we can test whether a green button gets more clicks than a pink one over a period of time. Like online marketing, we can split A/B test the swing by running swing experiments.
One of the things we used to accomplish this, when we started HittingPerformanceLab.com back in 2013, was technology such as the Zepp swing app, a knob tech swing analyzer. Like BlastMotion and SwingTracker today. We can compare key swing metrics, whether it’s bat speed, attack angle, or time to impact and contrast two different swing movements. It’s the ultimate baseball analytics split A/B test for hitters!
Here are the 5 steps to applying the Scientific Method to running swing experiments…
We start off with a QUESTION: “Are loose hands fast hands to a hitter?” We can do a swing experiment using a BlastMotion or SwingTracker bat knob sensor. And we can test that. We can test it comparing apples to apples.
We then form a HYPOTHESIS on how we think the experiment will turn out: “I think loose hands ARE fast hands”. And then,
We go down the rabbit hole of RESEARCHING other studies that confirm and deny our hypothesis.
Then we COLLECT THE DATA from using the Zepp, BlastMotion, SwingTracker, or a PocketRadar for measuring ball exit speed.
For example in our ‘loose hands are fast hands’ swing experiment … we would take one hundred swings with loose hands. And one hundred swings doing the opposite. In this case, using what we call finger pressure. So the top hand, bottom three fingers squeezed tight, eight out of ten squeeze, from the moment the hitter picks up their front stride foot, to the swing follow through. Then we counterbalance those swings. This helps remove any warm-up or getting tired biases out of the experiment.
We break the two hundred swings into twenty five swing chunks, and layer them so that loose hand swings are symbolized with the letter ‘A’, and finger pressure swings are symbolized with the letter ‘B’. Remember, each letter represents one 25-swing chunk. The first 100 swings will be broken into the following sequence: ABBA. And the last 100 swings will be broken into the following reverse sequence: BAAB. This is how to do split A/B testing, from a hitting perspective.
After all 200 counterbalanced swings, we extract the averaged out data from the BlastMotion, SwingTracker, Zepp device, or PocketRadar. Then we can base our CONCLUSION on the averages. Which factor, loose hands or finger pressure swings contributed to better bat speed, hand speed, time to impact, attack angle, etc.? By the way, Finger Pressure won out in our own swing experiments.
Simply put, here’s the Scientific Method…
Question
Hypothesis
Research
Data
Conclusion
Essentially, we use the above process, take one hitting myth, and test it against its opposite. Don’t get me wrong, no swing experiment is perfect. Experiment findings are based on probability. Experiments are repeated by others, and the findings are either proven or proven false. Over time, this increases or decreases confidence in the findings. The bottom line is this, using the Scientific Method may not be perfect, but it’s one step in the right direction. It gives us a process and path towards the truth. Take of from Peter Drucker: “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.”
We satisfied the Mathletes – somewhat – talking about the Pros of a data-driven swing, especially when it comes to Moneyball. Billy Beane, all that stuff.
Now, let’s make the old school athletes happy and look at the…
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Outside of applying the Scientific Method to optimizing the swing, here are the Cons to a baseball analytics data driven swing. Typically, in a data driven swing, not enough attention is given to the context of the numbers.
I always say, numbers don’t have brains. People do. Here’s the problem … take the example of our Econ-hitting fairy story. Knowing zero about hitting. Having virtually zero experience hitting. Teaching hitters based on hearsay. Basically guessing on connecting the dots. This presents quite a challenge. It would be like asking me to re-roof your house … I have a lot of skill sets, but that ain’t one of them! You’d be better off making YouTube your friend and doing it yourself!
In today’s game, these hitters are in the Big Leagues because their statistics work for ‘Launch Angle’ era Econ-scouts. On paper, the numbers work. Aaron Miles played 9-years in the Big Leagues, from 2003-2011. Played for almost half a dozen teams. Most notable, he played with Albert Pujols on the St. Louis Cardinals. He was a switch hitting middle infielder and third baseman. Standing in at 5-foot, 8-inches, 180-pounds. Beautiful .281/.320/.352 career average slash line (batting average/on-base percentage/slugging percentage). Note that he played when the baseball analytics ‘Launch Angle’ era was just getting warmed up. When there was a somewhat healthy balance of old and new school. That’s the context.
Let me set the scene…
I’ve had a few enjoyable phone conversations with Aaron Miles over the years. Great dude. Not afraid to challenge the status quo. He told me a pretty revealing story once. Which will say a lot about the hitting times we find ourselves in. I asked him what decision he made in the past that now – looking back – he sees was a mistake?
He was slumping one year, and was briefly demoted. Before the demotion, he knew he was a small-ball situational hitting guy being smaller, faster, and a switch hitter. But with the demotion, he didn’t have much to lose, so he decided to air out his swing. Again, this was the start of the ‘Launch Angle’ era. Interestingly, he began smashing more extra base hits. At one point, a coach came up to him saying something to the effect of, “C’mon Miles, you’re a role player, don’t swing beyond your role”.
