Discover how to stop dropping the hands in baseball and softball batting. Learn our best fix a looping, late swing, and keep hands up hitting drill in 2023.
Get Rid Of A Hitter Dropping Their Hands At Stride Landing Once And For All Using RNT Hitting Softball Drills
Let me ask you a hitting softball drills question:
“Does your hitter (or hitters) swing and miss, foul back, or pop-up on pitches up in the zone abnormally often?”
The hitting softball drills video above may have the fix. One of the pro hitters I work with was told by his team’s hitting coach that he must be able to “catch-up” to pitches elevated in the zone. And I agree. Weak spots, or holes in the hitting zone, can and will be used by pitchers as a weapon. I tell my hitters to turn a pitcher’s weapon against them.
The challenge I find watching slow motion swing video, with some hitters, is there hands drop (towards the waist) at stride landing 2-4 frames from the back armpit line. Less than two frames and I generally don’t fix. The rule of thumb for my hitters is the hands MUST end up – height-wise – around the back armpit. Slightly above, in-line, or below is okay. Think about a boxer delivering a knockout punch. Watch the “line” Mike Tyson creates right before he delivers a knockout punch (uppercuts excluded)…
If a hitter’s hands end up too low, then they’ll consistently swing and miss, foul back, or popup pitches elevated in the strike zone. Learn how to turn a pitcher’s weapon against them with these hitting softball drills.
Click Here for another example of RNT in the stepping in the bucket drill.
If you don’t have them already, then here’s equipment you’ll need for this type of hitting softball drills:
Tribe 11pc Resistance Band Set – with Door Anchor, Handles, Ankle Straps – Stackable Up To 80lbs – For Resistance Training, Physical Therapy, Home Workouts, or the…
Please try this out and let me know how it works for your hitters in the Comments section below… (Thanks in advance!)
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https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/How-To-Stop-Dropping-Hands-Looping-Baseball-Softball-Swing.png423800Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2022-03-28 09:02:502023-09-16 05:22:38How To Stop Dropping Hands Baseball & Softball Batting | BEST 2023 Fix Looping And Late Swing, Keep Hands Up When Hitting Drills
Baseball Swing Trainer: ‘Swinging Down’ In ‘Launch Angle’ Era?
Should parents, coaches, and instructors be teaching the ‘launch angle’ swing to youth baseball and softball players in 2022? You’ll learn simple drill cues to fix bat path issues, bat drag, and what is an optimal launch angle?
Typical baseball swing trainer BEWARE!
I agree with ‘swing down’. Let that sink in for a bit. Some are pissed I just said that. But those who’ve followed me for some time are nodding their head in confirmation because when you know, you know.
Christian Yelich and Barry Bonds swing comparison. Photo courtesy: Jomboy Media YouTube channel
Because guess what? It depends. ‘Swing down’ shouldn’t be used as a baseball swing trainer blanket teach. The above Christian Yelich video says baseball swing trainer Barry Bonds taught him a drill that changed his career…
I have two things for you…
Jomboy Media VIDEO: “Christian Yelich says Barry Bonds taught him a drill that changed his career” (watching it will reveal its relevance to this post), and
Below is Chapter-2 of the new book I’m working on. It’s a longer post, but I think you’ll like it. Goes well with the Yelich-Bonds video above, like grass fed red meat and a fine red wine.
Thank you Grandpa Mike for sharing the baseball swing trainer video. You know who you are. Enjoy!
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.
WHAT AN OLD SCHOOL SWING FEELS LIKE & THE PROS AND CONS?
In Chapter-2, we’ll look at what an old school swing feels like and the pros and cons. We’ll be discussing:
How can someone tell Mike Trout, Albert Pujols, or Alex Rodriguez what they say about hitting is wrong?
Pros to old school feel mechanics,
Cons to old school feel mechanics, and
So, how do we interweave brainless data and confusing real v. feel hitting cues?
How Can Someone tell Mike Trout, Albert Pujols, or Alex Rodriguez what they Say about Hitting is Wrong?
Now, some of you out there have seen the video of Alex Rodriguez demonstrating how he swung down. Maybe you saw the preseason interview of Mike Trout discussing how he gets on top of the ball.
Or how about Albert Pujols on the MLB Network revealed he swings knob down to the ball?
‘Swing down’. ‘Getting on top of the ball’. ‘Knob to the ball’. ‘Keep barrel above hands’ is another one. Nowadays, these are some of THE most despised baseball swing trainer hitting coaching cues on the market. I was one of them. “Was”. About 2-3 years ago. Now I have a different perspective and approach. These cues DO work. But it depends on the case. And if reading or hearing those words made your blood boil…you can change too, believe me. Here’s how…
First, let’s clear up and define “swinging down”. Well yeah, the hands do go down to the ball. And depending on how high or low the ball is, the hands will go down more or less. This is true. But coaches HATE these cues for a different reason. Here’s the thing… if you watch players like A-Rod, Mike Trout, and Albert Pujols physically demonstrate what swinging down means to them, you see them using a chopping motion. Yes. The barrel and hands travel down to the ball. But not ‘hands drop’. That’s different, and is a swing flaw we MUST fix. In the high level swing, we see the barrel go down before coming up.
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When swinging down is translated by the baseball swing trainer into a NEGATIVE attack angle. Meaning the barrel is going down towards the impact point. Is not coming up. And this is what hitting greats like Alex Rodriguez, Mike Trout, and Albert Pujols are demonstrating in interviews. And where the confusion starts. If you watch their actual swing on film, slow motion swing, what you’re going to see is a POSITIVE attack angle. Meaning, barrel elevating up to incoming ball descending down. Yes, even in Fastpitch Softball (more about this in Chapter-7). Barrel coming up to impact, positive. Barrel going down to impact, negative. We clear?
So if what these great hitters are saying and demonstrating isn’t what they’re actually doing, then what’s REALLY going on?
Well, here’s the thing … it’s the mysterious case of real versus feel. What’s really happening on video doesn’t square with what the high level hitter feels they’re doing. Two completely opposite things. Take Mike Trout. Let’s look at his real (9-year career average batted ball numbers before start of 2020 season):
Ground-ball rate: 36.8% (League average is 43%)
Fly-ball rate: 40.8% (League average is 37%)
Line drive rate: 22.4% (League average is 20%), and
Homerun to fly-ball ratio: 21.4% (League average is 9.5%).
Significantly below average ground-ball rate. Check. Slightly above average fly-ball rate. Check. Slightly above average line drive rate. Check. And well above average home-run to fly-ball ration. Checkmate! This proves his performance – the real – doesn’t jive with his feel of ‘getting on top of the ball’. I want you to go to YouTube, search “Mike Trout slow motion swing”, and watch…
His barrels goes down, then comes up to the ball. Up. Positive barrel attack angle. Not down. Not on top. Not a negative attack angle.
Before the baseball swing trainer gets upset I’m telling Mike Trout, “You know ‘nothin’!” Here’s the beautiful crazy of this whole thing. Coaches, understand this … the body is always one or two steps behind the brain. Thinking happens fast. There’s zero friction with thoughts. Nothing. It just goes, goes, goes, goes, goes. No heavy bones, muscle, organs, and fascia required to move before a thought can fire off!
The secret to unlocking the real v. feel mystery can be revealed through a psychology term called paradoxical intention…
Pros to Old School Feel Mechanics
We have to understand what Mike Trout is REALLY saying. Bring context to the numbers. Remember Chapter-1? Trout will say, “I’ll take 10 swings off the tee or during batting practice to feel like I’m getting on top of the ball”. You see, his natural tendency is to uppercut. An extreme uppercut because he uses a significant shoulder tilt to effectively feast on balls down in the zone. And this works well with pitchers targeting down in the zone, and away.
Although, this is different than the slight uppercut Ted Williams talked about in his book The Science Of Hitting. Williams talked about barrel meeting the plane of the pitch. Trout’s natural tendency runs counter to this. And what he tells himself, remember the body is one or two steps behind the brain, is to do the exact opposite of what his natural tendency is. He tells himself to get on top of the ball. And what’s the result? The barrel ends up somewhere in the middle of extreme uppercut and negative attack angle downswing. That’s what he’s trying to get for his real… to get to the middle.
The true old school baseball swing trainer hitting tragedy…
Some say hitters like Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, Pujols, and Trout are – or were – fantastic at doing, but not very good at translating what they did into teaching. Take Barry Bonds. Who was the Florida Marlins hitting coach in 2016. Then they let him go. Former Marlins President David Samson said this,
“Bonds was worst hitting coach of my career.”
So why wasn’t Barry Bonds able to translate the way he hit to his prized pupils like Giancarlo Stanton? Bonds is the career Major League home run leader after all. Some say he can do, but he doesn’t know how he does what he did. I disagree these hitters aren’t good at teaching. Again it’s a translation issue.
Dr. Victor Frankl, Psychologist and survivor of four Nazi death camps, in his book Man’s Search For Meaning, calls this “paradoxical intention”. Hitters like Trout and Bonds use extreme physical cues to establish a consistent slight upward swing plane. This strategy is a “trick” played on the body, which is a step or two behind. Paradoxical intention. Take any hitter with an extreme uppercut, tell them to chop down (negative Attack Angle “feel” cue), and their barrel path ends up in a slight uppercut. Just like Ted Williams said – like magic! Feel cues are fantastic for making simple swing adjustments.
If you’re coaching youth hitters, let’s get into that world for a moment…
A lot, and I mean A LOT of youth players ages 7 to 12 years old uppercut. Extreme uppercuts. Casting. Loooong swings. They don’t need to be taught this! This is typical, before they’ve built enough strength in their bodies. In their core. In the dynamic nature of the spinal engine. They tend to cast the barrel out. Meaning, the barrel casts away from the body, leaving the back shoulder too early. This causes a long swing. Thanks to gravitational forces, centripetal and centrifugal forces*. As they swing, they end up underneath the ball. On inside pitches, they end up getting jammed a lot. And swing under a lot of pitches up in the zone. A LOT.
(*Centripetal Force is a center “seeking” force. Like twirling a rock on a string. The rock exerts force back to the two fingers holding the string. Centrifugal Force is a center “fleeing” force. Letting go of the twirling rock on a swing, causes the rock to shoot off in a tangent direction away from the original circle.)
There are other factors causing an extreme uppercut, like hands drop or constant deep barrel dumping. But with youth hitters, the rules of Physics are bigger offenders. Here’s the good news … swing an overloaded bat. Overloaded bats help young hitters build strength to do that. Regardless of mechanics. More on that protocol later in the book.
Those are the pros of an old school feel mechanics. Now, let’s look at the cons…
Cons to Old School Feel Mechanics
These are what the baseball swing trainer “metrics people” will typically bring up. You’re so out of touch. No numbers to support your gut feelings? What does that mean? How can I trust your “gut”? Because you played or coached 20 years in the Big Leagues? That’s not good enough!! What’s measurable is manageable. If you can’t use numbers to support your gut, then I’m not listening. This is a common conversation you’ve probably seen, heard, or participated in.
The old school coaching cues we just discussed in the pros to old school swing section can also be included in that gut conversation. It’s bad if the old school cues are used as a default. In a one size fits all way. For example, Johnny’s coach sees Pujols demonstrate a chopping down swing on MLB Network’s Diamond Demos. That coach goes to Johnny’s 10 year old team practice on Monday evening, and tells every one of his hitters to swing like Pujols does. Chop, chop, chop. And he tells them with the conviction, vigor, and energy of a Sunday Pastor, that they can hit like Pujols. How can you argue with Senor Alberto? From his lips to coach’s ears out of coaches mouth to kids’ ears. If Albert Pujols said it and it worked for him, then we MUST take the message literally! He is Prince Albert for jimminies sake!
Here’s the problem with that. Remember when I mentioned the translation issue? By feeding the ‘swing down’ or ‘chop down’ mantras as a default hitting strategy to every 10 year old on your team, I’m sorry to say it, but you will lose. Let me illustrate with a thought experiment…
Apply the “one-third rule” to your team. In this example, assume a third of your hitters pop the ball up a majority of the time. Another third of hitters hit line drives a majority of the time. And the remaining third are majority ground-ball hitters. So, what if you tell the whole team to swing down or get on top of the ball? A blanket statement to all. Default old school baseball swing trainer hitting cue. What do you think is going to happen?
