Youth baseball player demonstrating a proper baseball batting stance — balanced, hip-hinged, hands near back shoulder

Every Great Hitter Has A Completely Different Stance. Here’s What They All Have In Common

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Walk into any MLB stadium and you’ll see a completely different baseball batting stance in every single batter’s box. Ted Williams stood upright and compact. Tony Gwynn narrowed his stance late in his career and simplified everything. Derek Jeter spread wide and open. Josh Donaldson tweaked his setup more times than he can count. Today, Bobby Witt Jr. presets his hip before his stride, Freddie Freeman recently turned his front foot inward to close his hips, and Vlad Guerrero Jr. stands open to buy time on off-speed pitches. All of them are right. None of them look the same. And every one of them passes through the same five checkpoints that determine whether a stance actually works.

↓ Download the free 5-Point Stance Check PDF — or keep reading for the full breakdown.

What did Ted Williams say the proper baseball batting stance actually requires?

Ted Williams was the most analytical hitter who ever played the game, and he addressed the stance directly in The Science of Hitting. His requirements were precise: feet slightly wider than shoulder-width, a slight bend at the knees, a slight bend at the waist, hands near the back shoulder, and eyes level on the pitcher. Williams was specific about hand position in particular — “The further your hands are away from your body, the longer it takes to get into the proper load position.”

Additionally, Williams was dogmatic about one mechanical truth that made his five-point stance framework worth following: hips lead the hands. The purpose of the stance, in Williams’ view, was not to look a certain way — it was to create the conditions for full hip rotation. Weight shift alone, he argued, does not generate power. Hip rotation driven by the stance setup does. Therefore, the stance is not an aesthetic choice. It is the setup for the baseball swing load that generates everything that follows.

For youth hitters, Williams also gave important permission: experiment and find what feels comfortable within those five requirements. He was not advocating for one rigid model. He was identifying the non-negotiables that apply to every hitter regardless of style.

Tony Gwynn said the baseball batting stance doesn’t matter — so what does?

Balance. That was Tony Gwynn’s definitive answer on the batting stance debate, and it cuts through decades of coaching disagreement in one sentence. Gwynn was direct: “Your stance doesn’t matter, but if you’re not balanced by the time you load, you’re out.” He went further: “Balance and adjustability go hand in hand; without balance you really have no chance to adjust.”

This is arguably the most useful framing for youth hitters and coaches because it correctly identifies the stance as a means, not an end. The stance is how a hitter arrives at a balanced, adjustable launch position. Consequently, a wide stance, a narrow stance, an open stance, a closed stance — all of them can work, as long as the hitter achieves balance by the time the stride foot lands. A stance that looks textbook-perfect but doesn’t produce balance at landing is worse than an unconventional one that does. For a full breakdown of Gwynn’s hitting approach, Pro Baseball Insider’s Tony Gwynn hitting series covers his philosophy in depth.

How wide should your feet be in a baseball batting stance?

Shoulder-width to slightly wider is the most reliable answer, and it applies across virtually every elite hitter from Williams through today’s game. The exact width is secondary to what the foot position enables: a hip hinge, a loaded back hip, and a stable base for stride and weight transfer.

Josh Donaldson — who has changed his own setup more than a dozen times over his career — emphasizes what happens at the back hip. Donaldson teaches being engaged into the back hip, not the back knee: “When you are engaged in your back hip you have better balance than when you put all your weight into your back knee. When you are locked into your knee, you will naturally want to jump forward.” His weight setup focuses on the back heel and back hip working together — a subtle distinction that has major implications for load timing and hip rotation efficiency.

Bobby Witt Jr. takes that concept a step further with his hip preset. Before his stride, Witt’s belt buckle tilts slightly toward his back hip. This setup position means his hips are already primed to sequence before the stride foot lands — and when he does land, he arrives centered rather than drifting or rushing forward. That centered landing is what gives him the adjustability to cover all four quadrants of the zone. For more on how the back foot works in this equation, this breakdown of back foot angle and hip loading covers the mechanics in detail.

Where should your hands be in the baseball batting stance?

Near the back shoulder, close to the body. Williams said it plainly, and decades of swing analysis have confirmed it: the further the hands start from the back shoulder, the longer the path to the ball, the harder it is to generate bat speed, and the more likely the swing is to drag through the zone rather than accelerate through it.

Hand position in the stance also determines where the hands travel during the load. When hands start close to the back shoulder at the right height, the load is a compact internal rotation rather than a long reaching motion. That compact load is the difference between a short, direct swing and one that’s susceptible to bat drag — one of the most common swing killers in youth baseball. Furthermore, hands at shoulder height avoid the upward adjustment that occurs when the hands start too low and must travel upward to meet a fastball at the top of the zone.