Remember, at this time there was still a strong old school hitting mentality present in the game. So what did Miles do? What any rational, logical, smart Big Leaguer would do in that scenario … he got back to being a role playing hitter. You see, the respect for the “numbers community” wasn’t as high as it is now. So in Aaron’s case, old school hitting was more representative of the times.
Here’s the point…
Here’s how Aaron Miles answered the question of what decision he made in the past that now – looking back – he sees was a mistake… In this day and age of rewarding hitters that get on base more often and get more extra base hits … he expressed that he would have given the “air-it-out” swing more time. Maybe he could have added another year to his career. Maybe 2? 3? 4 maybe? Who knows! Give up some strikeouts. Hit more dingers and doubles. This formula seems to work out better for hitters in the Launch Angle era.
Let me be clear. This blog post isn’t about giving up a hundred strikeouts and fifty batting average points a season to hit for more power. What we believe is having your cake and eating it too! Power AND average. Mutually inclusive, NOT mutually exclusive. Just like Batman AND Robin!
Getting back to our baseball analytics Econ-hitting fairy friends taking numbers out of context…
They’re looking at a hitter’s high ground ball percentage – say 50 percent, while league average is 43 percent. And they’re telling that hitter to get the ball in the air. You may agree with this. And I can see where you’re coming from. But there’s a catch…those numbers don’t mean anything, if you don’t understand what mechanics are causing a higher than average ground-ball rate.
Let me give an example…
Christian Yelich in 2015 had a ground-ball rate of 62.5-percent! Remember league average is 43-percent. Then, that rate steadily dropped in the years that followed 56.5, 55.4, 51.8, and in 2019 he finally arrived at a league average 43.2-percent ground-ball rate. Do you know how many doubles he hit in those respective seasons, starting in 2015? 30, 38, 36, 34, and 29 doubles in 2019 – where he had about 100 less plate appearances than prior years. Dingers? Starting in 2015 with 7, 21, 18, 36, and 44 in 2019.
Yes, hitting less ground-balls will lead to more extra base hits. But what in a hitter’s mechanics (or timing) cause an above average ground-ball rate? Do you know? Off the top of your head, what can you point to mechanically? Believe me, if you tell a hitter to get the ball in the air without looking at mechanical ground-ball choke points, then you’ll most likely get an extreme uppercut. Not to mention, most young hitters will make unnatural compensations to get the ball in the air. This collapses consistency! Low batting average and high strikeouts will be the ultimate result. Believe me.
Baseball analytics numbers by themselves are dumb. Numbers don’t have brains, people do. So hitting coaches have to understand how mechanics translate into metrics. Back to our Econ-hitting fairy friends. That’s the problem. Not having the ability to translate metrics into mechanics. To optimize the numbers, we have to understand the context. The good news for our Econ-hitting fairy friends? This can be learned and applied in today’s ‘Launch Angle’ era. Regardless of playing level experience.
'Add 40-Feet' To Batted Ball Distance
Swing Study reveals how tens of thousands of hitters are adding 40-feet to batted ball distance by using one simple strategy.
Click the button below to access the FREE video that's been downloaded over 30K times!!
How it’s bad (or good) to only track ball exit speed and launch angle in the batting cage
There are some hitting coaches that will say tracking ball exit speed and launch angles in the batting cage is really dumb, is REALLY not smart. And then there are those who do it all the time. And their hitters are successful versus doing nothing.
Look, I treat the batting cage as a Laboratory. It’s a place to experiment. To work out the kinks. To be free to make mistakes and learn. Use data to measure and manage swing mechanics. Logical coaches get this. Others? They’re just guessing.
Same polarized perspective about tee work. Some coaches don’t like hitting off batting tees. Because at the end of the day, the hitter has to translate what they’re doing mechanically to a LIVE pitch. Agreed. But when teaching something new, a batting tee has its place. It can also help coaches understand cause and effect in mechanics. How? By isolating the variable. If you can’t isolate the variable, you’re guessing. And guessing is an anti-optimization strategy. If you don’t know what’s causing what, then how do you know what works and what doesn’t?
Isolating the variable? Brilliant.org defines it:
“Isolating a variable means rearranging an algebraic equation so that a different variable is on its own. The goal is to choose a sequence of operations that will leave the variable of interest on one side and put all other terms on the other side of the equal sign.”
I know, rough definition when comparing against baseball analytics. Let me rephrase … in relation to hitting mechanics, it’s finding out what in the swing contributes to the majority of power… Hitting more line drives… Getting on-time more often… How would one go about isolating those mechanical variables? I can tell you it’s not hitting LIVE pitching. WHY? Because LIVE pitching is too random. Humans. Pitch speed. Pitch depth. Pitch height. Pitch type. Pitch distance. Pitch reaction time. All this can be controlled in a swing experiment off a tee.
I believe, there’s a time and place for the tee. I subscribe to the Goldilocks Golden Rule – not too hot, not too cold…I like my hitters using the tee just the right amount. The brain has to organize in a certain way. With LIVE pitching, there is a lot of data collection the hitter has to take in. Pitch recognition. Tracking. Timing. Learning a new mechanic also taxes the brain. High cognitive load.