Based on what was discussed with Dr. Victor Frankl’s paradoxical intention – remember extreme uppercut, tell them to ‘get on top’, and they end up in the middle? Slight uppercut. Inline with incoming pitch. Here’s what will happen to our team if we tell all to chop down … a third of the team that used to pop the ball up a majority of the time, will hit more line drives. Those middle third hitting line drives a majority of the time, are going to hit more ground-balls. And the ground-ball a majority of the time group, are going to hit even more worm burner ground-balls. So how did the thought experiment turn out with a blanket statement old school hitting cue?
The only group on the team that benefits are the beginning fly ball hitters. The ones hitting fly-balls a majority of the time. Those are the only ones you’ll see a significant difference, for the better. Look ground-balls are great. Especially hard ones when the defense can’t play catch. But what happens when they can play catch? When would your team come across a team that can play catch? That’s right! In all-stars. In playoff and championship games. Not good if you just converted line drive hitters into ground-ball hitters. And ground-ballers into hitting more worm burners. Read our infamous Ground-ball Rant post.
Now, let’s cook up a different scenario. A more simple yet elegant solution. Instead of giving a blanket statement, a blanket swing down, chop down to the whole team. But instead, I let the line drive hitters do their thing. Just keep doing what you’re doing. I took the fly ball hitter and told them to swing down, chop down. And I instructed the ground-ballers to hit the ball in the air. Like pop the ball up instruction. How do you think that baseball swing trainer thought experiment would go?
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If I did that…now my pop-fliers AND ground-ballers are both hitting more line drives. Remember Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search For Meaning paradoxical intention? Overall, my whole team is hitting more line drives. Now my line drivers aren’t lonely. They have more competition to deal with. Competition makes everyone better. Hungrier. Especially when they’re experiencing success. Does that make sense?
The cons of an old school swing are when we apply a blanket statement shared by one of the best hitters on the planet. Don’t do that. Bad coach. You DO NOT pass go, and you DO NOT collect $200.
One swing fits all cues are a bad. And you wouldn’t know this without data to measure and optimize. Gut feelings and hunches are like throwing darts in the dark. It’s like shooting an arrow and calling whatever you hit – after the fact. It’s guessing. If you aren’t collecting numbers using a PocketRadar, Rhapsodo, HitTrax, BlastMotion, or SwingTracker, then you’re flying blind. You aren’t going to know. And those hunches will just be hunches.
Same goes for blindly following what a Hall of Famer or future Hall of Famer says or said about hitting. Become a scientist. Test, test, test. Blindly following a leader without question, will make you nothing more than a sheep. Question, question, question. Even question me and EVERYTHING in this book.
So far in Chapter-2, we talked about:
How can someone tell Mike Trout, Albert Pujols, or Alex Rodriguez what they say about hitting is wrong?
Pros to old school feel mechanics, and
Cons to old school feel mechanics…
We talked about how what’s real and what’s feel are two totally different things. The scenery can be very confusing. The waters choppy. How does a coach cut through the clutter and calm the waters? The simple truth to make hitting easier – it’s not easy, but we can make it easier – is called paradoxical intention. Doing the exact opposite of what just happened to get the middle. Extreme swing up? Tell them to swing down – hit a chopper. Extreme swing down? Tell them to swing up – hit a pop-fly. There’s more to it of course, and we’ll get into it more later. Let’s move on to…
How do we Interweave Brainless Data and Confusing Hitting Cues?
This DOES NOT cause that, and that DOES NOT cause this. Question: Coincidentally, if I wear a green shirt and it rains, then is it reasonable to think I can make it rain by wearing a green shirt? This is the exact dilemma many instructors find themselves in with what they teach.
Some teach ONLY using data. Some teach ONLY using old school hitting cues. Some claim to base their teachings on millions of hours watching ONLY the best hitters. Some validate Science with their hitting theories (proudly saying their system can’t be found in Science!!). And others validate their hitting philosophy with Science, which is what we do. Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Can we use a mix? And if so, how do we know if we’re on the right track?
Are you throwing dynamite in the air and expecting rain?
I want to share a true story from the book Dust Bowl: An Illustrated Historyby Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan. The story will illuminate how to filter the hitting information available today. Interestingly…
Right before the Great Depression hit the Oklahoma panhandle, rain was plentiful. This caused Doctors and Lawyers to quit their practices and join the ranks of farmers to buy land and plant crops that were being subsidized by the US government. In other words, the gold-in-them-hills was harvesting and selling wheat and other bumper crops of the era.
Millions of acres of 6-foot high beautiful Buffalo blue grass were plowed under to make room for crops. Fast forward to the beginning of the Great Depression, the rain dried up, and so did the crops. Unbeknownst to the “new” farmers who moved to the area, typically rain was sparse in the location, and by coincidence, they had just experienced a rare wet 5-10 year period.
Now there’s NO rain. And you know the 6-foot high beautiful Buffalo blue grass they cut down? Well, it used to hold the soil down despite seasonal 60 to 70 mile-per-hour wind gusts. So NO rain coming. NO crops growing. Super high winds are eroding dry barren soil and tossing it up in the air. Grazing cattle have nothing to eat but tumbleweeds brought over by Russians (people often sprinkled salt to eat them as well). The livestock soon get sick and die. The drought is fatal for the majority who stay, others move west. This is where we get John Steinbeck’s book “Dust Bowl”.
Stick with me, because here comes the lesson…
The farmers who stayed behind were so desperate for rain, they hired self proclaimed rain experts to “create” rain, literally out of thin air. The belief at the time was that an explosion in the air could bring clouds, and with clouds, rain would fall from the sky. In plenty. So what did these self proclaimed rain experts do? What any self proclaimed rain expert would do!! They sold the idea that if they lit a stick of dynamite, timed the throw just right, they could get a perfectly timed explosion that would bring rain-a-plenty.
…And as luck would find it, the “racket” seemed to work a couple times. This only fed the foolishness we all see now – hindsight is 20/20. Yes, this wasn’t a proud time in American history. You have to understand, people back then were DESPERATE. Their hope blinded them to the MANY times throwing dynamite in the air didn’t work. People lost limbs, fingers, etc. from timing the throw wrong. Head scratcher I know.
When it comes to baseball swing trainer, we have to be careful of the causation-correlation relationship. Is studying video and teaching only what the “best” hitters are doing enough? I would argue it is not. How do you know what you’re looking at, if you don’t know what you’re looking for? We see Pujols demonstrating a negative attack angle swing on MLB Network. But then we see him NOT do that in real-time. We bring that same Pujols gold nugget to Johnny’s team, blanket teach it, and the end result looks nothing like what we see Pujols do during competition. This DOES NOT cause that, and that DOES NOT cause this.
I’m going to reveal a secret about why coaches are terrible at the causation-correlation relationship. Like shooting a random arrow and calling whatever is hit. Here’s a quote summing it up from Scott Adams, in his book Loserthink: How Untrained Brains Are Ruining America:
“There are three important things to know about human beings in order to understand why we do the things we do. [1] Humans use pattern recognition to understand their world. [2] Humans are very bad at pattern recognition. [3] And they don’t know it.”
So how do we escape this seemingly inescapable prison of baseball swing trainer misdiagnosis? After reading thus far, you know it. Be less subjective and more objective. KeyDifferences.com says this about subjective versus objective:
“Subjective means something which does not show the clear picture or it is just a person’s outlook or expression of opinion. A subjective statement relies on assumptions, beliefs, opinions and influenced by emotions and personal feelings. An objective statement is based on facts and observations.”
Use the Scientific Method. Develop a hitting Question…make a predictive Hypothesis…do the Research…collect the Data…form a Conclusion. Swing experimentation. We apply human movement principles validated by REAL Science to hitting a ball. Scientific principles pulled from:
Physics,
Engineering,
Biomechanics, and
Body work.
How do we figure out if this DOES cause that? Or if that DOES cause this? Not by wearing a green shirt! To know what you’re looking at, you have to know what you’re looking for. DO NOT validate Science through your hitting philosophy. DO validate your hitting philosophy through Science. Set a higher standard for your hitters. It’s okay – watch your millions of hours of video…employ those expensive measuring gadgets…and flaunt those old school hitting cues.
But above ALL of that … understand what the rules to human movements are FIRST. Once you know that, all other domino’s fall where they’re supposed to. In conclusion of Chapter-2, we looked at what an old school swing feels like and the pros and cons. We discussed:
How can someone tell Mike Trout, Albert Pujols, or Alex Rodriguez what they say about hitting is wrong?
Pros to old school feel mechanics,
Cons to old school feel mechanics, and
So, how do we interweave brainless data and confusing real v. feel hitting cues?
In Chapter-3, we’ll answer the question of what leads to hitting more predictable line drives and less strikeouts. Where we’ll dive into:
What does “predictable” mean and why does probability matter? And,
Difference between ‘Launch Angle’ and ‘Attack Angle’…
Onward…
———-
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https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/swing-down-launch-angle-era-e1590641467153.png236500Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2022-03-28 09:01:582022-03-29 18:14:09Teach ‘Launch Angle’ Youth Baseball & Softball Swing In 2022? How To Fix Bat Path, Drag, Training Drills, & What Is Optimal?
Backspin Bat Tee Co-Founder Interview: If One Of The Best, Mike Trout, Is Giving Up An Average 20-mph Of Ball Exit Speed, How Much Do Mere Mortals Give Up Doing The Same Thing?
Here are the Backspin bat tee co-founder interview with Taylor Gardner topics that we discussed:
What do bat tee adjustments mean to you when it comes to talking to your hitters?
True or False: Hitters MUST straighten their front leg to be effective…
What if hitters used a more precision approach like golfers when operating between 90-degrees?
Instead of writing off the arm bar as it doesn’t work, why not ask how can it work?
Is there ever a time when ‘swing down’ or ‘barrel above the hands’ bat tee cues can work?
If one of the best, Mike Trout, is giving up 20-mph of ball exit speed, how much do mere mortals give up doing the same thing?
Where can people find more about you Backspin bat tee guys?
The following is the bat tee transcription of the video above. This is a sneak peak at the expert interviews we’ll be including in Volume-2 of the Swing Smarter book series. Enjoy!
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Oh, there’s the baby. You got that mixed up? I don’t think that’s supposed to go in your mouth.
Taylor Gardner 00:21
Probably should.
Joey Myers 00:24
Look at you.
Taylor Gardner 00:26
Yeah.
Joey Myers 00:27
Causing your parents so much so many sleepless nights.
Taylor Gardner 00:30
Yeah, momma needed a shower time and dad had an interview here.
Joey Myers 00:38
Double interview.
Taylor Gardner 00:40
Yeah. Oh my
Joey Myers 00:45
Look at that, first time I think we’ve done a zoom interview.
Taylor Gardner 00:49
Oh it has been working out, better adjust my camera?
Joey Myers 00:55
No, I think you’re good. What do you need to adjust?
Taylor Gardner 00:57
All I was going to bring it down a little bit. I think I always fall down.
Joey Myers 01:01
Yeah, I think you’re good. Okay. Are you ready? Let me do the official bat tee start. Hello and welcome to Swing Smarter Monthly Newsletter. This is your host Joey Myers from HittingPerformanceLab.com and probably for the half a dozenth interview. I have Taylor Gardner here from Backspin Bat Tee. Welcome to the show. Taylor looks like you brought a little friend.
Taylor Gardner 01:26
That’s right. Yes. Yeah. She has been influenced by any good or bad and…
Joey Myers 01:37
there. There we go. You froze for a little bit. Say it again? Say No. So, she’s been influenced by what?
Taylor Gardner 01:46
I said. No, we got we got a fresh template here. She hasn’t had any good or bad instruction to start working with this.
Joey Myers 01:54
Yeah, yeah. Tie the right arm behind your back and… is your brother? Is he lefty? Or is he righty?
Taylor Gardner 02:03
He’s a switch hitter. You can do both.
Joey Myers 02:05
He does both. But what about throwing? Is he a righty?
Taylor Gardner 02:07
He’s righty.
Joey Myers 02:09
Okay, cool. Well, hey, I wanted to get you on the on the other side of the screen here and wanted to talk about making bat tee adjustments. So that we could go into the hitting side we could go into the strategy side we can go into any different things. So, what do adjustments mean to you when it comes to talking to your hitters?