Cal Ripken Jr., who changed his batting stance many times over his HOF career, consistently returned to one principle: learn yourself as a hitter. That self-knowledge includes understanding where your hands naturally fall at load — and whether that position is helping or hurting your path to the ball.

What are today’s best hitters doing in their stance that youth hitters can learn from?

The most instructive recent example is Freddie Freeman’s front foot adjustment in 2026. Freeman identified a problem — he was pushing balls to left field rather than driving them — and traced it to his hip opening too early in the swing. His solution was to turn his front foot slightly inward (like Corey Seager), which gave his hips a physical reason to stay closed longer before rotating through the ball. His quote on the result was simple: “Obviously that’s helped a lot.”

What makes this instructive for youth hitters is the diagnostic process. Freeman didn’t change his swing. He adjusted one element of his setup — front foot angle — and the downstream result was that his hips rotated more efficiently. That is exactly how stance changes should work: identify a specific problem, trace it to a specific setup element, make one targeted adjustment, and measure the result in ball-in-play data.

Bobby Witt Jr.’s hip preset is similarly instructive. Most youth hitters think of the stance as static — you set up, then you swing when the pitcher delivers. Witt’s approach treats the stance as an active, athletic position where the hips are already loaded before the stride fires. The result is that he gains ground toward the pitcher without losing tension in his rear hip, which gives him both direction and timing. Improving batting timing often starts with this exact principle — the stance isn’t passive, it’s the first movement in a sequence.

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What coaches and players using the HPL system say

“13 year pro ball player here. I just wanted to say how much I enjoy your videos and emails — I couldn’t agree more with the mechanics and techniques you teach. You’re on the right track to unlocking what it takes physically and mechanically to translate what the best in the world are doing every day. Keep up the great work.”

TGARCIA247 ★★★★★ — 13-Year Professional Baseball Player

“Many of my hitters are starting to achieve exit velocities they never thought possible. Averages are up, power is up. I have three girls playing D1, six at D2, two going to JUCOs this fall — and I credit the HPL approach for proving the science and providing convincing evidence.”

Ronny Weber ★★★★★ — Baseball & Softball Coach

“Enthralled with your stuff — can’t even watch football in peace for watching, reading, and thinking hitting. Learning so much from the HPL approach, especially as it relates to what I’ve built my coaching on. Can’t wait to share this in the new year with my team. Now your number-one fan.”

Timothy Merry ★★★★★ — Youth Baseball Coach

The 5-point baseball batting stance check coaches use to diagnose problems fast

Across all the variation in elite batting stances — from Williams to Gwynn to Jeter to Freeman to Witt — five checkpoints remain constant. These are not preferences or style choices. They are the mechanical requirements that every effective stance must meet. Check all five and a hitter’s setup will work. Miss one and the rest of the swing has to compensate.

Checkpoint 1 — Balance

Weight should be roughly centered or slightly back at setup — not forward. Gwynn’s test applies: can the hitter hold the stance for three seconds without swaying? If not, the stance isn’t producing a stable launch position. Weight forward at setup means weight is already forward before the pitch, which eliminates any load and transfer.

Checkpoint 2 — Foot Width

Shoulder-width to slightly wider. Feet too narrow = limited hip rotation room. Feet too wide = restricted stride and hip mobility. The width should allow a full hip turn without the back foot flying out or the front knee collapsing inward. For stride mechanics tied to foot width, the setup and the stride length are directly related.

Checkpoint 3 — Hip Hinge

Soft knees with a slight bend at the waist. Standing too upright is the single most common youth batting stance error. An upright stance eliminates the athletic ready position — the same posture a shortstop uses when fielding, a basketball defender uses to stay in front of a ball handler. Without the hip hinge, there is nothing to rotate from.

Checkpoint 4 — Hand Position

Hands near the back shoulder, close to the body, at or slightly above shoulder height. This is the position Ted Williams prescribed. Hands too low create an upward path adjustment. Hands too far from the body create a longer, weaker swing. Check the baseball batting drills that reinforce this hand position through repetition.

Checkpoint 5 — Head and Eye Level

Both eyes on the pitcher, head still and level. This sounds obvious but is violated constantly when a hitter stands with their head tilted, chin buried in their shoulder, or eyes angled rather than level. A level head is a pre-condition for pitch tracking — the eye needs a stable platform to do its job. If the head is tilted in the stance, the visual field is already compromised before the pitch is thrown. For a full list of baseball hitting tips tied to each of these checkpoints, the library covers every piece in depth.