Consider this…
What if I asked you to write your first and your last name in half the letters. In other words, what if I asked you to write every other letter of your name? So for me, JOEY MYERS, I would write it as J-E-M-E-S. Now, I’ve never done that before. So, if I was timing myself, the first five out of ten tries would be slow. The more I practice though, the faster I’d be writing half my name. Why? Because I’m writing it in half the letters!
But it takes a little time for my brain and body to connect and figure this out. To learn how to do it. Learn how to do something that I’m not used to doing. It is the same exact thing when learning something new mechanically. Keep this in mind when thinking about your seven, eight, nine year olds learning something they’re not comfortable doing. Hitting off the batting tee is an okay thing to do in the beginning. When something’s new.
Again, the batting tee shouldn’t be something you spend a lot of time using, but it is a proper regression-progression when compared to dry swings, soft toss, or LIVE toss. In connecting tee work to ball exit speeds and launch angles … they give us a unit of measure off the tee with a uniquely controlled environment. Apples to apples comparison.
Launch angles are a data point. A lot of these coaches don’t like the launch angle swing. Well, launch angle is a number. The launch angle is the angle of the ball coming off the bat. It’s hard for hitters to control it. However, hitters can control their barrel Attack Angle. The angle the barrel takes to the incoming pitch. Launch and Attack Angles don’t have to be the same. And most likely they aren’t going to be. But hitters can better control the latter, not so much the former.
What’s measurable is manageable. We can use swing experiments to do it. Hitting off the tee shouldn’t be something we hang our hat on, but it is something that gives us a data point, a standard data point that we can give baseball analytics context to. Not like analyzing metrics without looking at context. Remember numbers don’t have brains, people do. What are the causes of an above or below average fly ball, ground ball, or line drive percentage? Home run to fly-ball ratio? Higher percentage of pulling the ball or going the other way too much? What is the mechanical causation-correlation relationship making those metrics above or below average?
We’ll find out in upcoming blog posts…
We covered A LOT:
Story of Econ-hitting fairies in the Minor Leagues – having almost ZERO hitting experience and knowledge. What’s going on here?
Pros of a data-driven swing – what’s measurable is manageable. Using the Scientific Method: 1. Asking a question, 2. Forming a hypothesis, 3. Doing the research, 4. Collecting the data, and 5. Formulating a conclusion,
Cons of a data-driven swing – numbers by themselves are dumb. Numbers don’t have brains, people do. Hitting coaches have to understand how mechanics translate into metrics. What does a hitter with an above average ground-ball rate mean? How do you bring him or her to average or below average? And…
How it’s bad (or good) to track ball exit speed and launch angle in the batting cage – if you’re not collecting data and comparing with strategic swing changes, then you’re guessing. Tracking ball exit speeds, attack angles, and launch angles are part of data collection. And using a tee is essential when isolating the variable and teaching something new.
'Add 40-Feet' To Batted Ball Distance
Swing Study reveals how tens of thousands of hitters are adding 40-feet to batted ball distance by using one simple strategy.
Click the button below to access the FREE video that's been downloaded over 30K times!!
https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/baseball-analytics-cabrera-launch-angle.jpg586600Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2022-03-30 06:42:552023-09-01 20:03:54Has New 2023 Baseball Analytics Changed Baseball OR Ruining Sports? How To Guide Translating Data Science Metrics Into Hitting Mechanics
, the spinal engine can move in a vacuum.
.
describes, what he calls Tensegrity (Tension-Integrity), like this:
, I wanted to employ the Scientific Method to analyze how a hitter’s “Flat Bat at Landing”, or toe touch, adds or takes away from key swing performance metrics including Bat Speed at Impact, Time To Impact, Attack Angle, and Ball Exit Speeds.
to measure Ball Exit Speeds,
to record swings, and
, explain the importance of fascia (said like Fashia).
, Jaime Cevallos called the hitter bending into the front knee at landing, or to buy more time, the:
. He was an aeronautical engineer for Boeing during the Great Depression, and fell in love with golf, and applied his engineering principles to the golf swing.
. He says hitters standing on one diagonal leg of the “X” encourages the springiness of fascia. He taught this to his 15yo daughter, who has hit over .600 the last couple years playing Fast-Pitch Softball in Texas, which is one of the hotbeds for both baseball and softball competition in the country. Oh and by the way, she also hit a half dozen homers as well.
is where 70-80% of consistent power is found. The best example I like to share can be found in 
’ said, that locomotion, the arms and legs aren’t necessary for locomotion, they’re an enhancement, they help enhance movement of the spinal engine.
’ way back, I think it was in the early 2000’s or mid to late 2000’s. He talked about this idea of a ‘Cushion’. You’ll see a hitter especially, if they’re looking fastball, and they see a curve ball or changeup. You’ll see them actually bend, sink, or cushion into their knees. They use their knees by bending them to buy them a little bit of time to get on time a lot better. It’s pushing the ‘pause’ button.
, and harness the power of the spinal engine. If you want a majority of power, 70-80% of consistent power.
, they use it in pitching a lot. But in hitting, we use the VeloPro.