What do bat tee adjustments mean to you when it comes to talking to your hitters?
Taylor Gardner 02:30
The adjustment is, must be understood and adjustment is something if a hitter is already attempting to be on time, it’s really hard to make adjustments if you’re not in the time window to start with. If you’re going up there to hit and you’re just purely reacting your adjustments are also reacting maybe even twice as long or twice as late as they should be.
Taylor Gardner 02:56
Within the understanding that people were syncing up release point we have the timing window of the pitch coming in. Maybe we’re sitting on fastball and all sudden we a pitcher throws a changeup, and whether you recognize the spin or the speed or the trajectory angle, whether an off-speed pitch, what do you do?
Taylor Gardner 03:15
Well, if your plan was there to help you your approach is there to help you not hurt you, so within your plan or approach if you’re on time for fastball, and oh no it’s an off-speed pitch. What do you do? Well, easy answer is, you don’t stop your swing. I know we get told a lot of wait, let that curveball get a lot deeper. Now we’re talking about changing depths and it’s really hard to change depths of timing on the fly. So as instead of being reactive to making your adjustment proactive and making your adjustment one thing that my baby down actually brought a bat here to show you…
Joey Myers 03:55
Use the baby as a bat…how cute she is.
Taylor Gardner 04:02
One thing that we see a lot with hitters. He was left-handed here. I do apologize. Is they’re sideways, they’re pretty lined up with a pitcher in some fashion bat tee stance, and then we start to ride and stride as they start to witness that. Okay, this ball isn’t a perfect fastball down the middle. What do I do? Well, we see them not only continue to take their head and posture to the ball, but you see a lot of hitters start turn in and sit with the ball.
Taylor Gardner 04:33
As opposed to going uh oh, I’m a little early, let me pull out and then have to release my arms and hands to hopefully start to see hitters actually sit with that ball. Then because, you sit, any movement takes time. And if the plane is correct, you’re on time for the pitchers fastest pitch and then if you’re making an adjustment is to bite. This is where a lot of young hitters especially they don’t do a good job of buying time.
Taylor Gardner 05:00
They end up staying on their backside and opening up too soon and all they have left is like it with their own risk. And yeah, you can hit a ball and do that, and you probably get on base and feel good about yourself. But the faster you know that speed starts to go up and level and the more drastic change of off speed, you get a 90 mile an hour fastball and 80-mph changeup. That’s a little different than facing a 75 mile an hour fastball and 70 mile change-up.
Taylor Gardner 05:27
As a pitcher supposed to extend those timelines, adjustments and variables, the hitters have to as well. The ability to be ready for the fastest pitch and also be able to buy time while staying in a good posture position on the ball is something that we see really good hitters do and you know, quite frankly, amateur hitters don’t do as well. Oh, sure at some level. Yeah, won’t be a good fastball hitter. Every great hitter is known to be a great fastball hitter.
Taylor Gardner 05:55
If you’re looking off speed looking for that, that slow curveball every fast ball is going to beat you. On the timeline you got to be prepared for the pitches, pitchers fastest pitch as the fastest timeline. Therefore, your plan is there to help. Yeah, he’s going to be perfect every time, well of course not, it’s baseball. It’s tough. But at least the plan was in place to help you be on time for fastball and buy time for off speed.
Taylor Gardner 06:23
For example, this last weekend, my nephew, faced his first knuckleballer. 13 years old didn’t know this pitcher had a knuckleball it wasn’t his main pitch, so you know first at bat I don’t know hit a fastball for double, second a bat gets a strike or two on him a ball or two and then all the sudden, whack! He hits a single, steals second base eventually gets to third base and the coach at third goes, “good job Maverick you know you really sat well in your legs on that change up”, he goes “wasn’t a changeup coach, it was knuckleball”. He goes, “Oh, when did you realize it was a knuckleball?” “After I hit it!”
Taylor Gardner 06:59
It reminded me that he took a good plan to the plate, ready for fastball he happened to adjust instinctively to this crazy knuckleball, but it was more about controlling this contact depth. I’m not quitting on my swing. Did he sit more in his legs, sure. Did he have a locked out-front leg? No. But he found a way to keep his spinal engine and posture on the ball. By the time he pulled the trigger. Sure, the ball got a little deeper, he barreled it up, he got a good hit out of it. At the end of the day, it didn’t fool him, this random pitch that he really has never seen, didn’t make him react and freeze.
Taylor Gardner 07:36
It didn’t make him react it to slow down and touch it, his reaction was to stay on the ball and give it a chance. And it sounds easy to do until you start seeing a pitch come flying at your body. For us older coaches that aren’t playing anymore, I think sometimes we forget that. There’s a little fear involved. And so, a good plan leads to good adjustments. And sometimes knowing how to get over that fear or filter out your situation really helps that plan starts to stick together better.
Taylor Gardner 07:57
And therefore, those bat tee adjustments really become valuable. As far as other types of adjustments. And that was one type of sitting in your legs, other types of adjustments. We’ve seen Mike Trout sit in his legs; we’ve also seen him bend over a little more at his waist a little side tilt. That’s another way of buying time. Adjustments to me, in our world is a place to buy time, every movement takes time. But unless you’re ready to line your posture up for the ball on time to begin with, adjustments are just going to slow you down. You’ve got to make sure those adjustments are there to help you not hurt you.
Joey Myers 08:48
Well, you said a couple bat tee things that would blow a couple people’s minds they were listening to this… number one is sitting on your backside and swinging from that position number one, and number two, that you don’t have to straighten out your front leg that you can keep that bent. And I love that and that’s something that I’ve learned from you and your brother and Matty, Matty Nokes that the legs really set direction like the lower half basically sets directional force, it does contribute to some of the power.
Joey Myers 09:16
And we’ve learned discussions on that over the last couple of years saying you know, probably between 20 and 30%, it probably contributes to the power of the overall power thing. But the idea that you can use your knees bending your knees at front knee to adjust to pitch height like those are bat tee adjustments that we can make that if you’re from a train of thought that says you have to straighten it you have to brace that leg out, right, I mean that’s really not… We’re trying to like you said buy time.
True or False: Hitters MUST straighten their front leg to be effective
Taylor Gardner 09:46
Right. Speaking while the bracing the front leg, the front leg can obviously we can see it YouTube it, Google it. Now of course you can hit with a straight front leg and even sitting in your legs may still turn out to be a brace straightening front leg, you still bend your knee and still walk and brace into that front knee.
Taylor Gardner 10:06
But I think a lot of times as coaches and instructors that usually come to… an issue that I’ve seen come around is their teaching to push the leg straight, as opposed to letting the hip pull the leg straight. Pitchers do a really good job of this, they don’t just land in their front leg and then push straight up. Is their vertical ground force? Of course, there is.
Taylor Gardner 10:29
Now in hitting though, there may be little more of that vertical into horizontal ground force, it sounds funny to say, but you’re not just going to push up away from the ball every time. Sure, could you get away with it, of course, and there’s nothing wrong if you are on time and you get the barrel to it, great job. But like you like to say Joey, if it happens too much to ignore, I’ll just start paying attention.
Joey Myers 10:52
Yeah, and on that note, that was the one big bat tee thing that I pulled from you, we’ve been friends for probably over 6, 7, 8 years now, was that idea of staying sideways and keeping that back foot from completely turning over. Like a lot of coaches will say pivot that back foot, pivot that back foot, and meaning, that back heel will turn towards home plate. And it’ll continue to keep rotating. And so, I think we’ve developed almost a generation or two of hitters that are over rotating the lower half.
Joey Myers 11:23
And you say, using Matt Nokes’s lingo is stay sideways, stay sideways, I think is a great one. And to your point, or to our point that it happens too much to ignore, and you can’t just write it off. Some of our buddies in the past have said well, that hitter can do that because he XYZ that hitter can do that because it’s… no it happens if you take the top 100 hitters, 50 hitters, you’ll see half of them stay sideways and maybe the other half, get to this neutral with it. So that happens a little bit too often to be ignored.
Taylor Gardner 11:57
For anyone that’s listening, if you’ve ever played golf and if you haven’t fine taken a baseball bat take it slow, practice golf swing, go YouTube, Rory McElroy, Tiger Woods, anyone you want. Golfers have figured out how to stay sideways with their back foot. Now, their balls on the ground and it’s generally between them. Like ball being on a bat tee for hitters. They’re more allowed to buy but positions of contact with golf. However, you’re going to see baseball players do it too. But since the contact point in baseball can be further out front. Sure, you’re going to see that that back foot rotates a little more before contact. I get that told a lot. “Well, look at this hitter.”
Taylor Gardner 12:33
Yes, but look what happened the first 80% of his swing before contact, he was still sideways, he was still… now was he turning his shoulders, was he loading his core, the spiral engine. Sure, but the back foot was still sideways to hit, the back foot ends up becoming a bit of a rudder. I won’t even take that too literal. But you wouldn’t start with your back foot facing the catcher, you wouldn’t face with your back foot facing the pitcher. There’s a reason, it’s a natural position for the body.
Taylor Gardner 13:05
The ball is thrown in front of us and quite honestly, ball comes in and it is in front and to the side of us. If you’ve ever swung an axe, it makes sense to shift your weight and leverage up. That’s why we want to have a little more shift, not only for taking your head to the ball and be able to judge depth before moving very good and feeling your depth and putting a nice sense to it.
Taylor Gardner 13:34
But at the same time spinning against my back foot. Step on my dog… [laughs] spinning too soon. Now the ball is essentially to the side and behind us. Not that you can’t hit from here we opened up too soon. My swing’s wanting to go this way, I crossed my face this way, we want to cross our face into contact with the ball. Again, golfers understand this and their balls in front of them. They want to cross the face you don’t want to spin out and then cross their face too late that ends up turning into a slice and anyone who has played golf, probably vouch for that, my goodness I’m spinning off the ball. balls on never fixed.
Joey Myers 14:19
Well, and what I love the golf analogy is because in golf, you have a ridiculously small margin for error, you have we’re talking in hundreds of yards, not hundreds of feet and your little ball that’s got to get hit by this clubface and then the square center center contact with the clubface in the ball the straighter the ball is going to go. You can take that clubface and slightly like a couple of millimeters you can slightly pull it in like you’re going to hook it or slightly away like you’re going to slice it and those little, teeny millimeters by the end of that 200-yard journey is going to be way pull or slice.
Joey Myers 14:55
What I always tell my hitters, I say when we’re teaching this concept of staying sideways and keeping that back foot from over rotating is, we have to play almost like a golfer, where a golfer’s looking at one shot to the pin, I call it one degree of fair territory. And outside of that 359 degrees of foul territory, because in golf, the objective is the least number of strokes to get it in the hole. In baseball, of course, we have 90 degrees to play with, but we want to act like we’re doing like golf, we want to act like there is a smaller margin, and we have to operate within that smaller bat tee margin, right?
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What if hitters used a more precision bat tee approach like golfers when operating between 90-degrees?
Taylor Gardner 15:29
Along those lines, that it’s incredible you say that because the whole outside pitches, let it get deep, inside pitchers you’re magically allowed to pull for some reason, we’re talking about different depths there. Where in golf, obviously, the ball’s not moving, but to their benefit, they’re more precise, they have time to get their stance set up, time to adjust their face angle. So yes, maybe we don’t have that luxury in baseball, but we do have the luxury of knowing our contact depth.
Taylor Gardner 15:58
Do I like hitting the ball more? You know, some hitters like hitting the ball more off their front hip, some even further out front, some like hitting it a little deeper, more or middle of the other ball, whatever it is that you are super comfortable. That’s your decision. That’s what you’re going to battle with the best. And, again, based on your timeline. I have a lot of young hitters, and we constantly have to work on reminding them. Where is your preferred contact?
Taylor Gardner 16:29
And not to make them look like robots, but you’ll see them when uh, I don’t know, maybe like right there or up here. It’s like, Oh, you got to know, if you don’t know, you’re guessing, like your close, good job of being on time. We want to be on time with our contact point. This is a lot more precise. And as you know, aim small miss small, it’s may not always show up in baseball, maybe you had a day where you didn’t hit well. But you know what my plan was good. My adjustments were sound. And maybe I was just a little early or tad late, whatever that may be over under the ball.