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Your stance is the setup. Power Hitter 2.0 covers the exact loading mechanism every elite hitter uses — regardless of how different their stances look. Inside: the science behind consistent rotational power, why “load and explode the hips” is the #1 coaching lie, how to stop the front shoulder from flying open, and the load timing system that works across all pitch speeds. One-time payment, $19.99, instant access.

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What is the most common baseball batting stance mistake youth hitters make?

Standing too upright is the most common and most damaging stance mistake in youth baseball. A hitter with no hip hinge and no knee bend has eliminated the athletic position that makes rotation possible. The stance looks casual — like someone waiting for a bus rather than preparing to swing at 85 mph. As a result, the only power source available is the arms and wrists, which is not enough against any pitcher with velocity or movement.

The second most common mistake is hands too far from the body. When the hands start extended — out away from the chest rather than close to the back shoulder — the load path is immediately longer. Furthermore, extended hands create a loop in the swing path as the hands have to travel inward before they can go outward to the ball. That loop is the origin of most bat drag problems, and it starts in the stance before the pitch is ever thrown.

The third mistake is weight too far forward. Some hitters set up with their weight already on the front foot before the pitch. This eliminates the weight transfer that feeds hip rotation. Without weight moving from back to front during the swing, there is no transfer of energy — and without energy transfer, there is no power regardless of how sound the rest of the mechanics are. Think of it like a pitcher who plants their front foot and tries to throw without using their legs. The arm still works, but the velocity disappears.

Common questions about the baseball batting stance

What is the proper baseball batting stance for youth hitters?

The proper baseball batting stance for youth hitters is an athletic ready position with feet shoulder-width or slightly wider, a soft bend at the knees and waist, hands near the back shoulder at approximately shoulder height, and eyes level on the pitcher. There is no single correct stance — Tony Gwynn, Ted Williams, and Derek Jeter all looked different. What they shared was the same five checkpoints at stride landing: balance, foot width, hip hinge, hand position, and head level.

How wide should my feet be in a baseball batting stance?

Feet should be shoulder-width or slightly wider. Ted Williams recommended feet slightly wider than shoulder-width. The exact width depends on body type and stride length — a hitter with a longer stride starts a bit narrower, while a no-stride hitter may stand wider by default. The critical requirement is that the width allows a full hip turn without the back foot flying out or the front knee collapsing.

Where should your hands be in the batting stance?

Hands should be near the back shoulder — at shoulder height and close to the body. Ted Williams wrote in The Science of Hitting that the further hands are from the body, the longer the path to the load position. Close hands create a short, direct swing. Extended hands create a longer path and increase bat drag through the zone.

Is a closed or open batting stance better?

Neither is universally better. Derek Jeter used an open stance for 20 seasons. Freddie Freeman adjusted to a more closed front foot in 2026 specifically to keep his hips from opening too early. The starting foot angle is less important than where the hitter lands at stride — balanced, with the front foot roughly squared and the hips still loaded. Both open and closed stances can achieve that landing position.

What did Ted Williams say about the proper batting stance?

Williams outlined five requirements in The Science of Hitting: feet slightly wider than shoulder-width, soft knees, slight bend at the waist, hands near the back shoulder, and eyes level. He also taught that hips lead the hands — the stance must enable full hip rotation, not just weight transfer. And he gave young hitters explicit permission to find their own comfortable version of these fundamentals rather than copying one specific model.

Why do elite hitters have such different stances if there’s a proper one?

Elite hitters look different in their stances because the pre-pitch setup is personal — it reflects body type, timing preference, and rhythm. However, all elite hitters pass through the same five checkpoints at stride landing. At that moment, balance, hip hinge, hand position, foot alignment, and head level are consistent across virtually every elite MLB hitter. The stance is individual. The launch position is universal.

How does batting stance affect power and contact?

Batting stance affects power primarily through hip hinge and hand position. A stance with soft knees and a slight bend at the waist enables hip rotation — the primary power source. A stance with hands close to the back shoulder enables a short, direct path that improves contact rate. The three most common stance faults that reduce power and contact are standing too upright, hands too far from the body, and weight too far forward.

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Fastpitch softball hitter in load position showing fastpitch softball hitting mechanics breakdown

Your Fastpitch Hitter Looks Different In Practice Than She Does In Games — Here’s Why.

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Fastpitch softball hitting mechanics get misrepresented more often than almost any topic in the hitting world. Most coaches learn their craft through baseball — then try to apply the same swing cues to a sport with a different pitch plane, a shorter release distance, and less time to make a decision. The result is a generation of softball hitters who work hard, look great in the cage, and then disappear at the plate against a live arm they haven’t seen before.