Taylor Gardner 17:06
But you can sleep well at night knowing, man I had it at 99% today. And you don’t realize how much you haven’t figured out. You start thinking about more precision, besides movements. And then suddenly you go out three years ago, I was going to battle with a 50%. efficiency. That shocks a lot of hitters and I really do think a lot of good college players get to pro ball and maybe it doesn’t pan out for whatever reason.
Taylor Gardner 17:32
I think a lot of them whether they can say it or not verbiage that happens to a lot of if they get exposed, we get told at every level of baseball, you better swing faster Jerry, you better figure out how to get that faster pitching, you better, have quicker hands, whatever. Of course, we must make those adjustments because we’re being exposed. What if we got ahead of that being exposed?
Taylor Gardner 17:56
I don’t know if you saw the video that I posted on the baseball Illuminati page. I was actually crow hopping of doing run and guns, a nine-year-old ballplayer shuffle stepping out 25 feet in front of them throwing the ball 60-mph our reaction time stupid fast. So never seen anything that fast in their lives. As far as timing wise. And you know what he did? It took him a bit. He filtered it out. He figured out when to go when to shift, how to track the ball.
Taylor Gardner 18:26
And yeah, that ball was getting to him quicker than any pitch he’s ever going to see in baseball. And he started barreling balls up. Our brain’s a supercomputer y’all know that problem is if that supercomputer is putting in the wrong formula, it’s still going to, there’s still going to be a glitch. You still have to help it out.
Joey Myers 18:44
Shoot, I’d even go another step with the wrong formula and just saying that it’s becoming impossible, or you hear that from coaches? Well, that’s impossible, that’s not going to happen, or that’s not reality, or it’s not going to happen. And instead of saying that something’s not possible, why not ask why? or How can it be possible, right? We’ve talked about the front arm shape and trying to get that thing extended out. Whereas everybody in their mother seems to teach this bent front arm, right.
Joey Myers 19:13
The question that I always get when I put that post out there, people will go well, you know, I’ve tried to test it out and beer league softball and works there, but it doesn’t work in the big leagues and whatnot. And if you go way back, Joe DiMaggio and Hank Aaron, Ted Williams, Babe Ruth, all those guys locked out. So instead of saying, oh, that doesn’t work, today’s pitchers throw too hard and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Why not ask how can we make that work? Yes. How does that work? Right?
Instead of writing off the arm bar as it doesn’t work, why not ask how can it work?
Taylor Gardner 19:42
What if we made 90 miles an hour feel slower? Nothing’s any easier to hit. But what if? What if it wasn’t impossible. And clearly, it’s not, people do it every day. It’s not impossible. I’d like to say maybe the way we’re rationalizing it and maybe even practicing. Maybe we’re not doing our own job as a baseball coach, making, maybe it’s 75 miles. Now, if you’re struggling, maybe that’s what it is, whatever it is get ahead of that curve, not that you’re going to just start jacking home runs. But don’t be late. There’s no excuse for being late. There’s no excuse for not filtering out and understanding your environment.
Taylor Gardner 20:19
Maybe you don’t get to face a live picture every day or practice, that’s fair. I’m sure you have your work cut out for ya. But there’s no reason to get your doors blown off, when you have all of the potential to be as early as you want. Once you’re late, once the ball gets behind your timeline, and it gets behind your back. Pitcher starts in front of us. We as hitters, let ourselves be late. Maybe because we’re trying to do some crazy swing, like, oh, let it get deep and snap it or something, I don’t know.
Taylor Gardner 20:50
But whatever it may be, again, kind of back to the approach and those adjustments. Got to clean that up. And maybe you got to study more time. Maybe you got to study more spinal engine springy fascia and figure out where to get your running position. To your arm bar point… I think a lot of… uh oh, we have a wandering baby…
Joey Myers 21:13
Wait till she starts walking…
Taylor Gardner 21:15
I know I can’t wait! I understand folding your levers and engaging muscles, getting correct shapes. That makes sense. But when you see arm bar, and it starts to walk out, or to do slow motion. Yeah, looks funky in slow motion to arm bar. When you engage the body and it starts out, it starts to feel a little more natural golfers do the same thing. Luckily for us that in golf, you get to start with it extended and just connected to your body from there.
Taylor Gardner 21:55
But this bat is heavy, I completely understand why people want to hold it close to their body, it is rational. And it’s still close to the body. It’s not like we’re arm barring out here. If you’re still arm barring across our core, this bat is behind you, want lag and you want leverage, leverage, and just loose and lever sometimes, your hands are so close to your body. And even so close this way to the middle of your body. By the time you do a swing, yeah, you’re getting the barrel off your foot. And it may be a strong position depending upon position.
Taylor Gardner 22:34
But if I never got the benefit of the lag, and a clearing, and time to speed up the bat, it takes time to speed up the bat. This is not an instantaneous thing. I know this swing only takes like point two seconds; I get it. That’s slow through the world of everything happening, there is plenty of time and so that hand, grips on the bat. For most people they’re bottom hand is the weaker hand. Not doing anything left-handed if I have to. But you want your dominant arm to do his job.
Taylor Gardner 23:09
Not that you have to do it all with a dominant arm. But you certainly don’t want your weaker arm to be your dominant arm. Now, how do you get them in position? Well, as you get a swing, if it happens to lock out, you’re getting the benefit of lag and leverage. How is that wrong? If I understand timing, if I understand off your positions and swing plane. And armbar is nothing in the scheme of arguments. I’m linked into the lever. If I do it correctly, then of course, I have more leverage and more bat speed.
Taylor Gardner 23:42
But bat speed takes time. And so, when I see a lot of kids, they start here and the lever pull even more on their hands get across the face really soon, elbows way behind their hand and not even close to be slotted. And next thing you know, you’re chopping down or they slice it, and more important, their swing radius and swing arc may only go so far. Versus if I clear, I can get a further reach. And it’d be right within my wheelhouse of comfortability.
Joey Myers 24:13
If we go back to your contact points, right, knowing what your contact points are. When we work with our hitters on what we call our horizontal approach, or our line-to-line approach. Being able to hit the ball the other way, pull it, and go up the middle things like that. We talked about that there are two main things to be aware of… one is what you’ve already said is your contact point. But number two is when that barrel enters the hitting zone.
Joey Myers 24:38
And it’s going to be different for we call middle in and middle away. It’s going to be different. So middle away and middle down. That snapping early getting the barrel in the zone early makes sense. It’s a great middle down of the strike zone middle away approach. But when it comes to middle in the middle up, it doesn’t make sense, and I use those bad cues that I thought were bad about four years ago. Swing down, barrel above the ball, we do use those but only for middle in, middle up.
Is there ever a time when ‘swing down’ or ‘barrel above the hands’ cues can work?
Taylor Gardner 25:05
But right. Speaking along those lines… Yes, have you ever had a kid trying out a new baseball bat and Oh man, he’s struggling with the weight or it was too long for him. But that’s some of the stuff you’ve been told, just remember that when this bat is laying horizontal, is heavier, as far as where the balance is. There’s a reason we stack the barrel. And there’s a reason we hold this bat up, you can hold it with one finger.
Taylor Gardner 25:34
That’s how life, if you will, work how to control the bat, Matt Nokes talks about this, why, the barrel above the hands, it’s taken me a while, the feel can be down, in fact there is a down move in the swing, hold your posture. It’s called your head. The balls is below you. Yes, we want to swing on plane. Of course. But how you get to that barrel entering the zone. And before it starts that actual upswing? That is paramount.
Taylor Gardner 26:07
That also was still wrong with the down early method. Yeah, you’ve got there. But did you give up timing, to get to position at contact. Did you give up adjustments, because your only move is to get there. If you were able to just keep your hands and be ready for that high and inside pitch, as Perry husband would say we get to focus on EV tunnels.
Taylor Gardner 26:34
If I’m ready for that, then great. And then I can always adjust if I need to. Wait adjustment patterns, that kind of dynamic plan. Not everyone would agree with me on this, but just from a third party perspective, if the high and inside pitch is the ball that we have to get the barrel out there quickest to, it makes sense to me to be on time with that and adjust down and away with that, because you have more time or space, ball is further away from me to do so, obviously, you get in the baseball stuffs like, well, if you’re looking middle middle, and then that gets tougher if you’re looking away if you’re looking wherever.
Taylor Gardner 27:19
I don’t want to get into the approach part of it. But it just makes sense to me that you can practice, play around practicing with looking high and in, get that pitch locked in, and then we’ll work it down to middle middle, get that adjustment pattern locked in. Maybe for some people, it’s not so much that they have to change their approach, maybe they just need to be comfortable getting to all these pitches vertically, you might not have to worry about what my timing is good, I’m swinging at the right pitches, just getting jammed a lot on high.
Taylor Gardner 27:51
Well, maybe it’s just because you’re dumping your barrel too soon. It’s okay, you got to find where that issue is, and not fight it. But again, let your plan help you get there. The barrel above the hands is a great plan. It helps me already be ready for that movement pattern… sure, maybe you get to that pitch well maybe you’re facing speeds you can handle and you’re struggling with low and away. So maybe you do have to think about releasing that barrel sooner. Okay, nothing wrong with that.
Taylor Gardner 28:23
I would give everyone hesitation to just go out and put out a YouTube video saying this is the one and only way, of course it’s not. But we must understand all of it so that when you hear someone say something, to filter through what they’re saying, you’ll see why he’s doing it, that makes sense. When you come out and some of these instructors say just one swing plane for every pitch. And if I just wait longer than I can see it longer. We know that’s not exactly be true. Eyes don’t see the ball much longer just because we’re not swinging.
If one of the best, Mike Trout, is giving up 20-mph of ball exit speed, how much do mere mortals give up doing the same thing?
Joey Myers 28:56
Well and what’s also interesting is what the actual hitting operating system is when you can watch somebody, when you have been around the block and you’ve seen a lot of these different teachings, you can see what their main operating system is. And I know you and I were similar in this and we want to maintain high ball exit speeds.
Joey Myers 29:16
When you get a hitting guy that’s talking about a certain thing like hey, we need to get that at high and inside pitch with the bend in the front arm we need to get there, well we know that Perry Husband said Mike Trout, one of the best in the world will go down is one of the best top five probably, ever top five top 10 and down and away average ball exit speed is 101 miles an hour, not his top out but his average. And that’s where he’s locked out with that elbow at contact.
Joey Myers 29:45
And then at up and in, he’s reduced to a high school baseball player at 80 to 83 miles an hour. So he’s losing almost around 20 miles an hour ball exit speed that’s 80 feet. That’s 80 feet of batted ball distance that he’s giving up by looking away and adjusting in. Well, some people go well, that’s fine. But here’s the deal. And this is what I tell my players I say, Mike Trout is a once in a lifetime player. He’s just one of those people that we will look back on when he’s done with his career. And we will say he’s one of the best. One of the best ever is giving up 20 miles an hour ball exit speed.
Joey Myers 29:50
20 miles an hour.
Joey Myers 30:24
You know what the amateurs are probably giving up. 30-35 miles an hour ball exit speed? He’s one of the best he can get away with it. You’re going to be given up a lot more.
Taylor Gardner 30:34
Yeah. I can’t remember if it was you or someone else had brought to my attention. It was before COVID happened. I think it was the baseball season before. And they asked, who hit their highest exit speed most often? Try and word that correctly. And I was like, Oh, I don’t know. And there’s Jose Altuve. And Aaron Judge. I was like, oh, okay, wow, two different types of hitter’s sizes body length. They said, Oh, you know how often they hit their hardest exit speeds?
Taylor Gardner 31:06
And at first, I’m like, Oh, these big leaguers? Oh, man, I bet 20% of their hits or they’re popping out near their top exit speeds. It was less than 2%. Wow, less than 2% of all of their hits, on miss hits in the realm of hitting is as hard as you can. What does that mean, though? Does that mean maybe they’re slowing their swing down and touching the ball? No, I don’t think so. And in my opinion, obviously get fooled on some pitches. Okay, fine.
Taylor Gardner 31:33
But I think most of their base hits that they reported, I think their miss hits are that powerful. And once you start to realize that homeruns are the best result, okay, but maybe your best result is a hard line shot, single or double, whatever. However hard you get whatever type of hit is your hardest hit, which for most people is a low launch angle, I dunno, maybe 0-5, maybe 10 degrees. And then that makes sense. Balls coming down about 5, 7, 8 degrees.
Taylor Gardner 32:03
And you can imagine that plane, you’re going to give up exit speed when you raise or lower your launch angle. And I see a lot of people don’t understand that. Oh, no. My hardest hits home runs. Not exactly. I want to say the highest ball ever recorded was a ground ball. Double play. It’s okay. It’s okay that if your exit speed fluctuates, based on how well you struck that ball for a single, double, triple based on how high or low you hit it, that’s fine. And you want to start tightening those windows up.
Taylor Gardner 32:33
But Backspin tee, you know Taylor, Joey, you can’t control your launch angles, not saying you can control your launch angles. It’s just like I’m not saying you can even hit why I’m saying though, is you can work on the precision of contact and work on your precision posture and swing plane. And when it lines up, you smoke a ball at the pitcher’s head, you did your job. And when the next at-bat, it probably feels the same and you hit a homerun, guess what you did your job. You hit the ball far. But more importantly, your plan gave you the ability to fall as hard as potentially could that swing.
Taylor Gardner 33:08
And that’s Oh man, how many young kids have you seen? You throw them one change-up… They’re crushing balls… you throw them one change up. And then the next 10 swings are crap. They just can’t find it… it just ruins their world. It’s like, oh, man, you got to filter that out. Trust the plan and get to the next pitch. It’s okay.
Joey Myers 33:29
Yeah, exactly. That’s crazy. Yeah, that’s a good one to end on. And that’s another call for another day. I want to be respectful of your time because you’ve got a little one that’s down there. And she’s been great. By the way.
Taylor Gardner 33:40
She’s sleeping now.
Joey Myers 33:41
She’s asleep. Yeah, she’s asleep. I’m talking too loudly. I’m talking to you loudly. But hey, I want to let you get back to the baby and get back to the family. hopefully get some sleep. Maybe she’ll take take a nap with her. But hey, where can people find you? socials, website, any kind of deals that you got going on right now? Go ahead. And…
Where can people find more about you guys?
Taylor Gardner 34:04
Yes, so find us on Google backspin bat tee to find backspintee.com, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, we have a 20% off code at the moment. If you use the code BATBROS. For those of you that follow the baseball bat pros, I’m very good friends with them. They are great people Bill Taylor and them and they’re amazing people. But you’re also going to find our bat tee in Dick’s Sporting Goods here soon. So be on the lookout.
Taylor Gardner 34:28
Hopefully, Academy is a follow that as well for those that maybe that’s closer to here. And we’re trying hard to get Mark word shields and some other big retail stores. But the Dick’s Sporting Goods we’re shipping that out here in a couple days. Extremely excited to make that next jump to the big retail because we’ve done so well on the individual bat tee sale and it’s time to make that move.
Joey Myers 34:50
Yeah, congratulations, buddy. I’ve been with you for a lot of this bat tee journey. I think we jumped on probably we start building our relationship maybe your second year I think you guys are. So, so I’m just excited for you guys. And I know you guys have been just like all of us been through our ups and downs and stuff and it sounds like you guys are starting to starting to rise again. So yeah,
Taylor Gardner 35:12
Yeah, it all started with Joey Myers experiment video, my bat tee versus the other tee, and we didn’t know each other so you have to watch that video.
Joey Myers 35:20
Again. See how they turned out? Yeah, it was in a very bias thing, I was probably, we had run into each other a couple times. We talked on the phone maybe once or twice and I was like, you know what, let’s try this out. Let’s do a bat tee experiment on it. I think it turned out well for you guys.
Taylor Gardner 35:34
Yeah, I think well back to the precision of contact, just changing that visual. You had a more funnel effect with the Backspin Bat Tee, and with the traditional tee, it was a little more scattered and it just makes you wonder, not promoting my bat tee over another tee… Tee just are you working on your precision and in your vision obviously has a lot to do with that so, pick up a Backspin Bat Tee, give it a shot, if you don’t like don’t like it, then I’ll give you your money back. Yeah, definitely.
Joey Myers 36:01
Right. Then percent off and you get 20% BATBROS. B-A-T-B-R-O-S, and that’s all caps, correct? Cool. All right, brother. Well, thanks. Keep up the good bat tee work. Congrats on everything and congrats on the little girl. My first time seeing her.
Taylor Gardner 36:13
Thank you bud.
Joey Myers 36:14
Alright brother. Take care of yourself.
Taylor Gardner 36:16
Have a good one.
Joey Myers 36:17
Have a good Easter.
Taylor Gardner 36:18
Thank you.
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https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/bat-tee-e1617902685923.png281500Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2021-04-08 17:31:572021-04-08 18:14:29Bat Tee Co-Founder: How To Make Adjustments [VIDEO]
Hitting Drills For Kids: How To Keep Hitters Productive At Home Despite COVID-19
(Correction in above hitting drills for kids video: I said this started last Wednesday, March 25th, but I couldn’t get this up in time, so the next day it was! CLICK HERE to view Today’s Hitting Workout Of the Day – WOD.
Self quarantine. “Shelter-in-place”. Losing a job. Tireless work. Medical care workers, military, police and fire departments. Sacrificing sport seasons. Seniors in High School and College losing their 2020 year. Politicians bickering – as usual.
I totally understand. It SUCKS. And I’m sorry who’ve lost a job or loved one because of this nasty virus. My thoughts and prayers go out to you and your families. I hope and pray things get better soon.
But you know what coach? We’re going to get through this. Together. Genghis Khan once said:
“One arrow alone can easily be broken but many arrows are indestructible”.
I understand the uncertainty out there. And if you’re like my family, we have two little blessings (7yo boy and 4yo girl), running around at home. The challenge is, we have to keep them in productive mode, or else they’re fighting like cats and dogs. And at the same time my wife and I are juggling work from home in good ol’ shelter-in-place California.
I’m not going to lie, it’s REAL easy to keep the kiddos on their devices all day. But I don’t believe that’s the best thing for their little developing minds. Same is true for the teen-osaurs!
Here’s what we’ll cover in this post:
How to keep hitters productive at home despite COVID-19,
How To Keep Hitters Productive At Home Despite COVID-19
One of my online hitting lesson dads posted this Twitter “to-do” list to keep the kiddos busy at home… (he elaborates on this schedule in the comments below)
If anybody needs a to-do list to keep kids busy, here’s one we use and update each day. pic.twitter.com/7pEBCyZSRf
I would be honored to be a part of your at-home schedule!
At-Home Hitting Drills for Kids Challenge Rules
WHEN
The challenge will run from Thursday March 26th, through Easter Sunday, April 12th. Wishful thinking is that this COVID-19 thing is under wraps by then, and things become as normal as circumstances allow.
Check-in EVERY day at about 8:00AM pacific standard time. That day’s Hitting WOD will stay up that whole day. PLEASE NOTE: Each day I’ll take down yesterday’s Hitting WOD and replace with today’s. So, if you’re busy, I’d suggest stopping in and at least taking notes, so you don’t miss out.
…you can use this as hitting homework. “Baseball with dad or mom” as Tyson put it in his Tweet. Each day will guide you in one of 5 areas:
Building more power,
Hitting more line drives,
Getting on-time more often,
Moving better to perform better (body work training), or
Sticky coaching cues.
Like Crossfit, think of this as a Hitting “Workout Of the Day” – or Hitting WOD.
HOW
Every single day, we’ll keep it simple. I’m just asking at least 5-minutes per day to do the Hitting WOD.
By the way, on some days, I’m going to do random giveaways. Online hitting lessons. An autographed copy of my Amazon bestselling book. Possibly hitting aids. We’ll see what happens. The more you share this on the socials, the better chance you have at winning! Best part is, it won’t cost you a thing!
Today’s Hitting WOD (DAY-17 and Final Day)
Today’s hitting drills for kids videos are coming to an end. Sadly. But the good news is… Today and tomorrow (Easter) I want to giveaway one FREE online hitting lesson from our own The Feedback Lab program…
How can you win? Simply by leaving a comment below. I pick a random comment and declare the winner on the Monday after Easter. Good luck and I hope you all have a Happy and Safe Easter! PLEASE NOTE: this offer is closed and we’re no longer taking winners.
BONUS Extra Credit to Sweeten the Deal
Before this whole Chinese Coronavirus thing picked up steam, I was working on a low-cost monthly membership called Swing Smarter Newsletter Monthly. I will be putting a TON of time and effort into each issue.
Once per month, we’ll be offering up:
One training tip video on how to fix a certain flaw,
1-month in review curated content on Sticky Coaching or Moving Better to Perform Better, and
Hitting aid review, how it MUST be used for success, & discounts…
The monthly membership fee was going to be $9.95 per month. We’re also offering a 30-day money back guarantee to take the risk away. Cancel within that period and we’ll give you your money back. No worries. No questions asked. No hard feelings.
Click the button below to grab access to Swing Smarter Newsletter Monthly…
Grab Swing Smarter Monthly Newsletter for Low Cost of One Venti White Chocolate Mocha at Starbucks Per Month!
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Grab Swing Smarter Monthly Newsletter for Low Cost of One Venti White Chocolate Mocha at Starbucks Per Month!
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Tee Drills: Adam Eaton Speaks High Inside Pitch Approach Truth
Adam Eaton photo courtesy: MLB.com
In this tee drills with Adam Eaton video, some main points Adam Eaton covers:
Ball flight tells you everything,
Demonstrates how REAL high level barrel path is on high inside pitches,
How most get the cue ‘stay inside the ball’ wrong, and how to use it properly, and
Tee drills tip for putting the high tee on steroids!
Make sure you watch the brief 5-minute 30-Clubs in 30-Days Adam Eaton interview before diving into my notes below. I time stamped the above video for quick and easy reference…
At the 0:45 mark, Adam Eaton talks about how tee drills are the most important part of the day. According to the tee drills naysayers out there, man oh man, how many Big Leaguers are doing it “wrong”. Haha!
At the 1:30 mark, while working tee drills, DeRo asks if Adam Eaton is worried about his hands, bat path, what? And Adam responds by saying, ball flight tells you everything. If ball flight is clean, he knows his body is in the right position.
At the 2:30 mark, Adam talks about letting ball get to belt buckle on pitches away. He clarifies you aren’t actually going to hit it there in the game. Feel cue, pure and simple. Interesting he mentions getting on plane quickly here in reference to outside pitch. This is when deep barrel dump is okay. Adam mentions his powerful impact position checkpoints: palm up palm down, hardly any bend in the front arm (he actually works on this!!), and nice bend in back arm (90-degrees).
At the 2:55 mark, Adam Eaton talks about high inside tee drills. Uncomfortable drill because it feels like you’re crowding yourself. But it teaches body control and to control the shoulders. “Blackout moment” defined as an experience when body takes over without thinking because you’ve practiced it so many times. And just before the 4-minute mark watch him demonstrate how he gets to that high inside pitch — he keeps the barrel up, above his hands, until last possible second. Much different barrel path he’d take to a pitch away. I talk to my hitters about the difference between hitting a catcher’s glove perpendicular to the hitter’s “belly button” (inner third part of plate), versus knocking off the real catcher’s glove (outer third part of plate).
On these tee drills, Adam Eaton talks a lot about ‘keeping hands inside the ball’. The cue is great for hitters that do the opposite – hook the ball a lot. And ‘get barrel around the ball’ works brilliantly for hitters with racing back elbow or who tend to push the ball opposite a lot. Over the years I’ve learned that every hitting feel cue has their place. We used to laugh, cajole, and mock Major Leaguers when we’d hear them say things like ‘get on top’, ‘swing down on the ball’, or like in Adam Eaton’s case ‘stay inside the ball’. These cues do work, but mostly to the hitters who do the opposite of what these cues suggest. It’s called Paradoxical Intention.
Also note on Adam Eaton’s slow motion game swings how virtually straight his front arm is at stride landing. He’s not a big guy, 5-foot, 8-inches, and only 176-pounds. He can lever up that front arm because of a shorter wingspan for sure. I’ve seen him do this on outside pitches as well as inside. Although, here’s the catch on the inner half of the plate, you have to take the barrel path approach he demonstrated on the high tee drill. In addition to training my hitters to use a longer front arm on the high pitch, I also make them do it with an end loaded heavy bat. Makes the drill even more uncomfortable – as Adam Eaton put it – BUT if they can accomplish it at that pitch location, everywhere else is gravy.
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https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/tee-drills-adam-eaton-e1583987180213.png477500Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2020-03-12 05:15:322020-11-04 05:07:13Tee Drills With Adam Eaton Video
Matt Chapman Swing Analysis: Metrics, Shifting Foot Pressure, OK Head Movement, & When Barrel Enters Zone Matters…
Hey, what’s going on it’s Joey Myers from the Hitting Performance Lab. In this Matt Chapman swing analysis video post, we’re going to go over a few different things…
Matt Chapman swing analysis photo courtesy: MLB.com
And then we are going to end with Barrel Path – being on time versus out in front.
Let’s get started…
Part of this Matt Chapman swing analysis is looking at the context of his numbers and metrics.He’s about six-foot two hundred and twenty pounds. In 2019, he had 36 homers, 36 doubles, hit about .249 the year before. Hit .278 with 24 homers and 42 doubles.
A little moderate on the strikeout versus his walk ratio. It looks a little bit more like a three to one type ratio. And if we look at his batted ball totals, 15.5 percent line drive rate in 2019, the league average is 20 percent. So that’s a little bit below average.
His ground ball percentage, 41.5, League average is about 43 percent. So he’s right about league average there.
But you can see here in his fly ball percentage 43.1 Percent, he’s well above average there, average is 37 percent. So definitely something there, to get the ball out of the air a little bit and more on the line drive level.
His home run to fly ball ratio is 19 percent. So it’s actually pretty good. Well above average at 9.5 percent as the league average.
Matt Chapman Swing Analysis: Shifting Foot Pressure
All right. Let’s take a look at shifting foot pressure in this Matt Chapman swing analysis, but before we get there…
I want to give context to a couple of the pitches. We’re going to look at three different at bats on three different nights. And with this pitch here from Bartolo Colon, you’re going to see it’s a way out or third. And the pitch speed is about 89-mph, possibly some sort of slider, maybe, that he keeps on the outside corner.
The plate over here, we can see that it’s still outer third, maybe a little bit closer to the middle than the pitch before. 84-mph, probably some sort of change up or slider.
Let’s take a look at the swing here on the left first. We’re looking for shifting foot pressure. And what we want to see up until stride landing, is we want to see foot pressure on the outside of the front one, we want inside of the front one.
And then what we’re going to see is, we’re going to see that switch and over here on this swing, you can see that that toe almost picks up a little bit as he’s transitioning from the outside to the inside. Here you can see the switch happening, swing and transfer.
Now we’re going to switch to inside of the back foot, outside of the front foot. And you can see on the back big toe on that big toe knuckle back here that he is staying on that back big toe knuckle to keep that foot pressure.
And then you see the front foot on the outside portion of the foot. Now, this swing over here, you’re going to see a similar thing happen where he’s going to be more foot pressure on the outside, inside of the front foot as that front foot approaches the ground. You’re going to see this shift happen where you might see the bottom of the foot, slightly. Where it kind of peels off where the pressure transfers from inside to outside.
This time, instead of the back big toe knuckle, you’re seeing it more to the inside of the back, big toe. The third swing in this Matt Chapman swing analysis was located down and in 85-mph. Maybe a cutter or slider down and in.
And you’re seeing the same type of foot pressure where it starts outside the back foot, inside the front foot, till about right here. And then we start to see it shift over and the sides reverse. So, we go inside the back foot, outside the front foot.
A little too much focus is being put with coaches, nowadays, on this back knee, and trying to keep it inside the back foot, where I think an easier solution would be to work foot pressure with hitters.
And this is something that they can just do in the room. They don’t have to hit off of a tee. But I’ve seen hitters that over rotate their lower half, young ones, almost miraculously start looking like Matt Chapman with his shifting foot pressure … when they start doing the shifting foot pressure.
Forward Momentum – Is Head Movement Okay?
Now let’s talk about forward momentum and head movement. A lot of coaches out there don’t like to see head movement at all. In this Matt Chapman swing analysis, you’re going to see that him, much like many others, have head movement. Head goes forward and down. Some just go forward.
What we should see is this forward and down or just forward. Let’s take a look here on the left. You’re going to see the head move from the top back circle to the bottom forward circle.
And then the other important note here is that at landing, the head stops moving, and should stay within that circle there. A lot of times with younger hitters, we see their head move outside of this circle. It keeps moving as they start their turn. We do not want head movement during that turn itself. But all the way from the start of the swing to stride landing, head movement is OK.
Over here in the same, different swing, you’re going to see the same head just shift and stay within that bottom ring. But we see the head move from up and back to down and forward. And then just stay within that circle through the turn itself.
Here’s the other swing on the right. You’re going to see again head starts in the up back circle, and it’s going to end up in the forward down circle. And then from there during the turn, you’re going to stay in the middle of that circle.
Head movement is OK until stride foot landing, and then the head must stay between that circle.
Getting Shorter, Staying Shorter
Let’s talk about getting shorter and staying shorter. A lot of coaches out there will teach their hitters to stay tall or to get tall. The problem is, is we don’t see that in elite hitters. We see them getting shorter, staying shorter.
You take the top 50 hitters in the big leagues, the top 100, they’re all going to get shorter and stay shorter. They’re going to create space between their feet. This helps them to control their verticals or their launch angles or attack angles, however you want to think about it. They’re just numbers, they’re just metrics, that we can measure and compare hitters.
But you can see on the left, you can see in this Matt Chapman swing analysis, him drop below that second line and he’s going to stay below that second line.
Getting shorter and then staying shorter over here on the right, you can see the same thing, different swing on a different day. But it’s still the same swing, get shorter and staying shorter.
And the third swing here on the right. You’re going to see him start tall. He will get shorter and then he will stay shorter.
And you saw the difference in those pitches – the first two I showed. Now, these aren’t as synched up as that. But when we first showed, the first two pitches were more away. The last pitch was more down and in.
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Barrel Path – Being On-Time versus Being Out-In-Front
OK. In this Matt Chapman swing analysis let’s talk about barrel path, on time vs. being out in front.
Now, typically, if a hitter is on time, we use the different catcher’s gloves. You can see over here is a better example. You can see where the real catcher’s glove is over here. So, we say, imagine you got the real catcher’s glove. You have to imagine a catcher’s glove off the back foot, still where the catchers at, but in line at the back foot.
And then we get a catcher’s glove that’s in line with the hitter’s belly button. Now an on-time hitter…
Outer third part of the plate wants to knock or is what we see…we want to knock this real catcher’s glove off and hit the ball deeper than the stride foot.
If the ball’s middle third, we want to knock off the back-foot catcher’s glove, if there is a catcher’s glove in line with the hitter’s back foot. In line with the straight foot as the impact point.
And if the ball is inner third, we want to knock off the belly button catcher’s glove – to hit the ball more out in front of the front foot. When the barrel enters the zone matters. And the best do this. They aren’t perfect. They tend to stay between. They usually never will go across.
For instance, if the ball is inner third part of the plate, they’re not going to knock this deep catcher’s glove off or do a deep barrel dump, and still be able to hit this pitch out in front of their front foot as an inside pitch.
The same is true in reverse. You’re not going to see them knock the bellybutton catcher’s glove off and hit a ball deeper because a barrel is not in the zone very long. So, can either be barrel in the zone too long, which is a fact, or not long enough.
We generally see them stay between the two. If the ball is middle third of the plate right down central…. sometimes we see them knock the real catcher’s glove off, but they end up hitting it more inside the sweet spot and still can hit it pretty well. I’ve seen home runs it that way.
Or in reverse…it could be, to where maybe they are a little short. Maybe it’s middle of the plate and they’re a little shorter here because they’re trying to catch up. They’re thinking maybe fastball and they end up being a little bit more on front.
So that being said, that is on time. That is optimized. Now, this view over here is a little bit angled than this one. This one’s straighter on, but he’s out in front of all these, for the most part, you can tell just from the swing itself. You can see where he makes contact…
This first one was away, was outer third was the probably the farthest away. And he’s making contact quite a bit out in front. Again, this camera angle’s a little bit skewed, but you can see just by his body how he’s a little bit more out in front of this.
Look at his barrel path. Look where the catcher’s glove is. Again, if we were more side angle, chest view, this catcher’s glove might be more in line at the back foot. I don’t think the catch will be dumb enough to be that close. I think it’s just the angle is causing that to look that way.
But you can see Alex Rodriguez, Pujols, Mike Trout, all of them would be super proud with this “swinging down” type of demonstration. This is actually happening in a game. You can see that the barrel staying above the hands a lot longer … till about right here, it levels off or slightly dips and then you get here because he’s catching this ball a little bit out in front. And he’s cutting the corner with his barrel path.
He’s not starting it back here, and then getting it to here to have a really long barrel path, like some coaches teach, he’s actually cutting the corner in order to get to this ball more effectively. This is OK.
Over here, this was the last swing if you can remember, and this was the one that was down and in. You’re going to see a similar path again … down, middle down, middle away. You want to have a deeper barrel path. But he’s a little bit out in front. He’s going to cut the corner. You can see the barrel appear blurred.
About here, you still see the white of his batting gloves and you can see everything kind of blurring up this way. Barrel above his hands here and then he’s letting it go. A little bit more out in front, but both of these swings are almost more of hitting the belly button catcher’s glove like we just talked about, even though, this one over here was away.
This one is down, which is the middle away versus middle down. We’re going to take similar barrel paths, but we’re going to be deeper. When they’re out in front, you’ll see them cut the corner.
This swing was a little bit more over the middle of the plate, but still middle away. You can see where the catcher’s gloves at. It’s well behind him. You’re going to see this is a little longer swing. He’s going to cast it back, almost hitting the back-foot catcher’s glove. A little bit more optimized on this swing, hitting it a little bit deeper, as you can see. You can see the blur of the ball and the blur the bat kind of meeting at one.
He’s hit this one about where he should be hitting it. Optimizing. Again, he probably could have been a little bit deeper and maybe he hit this one, I think, to straightaway center instead of right center field.
He could have been a little bit more optimized by going back here, but this is imperfect, timing is imperfect. And as long as our hitters are between two close catchers’ gloves there was the real one in the back foot or the back foot in the front, the belly button one, as long as they’re between there somewhere.
We we say there’s three different barrel paths optimizing three different parts of the plate, but we cut it up into two. We say middle in and middle away … middle up, middle down. And then we just allow our hitters to … if it’s middle down, middle away, then we want to be between these two catcher’s gloves back here.
If it’s middle in or middle up, then we want to be between the back foot and belly button catcher’s gloves.
Remember, in this Matt Chapman swing analysis video post, we went over a few things…
We looked at Matt Chapman in FanGraphs,
Talked about shifting foot pressure,
Forward momentum and whether head movement is OK,
Getting shorter and staying shorter,
And then we finished with Barrel Path – being on time versus out in front.
I hope you like this Matt Chapman swing analysis video post. Make sure that you’re swinging smarter by moving better, like our YouTube channel, like this video, share on Facebook, Twitter.
And before I let you go, I got something for you…
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Top-10 Most Popular Hitting Performance Lab Blog Posts Of 2019 (both Facebook & Twitter)…
#10:Teach: How To STOP Hitting Excess Of Ground-balls & Fly-balls – Perry Husband long form video interview discusses: “How do I get my son to stop hitting an excess of ground-balls (or fly-balls)?”, How swing intention is great, but its benefits can be suppressed by physical limitations, The key ‘tinker & test’ learning principle helping hitters learn faster, Why a hitting coach’s job is to eliminate their job, And much more!
#8:Why You SHOULD NOT Teach Hitters To Hit Homers? – Perry Husband long form video interview discusses: Formal Introductions, Perry Husband & Joey Myers FB Jam Session #1 Carlos Pena and Boston Red Sox hitting coach phone conversation for segment on MLB Now Show, Bro-Science v. REAL Science, How to know who/what to follow, Demystifying Launch Angles, and Q&A…
#6:Discover Where An Elite Hitter’s Secret Weapon Is Found – short video discusses how most coaches understand the function of bones and muscles in the body, but don’t understand springy fascia. Simple demo you can use with hitters to help them understand the role of springy fascia…
#5:How To Make Teaching Proper Weight Shift In Swing More Understandable To Hitter – Perry Husband long form video interview answering: “Making teaching of proper weight shift in your swing and more understandable to the hitter?”Perry Husband & Joey Myers Hitting Jam Session #3, 1000’s of swing experiments confirm benefits of releasing backside: higher Ball Exit velocity, better ball flight, and swing consistency, How to fix hitters that over stride, Why ‘force plate’ studies DO NOT mean a darn thing, unless they correlate these two critical metrics, And much more!
#4:5,000 Swing Experiments Validate Locked Out Lead Arm Is Superior To Bent – Perry Husband long form video interview discussing: Instructors confusing what “casting” is and is not, What if only fastball Mike Trout gets is what produces the 80.8-mph avg. BES, would that change his offensive stats? Hitter using bent lead arm comes at a cost, “Deep barrel dump” – great barrel path for down/away pitches, but TERRIBLE for up/inside pitches, And much more!
#2:Belly Buttons, Center Of Gravity, & Quick Way To Solve A Flat Bat – One of my favorite 3.5 minute hitting demonstrations helping hitters understand the need to stack the bat’s “belly button” above theirs. A flat bat at landing can cause 3 negative swing flaws, and how to fix…
#1:Is “Swinging Down” Okay Since Alex Rodriguez Said So? – Perry Husband and I do a hitting analysis of Alex Rodriguez’s hitting hitting analysis, and did he come off disconnected from describing the elite swing?
Top-13 Most Popular Non-Hitting Performance Lab Sticky Coaching Links From Our Facebook Fan Page…
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#11
#10
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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!
And before I let you go, please take 1-minute to enter for a chance to win an autographed copy of our Amazon Bestselling hitting book…
FREE Catapult Loading System Book
HOT Giveaway: Signed print copy of our Amazon Bestselling book: "The Catapult Loading System: How To Teach 100-Pound Hitters To Consistently Drive The Ball 300-Feet"Click the Button Below To See How You Can Win...
https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/23-Of-Our-Most-Popular-Hitting-Sticky-Coaching-Social-Media-Links-In-2019-e1577131676908.png500500Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2019-12-23 20:24:112019-12-26 16:03:0223 Of Our Most Popular Hitting & Sticky Coaching Social Media Links In 2019
HPL Hitting Clinics Coming To A California Spot Near You!
The above video was news coverage of a ball exit speed challenge we did at a local hitting academy. Just a taste of what could be coming into your backyard…
For the past couple years, I’ve been asked by many out-of-town Academy owners and coaches to help put on hitting clinics. With two young kiddos, I’ve had to decline the travel because I was needed at home. Well, I’m still needed at home, but the ages of my kiddos are much more manageable (3 and 6yo). My hitters and parents know, I’m VERY protective of family time, and is WHY I’ve chosen to build a primarily mobile hitting business.
I’m currently working on a new hitting book that will go into how to hit more line drives, while reducing strikeouts(due to release by end of summer), and am looking to go on an HPL California Hitting Clinic and speaking tour.
Since 2013, we’ve affected tens of thousands of coaches, in turn quite possibly affected hundreds of thousands of their hitters. My goal with the release of this next book, hitting clinic tour, and going on the coaches speaking circuit is to affect hundreds of thousands of coaches, and in turn affect millions of their hitters.
If you don’t know much about us, then please CLICK HERE to visit our About page. There are A LOT of unsolicited testimonials at the bottom of that page.
The HPL California Hitting Clinic Gory Details…
In following, I’m going to be very open, honest, and transparent with the details. If there’s a question, then please ask. If you’re an Academy owner, hitting instructor, or coach who wants to host an HPL California Hitting Clinic, then here are the who, what, when, how, and whys:
NorCal, CenCal, or SoCal? Yes, yes, and yes.
Indoor or outdoor.
Can be on the weekend or a day or two during the week.
Up to you which hitting theme you’d like me to teach on: Catapult Loading System (more consistent power without sacrificing swing quality), Pitch Plane Domination (hitting more line drives and reducing strikeouts), or Reaction Time Mastery (footwork, vision, tracking, & timing). Or we could do a mix.
I’m only booking 1-2 clinics per month (starting in June), so scheduling is limited, and first come first served.
At least 20 hitters/coaches (this can be a mix).
Following groups are chunked for efficient age appropriate teaching: 11-13yos, 14-16yos, or 17+yos. If these groups are mixed, then sessions will be disjointed, awkward, and move slow.
Baseball AND softball. Mixing genders is okay, just make sure age appropriate chunking stays intact.
At least 4-hours required to make the trip (could be 2 hours, break for lunch, then another 2 hours).
*$30/hitter/hour, so with minimum standard, 20 hitters X $30/hitter-coach/hour, for 4 hours = $2,400 (that’s only $120/hitter for the time).
Academy owners, instructors, or coaches can charge above and beyond the $30/hour/hitter, if a “fee” is desired on your end, but that’s my minimum. In other words, round up to $150/hitter/4-hour day and take a $30/hitter fee on top of mine, so your facility makes $600(20 hitters X $30).
If it’s a 2-day, then my hotel, food, and travel cost will be added to the quote (depending on the area cost, that could be between $200 and $400 on top of my regular fee).
I only want to focus on California, but for those interested out of state, since a flying would be more time effective, then a round trip flight, hotel, food, and travel costs will be added to my quote (again depending on the area cost, that could be between $400 to $800 on top of my regular fee).
Also, there’s an opportunity to earn a 50% commission on my online video courses. CLICK HERE to check out our affiliate program (and sign up!). While I’m there, I would promote YOUR affiliate program link, and NOT cut out the “middle man”.
I will also give a ONE-TIME 10% commission for each PAID Academy owner, instructor, or coach you refer for a HPL California Hitting Clinic.
Video recording of the clinic, and sharing of the information is okay just as long as credit is given, and you tag Hitting Performance Lab (@HitPerformLab, #HittingPerformanceLab, #CatapultLoadingSystem, #PitchPlaneDomination, or #ReactionTimeMastery).
After each clinic, I would love to get your advice on how to make the clinics better, and would be honored if you shared testimonials with me, either written or video, the latter more preferred.
Bottom line: I’m NOT looking to steal your hitters, I’m looking to enhance your business either online or offline and ultimately want you and your hitters to spread the good word. Any “extra” time we have together, I’d love to grab a beer or sweet iced tea, and talk about how to market your business better (no charge!). I know a little about this: wrote an Amazon bestselling book, over 12,000 books sold or downloaded, over 18,000 products purchased by coaches, 40,000 coach emails, 34,000+ Likes on Facebook, almost 9,000 Twitter followers, almost 6,800 organic YouTube subscribers. I’ve also been doing online hitting lessons since 2014. Locally, I do small private group hitting groups (2-6 hitters/group) with over 30+ active weekly hitters, where I make up to $180/hour. Six-figure per year business. Help me help you 😉
*Prices are subject to change, depending on demand, so the price reflected on this page at time of booking will be honored. If price increases, then it increases for everyone. $30/hitter/hour is for between 20 to 30 hitters/coaches. Over that, my price is negotiable.
What’s the Next Step to Connect?
Remember #1 (of 2), I’m only booking 1-2 clinics per month (starting in June), so scheduling will be limited, and it will be first come first served. Look, maybe you’re a parent or coach that cannot take advantage of this, but you may know someone who can, so here’s reminder #2, I will also give a one-time 10% commission for each paid Academy owner, instructor, or coach you refer for a Hitting Performance Lab California Hitting Clinic. That could be at least a $240 finder’s fee!
CLICK HERE to contact me via email, and then we’ll connect via phone to put something on the schedule. I’m looking forward to working with you, your coaches, and hitters 😀
https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/hpl-hitting-clinic.png280500Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2019-06-04 04:31:532019-06-04 04:53:24Join 18,070+ Of Your Peers Applying Our Validated By REAL Science Hitting Principles
See How Easily You Can Build 3-Dimensional Hitters & WHY Bother…
From Perry Husband video analysis: Cody Bellinger swinging under a pitch up in the zone. Effective Velocity’s effect on “uppercut” hitters. Photo courtesy: MLB.com
The MLB Tonight interview in a nutshell, Brian Kenny interviewed Trevor Bauer about the Evolution of Analytics, and Bauer talked about the concept of 3-dimensional pitching, which consists of:
Moving the ball up and down,
Moving the ball in and out, and
Changing velocity of pitch…
The target rich environment of pitchers throwing into barrels results in ANY hitting approach being effective. But what happens when the target rich environment disappears? What happens when pitchers stop locating the fastball down in the zone? Jacob DeGrom (aka Thor), changed one thing in his pitching approach that cut his ERA in HALF…what did he do? Simple. He mixed in more fastballs up in the zone. What percentage of fastballs located up in the zone can cut an ERA in half? 61%!!! Verlander is at about 51%, and post-season teams are at about the 44% mark – to put things in perspective.
What does that one case study mean for a majority of hitting coaches out there teaching the deep barrel dump on all pitches? EVERYTHING!! At ALL levels…baseball AND softball. The “deep barrel dump” hitting disciples will run into trouble…Bigly.
In this post, I want to share my favorite MOST essential resources of training hitters to counter 3-dimensional pitching with my version of 3-dimensional hitting, which include:
Optimizing verticals (launch angles),
Optimizing horizontals (using ALL fields), and
Optimizing timing (managing different pitching velocities).
Let’s first start with…
Optimizing Verticals (Launch Angles)
Look, I was the guy teaching my hitters to maximize “launch angles”…doubles and dingers…20 to 30 degree launch angles…hit top part of the cage!!!
Boy was I wrong…why? Because I found my hitters were popping up too much, sometimes flying out 4 times in a game. That sucks. Here’s the deal…
CLICK HERE to watch and listen to an interview I did with the father of Effective Velocity Tunnels, Perry Husband, titled, “Teach: How To STOP Hitting Excess Of Ground-balls & Fly-balls”. This will teach you everything you need to know about optimizing verticals. I’ve time stamped moments of the long form interview, so you can fast forward to the juicy parts. The conversation can be boiled down to this:
Default launch angle operating system: 10-15 degree launch angles (we call it hitting ball back through “tube” from where it came),
IF hitter pops ball up, then we tell them to hit a ground-ball (we use “bad” cues like “swing down”, “get on top”, or “keep barrel above hands”), or
IF hitter hits ground-ball, THEN we tell them to pop it up…
…like PFM (Pure Friggin’ Magic), the hitter begins hitting more line drives!! The problem is when coaches blanket teach their hitters an approach, such as hit EVERYTHING on the ground OR hit EVERYTHING in the air.
Let’s look at a thought experiment…and say your 9 hitter lineup is split up into result-oriented thirds:
1/3 of the lineup consistently hits fly-balls,
1/3 of the lineup consistently hits line drives, and
1/3 of the lineup consistently hits ground-balls…
So if you blanket teach the WHOLE lineup to swing down and hit more ground-balls, here’s what will most likely happen…
The “fly-ball” hitters will hit more line drives,
The “line drive” hitters will hit more grounders, and
The “ground-ball” hitters will hit EVEN MORE grounders.
In this case, you didn’t move the needle at all. You actually made your “line drive” hitters look DUMBER. Look, hard grounders are good, but teaching hitters to hit ground-balls for ground-ball’s sake is STUPID, IDIOTIC, and only occurs on MORON Island. CLICK HERE for my ground-ball rant.
Thought experiment #2…
Now, what would happen if instead of telling EVERYONE the same dang thing, you do the following:
Instructed “fly-ball” hitters to swing down and hit the ball on the ground,
Instructed “line-drive” hitters to keep doing same dang thing they’ve been doing, and
Instructed “ground-ball” hitters to swing up and hit the ball in the air…?
I’ll tell you what will happen…ALL 9 HITTERS IN YOUR LINEUP WILL BE HITTING MORE LINE DRIVES!!!!! Don’t believe it? Try it and report back.
Optimizing Horizontals (using ALL fields)
Multi-pitch Layover: what happens when pitchers smarten up and build pitch sequences coming out of same pitch “tunnel”? Hitters using “deep barrel dump” on all pitches will be in BIG trouble. And coaches teaching “deep barrel dump” will become extinct, unless they adapt. Photo courtesy: MLB.com
This dawned on me one day when I was running one of my small private group lessons. One of the hitters I’ve been working with since he was a 7-year-old, he’s 15-years-old now, was explaining how difficult it was to get to the inside pitch. Asking me whether he was ‘showing his numbers’ too much.
So it got me thinking…what do the best hitters do, who ‘show numbers’ to pitcher, when seeing 95-mph+ on the inner half of the plate? I did some research and put together the following post titled, “Best Swing In Baseball: ‘Showing Numbers’ Objections Answered”
Optimizing verticals and horizontals are actually the easier parts. The challenge to 3-dimensional hitting has to do with…
Optimizing Timing (managing different pitching velocities)
I don’t want to reinvent the wheel here, these are two of my favorite blog post resources that do the best job at explaining how to hack a hitter’s timing:
That mis amigos is 3-dimensional hitting. Hitting is going to get harder from here on out, so make sure your hitters are prepared. Don’t fall prey to Hitting Guru #57.
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https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/blog-groundballs-cody-bellinger-e1556904646953.jpg313500Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2019-05-03 17:49:052019-05-03 18:02:39How To Use “3-Dimensional Hitting” To Optimize Timing, Using All Fields, & Launch Angles
“If you want to argue with “science” as you refer to it, you are welcome and encouraged to do so…but bring your superior evidence and data to the argument!”
Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty — some most unsure, some nearly sure, none absolutely certain. pic.twitter.com/TCMuP9GM8J
One of the most revered Scientists of our day, the late Dr. Richard Feyman. Photo courtesy: PopularMechanics.com
Science can be tricky. However, just like with everything else, use proper judgement, and don’t outrun your common sense.
I want to preface a recent insightful Facebook conversation on this with a couple things…
According to Wikipedia,
“Richard Phillips Feynman was an American theoretical physicist, known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, and the physics of the super-fluidity of super-cooled liquid helium, as well as in particle physics for which he proposed the parton model. For his contributions to the development of quantum electrodynamics, Feynman, jointly with Julian Schwinger and Shin’ichirō Tomonaga, received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965.”
It’s okay. I know you’re eyes glazed over reading that paragraph. All you need to know is yeah, Dr. Richard Feynman was a super smart dude. “…varying degrees of certainty” are the keywords to pay attention to in the Tweet. He was a true student of Science, using the Scientific Method, and trying to be as objective and unbiased as any human can be. He had a passionate curiosity of how all things worked. A true blue scientist. I highly recommend Dr. Feynman’s book titled, “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character“. It’s not a very technical read, goes fast, and is fascinating.
Wondering how to how to spot BAD Science? Try this book titled, “Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks“ by Dr. Ben Goldacre. Dr. Goldacre’s humor and sarcasm goes a long way in getting through this one.
Okay, now that that’s over, let’s get to this week’s post…
I wanted to share a recent Facebook conversation I had with a couple gents. One I will name “Coach”, so as to not put his name on blast. Do you believe this statement: “…science is today’s religion. Ppl take it as, fact. If you think science is fact your horribly mistaken.”?
I interjected in the following conversation, but mainly to confirm Jason O’Conner’s points. He did a great job of picking apart this objection. Feel free to use this as fire power for those coaches justifying NOT using science to mold effective swings. At the end, I’ll put proof in the pudding. The conversation went a little like this…
Coach:
“…yes u can argue with science. Science is religion not fact. Its guessing and testing not thinking and proving. Very little is proven fact in science. Science is only science until better science comes along. For example. The science of hitting….. there’s ppl out there that say he wasn’t completely right. Then there will be someone new saying the same of your doctor…..i find it funny scientists who can’t hit anything telling ppl the proper way to hit.*”
Jason O’Conner:
“Science is neither religion or guessing and testing. It is the discipline of seeking knowledge in pursuit of the truth and understanding. Whether being applied to medicine, the weather or the baseball swing, that understanding is only as good as the currently available information (data), and yes a process of observation, testing and retesting as tools improve necessarily updates our knowledge and improve our understanding. It does not rely on faith as religion does. It relies on evidence and data. “Hard anywhere” is a result. It doesn’t explain or teach how in fact one hits the ball hard anywhere consistently. That requires some understanding of how the bio-mechanics of the swing works and can be made most efficient for each player. If you want to argue with “science” as you refer to it, you are welcome and encouraged to do so…but bring your superior evidence and data to the argument!”
Coach:
“…science is today’s religion. Ppl take it as, fact. If you think science is fact your horribly mistaken…And i equate science to religion because ppl believe in it like a, religion. Examples being global warming, salt. Salt every day goes back and forth on being good or bad for u. Some think its bad…. others good….. And they all think that way because science told them to. That’s my problem with science. And, again……when better science comes along your science will no longer be science…… like i said. Hitting was figured out scientifically in the 70’s…….But today’s science said they were wrong. Yet they hit better back then.”
Jason O’Conner:
“…better science cannot come along and replace anything. Science uses better information and better data to improve understanding. Usually this happens as a result of technological advance. This is a pointless debate here. But of two things I am convinced:
Your problem is not with science it is with people who may have referred to science to argue a viewpoint you disagree with…science requires critical debate of evidence to come to the most likely conclusion and
As a generality, the elite athletes of today are superior to those of 30+ years ago. Trout would be the best hitter in any era. That is my opinion. Olympic athletes use bio-metrics in every aspect of their training, and there are few world records more than 10 years old.”
*I have a big problem with coaches who are arm-chair quarterbacks. Saying something like, “I find it funny scientists who can’t hit anything telling ppl the proper way to hit”…is laughable, and a total slap in the face to hard working scientists like Dr. Richard Feynman. This statement comes from a coach possessing a stubborn Fixed Mindset. If every arm-chair QB would seek the truth like a Dr. Feynman, Dr. Serge Gracovetsky (The Spinal Engine), Dr. Kelly Starrett (Becoming A Supple Leopard), or Dr. Erik Dalton (Dynamic Body), they wouldn’t chronically suffer from foot-in-mouth disease.
Here’s a quote from Dr. Ben Goldacre that packages this coaching paradox nicely:
“I spend a lot of time talking to people who disagree with me – I would go so far as to say that it’s my favorite leisure activity – and repeatedly I meet individuals who are eager to share their views on science despite the fact that they have never done an experiment. They have never tested an idea for themselves, using their own hands, or seen the results of that test, using their own eyes, and they have never thought carefully about what those results mean for the idea they are testing, using their own brain. To these people “science” is a monolith, a mystery, and an authority, rather than a method.” – Ben Goldacre
I’m 100% CERTAIN there is BAD Science out there. But coaches, it’s your job to weed out the good from the bad. Just because 20% of Science may be bad, doesn’t mean we should not listen to the other 80%. Don’t be a fool. Knock the chip off your shoulder you may have about Science. Don’t outrun it, but exercise common sense. Please, please, PLEASE!
You can eat soup with a fork, knife, or spoon, but only one way is more effective. Teaching hitters is the same. There are hundreds of ways to teach hitting that’s for certain. However, applying human movement principles that are validated by REAL science to hitting a ball, NOT because-I-said-so “bro-science”, is the pathway to power.
Coaches, have a higher standard for your hitters. WHY? Because your hitters are counting on you.
Success leaves clues. I wanted to share a couple of my most recent testimonials received from parents (within the last week or so), unsolicited by the way. Words can’t express the gratitude I feel on a weekly basis, almost daily, from parents and coaches sharing how these human movement principles are helping their hard working hitters…enjoy!
Josh, text message after coming up to Fresno from Los Angeles to hit for 2-hours, sons: Matt (Senior HS), Jonny (8th Grade), & James (6th Grade) come up…
“Thank you again for working with the boys. Both James and Jonny crushed a hit last night. Jonny went 2-for-2 with 2 triples. James got his first double in a long time. Field we played on had no fence so ball kept rolling…U should have heard the convo on the way home. How they told their teammates their hitting instructor is the GOAT. Hilarious”
Chris, email about son Aidan (11yo) who has been working with me in my online video lesson program The Feedback Lab since 2017
“Joey, a sincere note of thanks for your guidance over the past two seasons in helping Aidan at the plate. The All-Star team of which he’s a part won the State 11u tournament this past weekend and now moves on to the Midwest Region. Since the team was selected, he’s worked his way up from batting 10th in the first tournament to 5th in the State Finals. He’s gone 10/25 (.400) with 8 singles, 2 doubles and 8 RBI. The last double came with 2 outs in the bottom of the 6th, bases loaded, and our team trailing 3-0. Pretty pressure-filled situation being down to the last out with the season on the line. He drove in 2 runs on a line drive down the left field line and went on to score the winning run.
In no way is this meant to be boastful. Sure—we’re really proud of him, but I truly believe the work he’s put in based on your instruction has given him the confidence as one of the smallest kids on the team to hit the ball with authority against any pitcher he faces. Many thanks!”
Peter, email about son Ethan (9yo) who has been working with me in my online video lesson program The Feedback Lab since February of 2018.
“Thanks Joey, great feedback and analysis as always. The great part is that I’m also learning from you as we continue along. As I was getting ready to send you the last video I was seeing a lot of what you discussed in your analysis; keeping the shoulder angle and showing numbers to landing, and the top hand coming off way too soon. But I was struck by the consistency with his swing, every one had good barrel angel at landing, head movement after landing is way down and as you mentioned you can really see a much more confident swing! Thanks again Joey, we couldn’t be happier! Looking forward to getting back at it! Talk again in a few weeks!”
Jason, email about son Bleau (12yo) who flew from Knoxville, TN with his best friend Jaser (11yo) and his family to hit, catch some Cali sun, and MLB baseball games. We hit for 10-hours spread out over 3 days.
“Joey, we had a wonderful dinner tonight down in Fisherman’s wharf. I asked the boys what their favorite part of the trip was thus far. Bleau said that ‘Joey is my favorite part’. Thank you for coming through and investing in him. We look forward to meeting your family.”
And last, but certainly not least, an updated on Hudson White, who if you remember was showcased in this post highlighting his performance at the National Power Showcase…
“This year he was a freshman on varsity at Byron Nelson high school. He was starting 2nd and 3 hole. He led all north Texas in hits most of the season and finished 7th overall with 45. He was hitting the ball hard somewhere! Hudson was named District 5-6A Unanimous Newcomer Of The Year and All – Area Newcomer of the year finishing 7th in area with 45 hits, 25 RBI, 21 runs, 16 SB
He also just got back from the Wilson Midwest wood bat championship where he was names MVP for hitting two home runs. He went 9-18 and only 1 single. The rest were doubles,triples and dingers! Here’s his MVP interview:
He has been on a tear hitting 6 home runs in the last 3 weeks with either wood or an old rusty metal bbcor bat. Just an FYI update to all the haters and naysayers its the Indian not the arrow. I appreciate your help and instruction. The proof is in the pudding.” – Marty White, email update about his son Hudson “The Hawk” (16yo)
TRUE or FALSE:“If you think science is fact you’re horribly mistaken”…FALSE. Saying Science is just a “glorified opinion” is nonsense. If that’s truly what you think, then you’re obviously spending time on the wrong things. The little bit of BAD Science shouldn’t take away from the majority of good out there. Coaches, please use some common sense, and as always test this stuff out for yourself – don’t just take my word for it. And I think true-blue scientists like Dr. Richard Feynman would agree.
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.
. Williams talked about barrel meeting the plane of the pitch. Trout’s natural tendency runs counter to this. And what he tells himself, remember the body is one or two steps behind the brain, is to do the exact opposite of what his natural tendency is. He tells himself to get on top of the ball. And what’s the result? The barrel ends up somewhere in the middle of extreme uppercut and negative attack angle downswing. That’s what he’s trying to get for his real… to get to the middle.
, calls this 
paradoxical intention? Overall, my whole team is hitting more line drives. Now my line drivers aren’t lonely. They have more competition to deal with. Competition makes everyone better. Hungrier. Especially when they’re experiencing success. Does that make sense?
, 
, HitTrax, 
, or 
, then you’re flying blind. You aren’t going to know. And those hunches will just be hunches.
by K
:
“. It’s not a very technical read, goes fast, and is fascinating.
“ by Dr. Ben Goldacre. Dr. Goldacre’s humor and sarcasm goes a long way in getting through this one.
), Dr. Kelly Starrett (
), or Dr. Erik Dalton (
), they wouldn’t chronically suffer from foot-in-mouth disease.
its the Indian not the arrow. I appreciate your help and instruction. The proof is in the pudding.” – Marty White, email update about his son Hudson “The Hawk” (16yo)