This guide covers what separates fastpitch softball hitting mechanics from a baseball swing, what correct technique actually looks like at the plate, and — most importantly — why the cage-to-game gap in fastpitch is almost always a pitch recognition problem, not a swing problem.

↓ Take the free 60-second Game Transfer Quiz — or keep reading for the full breakdown.

How Does Fastpitch Softball Hitting Mechanics Differ From a Baseball Swing?

Fastpitch softball hitting mechanics differ from a baseball swing in three primary ways: pitch plane, release distance, and reaction time — and each difference changes what good technique looks like at the plate.

First, the pitch plane. In baseball, a pitcher releases from an elevated mound and the ball descends into the hitting zone. In fastpitch softball, the pitcher delivers in a windmill motion from below the hip, driving the ball upward toward the plate on a rising plane. As a result, a softball hitter who applies a “swing down” cue — or even a traditional flat swing — is fighting the pitch’s natural path. The barrel and the ball move in opposite directions at contact, shrinking the hitting window dramatically.

Second, the release distance. College and high school fastpitch pitchers release from 43 feet; a baseball pitcher releases from 60.5 feet. That 17-foot difference — combined with fastpitch speeds of 55–70+ mph — means a hitter has a reaction window of approximately 350–380 milliseconds. For context, a exit velocity vs. bat speed analysis reveals that the same mechanical output produces different results when reaction time is compressed — the hitter’s front-end trigger becomes the rate-limiting factor, not the swing itself.

Third, the contact zone. Because the pitch rises from below, the optimal contact point is higher relative to where the pitch starts. The hitter isn’t just timing a ball in front of the plate — she’s timing a rising trajectory, which requires a different barrel entry angle than baseball at every pitch height.

What Does a Correct Fastpitch Swing Plane Actually Look Like?

A correct fastpitch swing plane matches the incoming pitch angle — the barrel moves slightly upward through the contact zone, staying on the pitch plane as long as possible before and after contact.

This directly contradicts the “stay on top of the ball” cue still taught in many fastpitch programs. That cue produces a downward barrel path that diverges from the rising pitch plane. The result is thin contact, topped grounders, or misses — not because the hitter is slow, but because the barrel is moving away from the ball at the moment it arrives. In softball hitting power analysis, hitters who match their barrel plane to the pitch plane stay in the contact window 2–4 times longer than hitters who chop down. That wider window is the difference between a clean line drive and a weak grounder, even when timing is identical.

Hip rotation is the driver of swing plane. An early, powerful hip turn allows the barrel to slot naturally into the correct upward path. However, when hip rotation is late or the hitter compensates with the arms, the barrel path chops across the pitch instead of moving with it. Furthermore, most hitters told to “swing level” actually swing across the ball because their hips open too late — not because their arm swing is wrong. Fixing the hip trigger fixes the plane.

Wondering if swing plane is the issue for your hitter? → Take the free Game Transfer Quiz — 4 questions, 60 seconds.

What Is a Good Exit Velocity for Fastpitch Softball by Age?

Exit velocity benchmarks for fastpitch softball vary by age and level — here are coaching targets by age group based on data from college programs and travel ball assessments across the country.

Age Group Average Above Average Elite / D1-Track
10U 40–50 mph 51–58 mph 59+ mph
12U 48–58 mph 59–66 mph 67+ mph
14U 57–67 mph 68–75 mph 76+ mph
16U 63–72 mph 73–80 mph 81+ mph
18U / High School 68–78 mph 79–86 mph 87+ mph
College / D1 78–88 mph 89–94 mph 95+ mph

← Swipe to view full table on mobile →

Two important caveats apply. First, exit velocity is a product of both bat speed AND swing path — a hitter with excellent bat speed can still fall short of these targets with a poor attack angle. For training context, data on exit velocity gains consistently shows that swing-plane improvement produces bigger jumps than pure bat-speed work alone — because fixing the plane improves contact quality, not just contact rate.

Second, these are coaching benchmarks, not absolute ceilings. The National Fastpitch Coaches Association notes that college recruiters weigh multiple factors beyond exit velocity — arm strength, speed, and softball IQ are all part of the picture. Use these numbers as progress markers in training, not as pass/fail thresholds for your hitter’s future.

Why Do Fastpitch Hitters Look Better in the Cage Than in Live At-Bats?

The cage-to-game gap in fastpitch softball is almost always a pitch recognition problem — not a swing problem — and it’s the most common reason a technically sound hitter underperforms against live pitching she hasn’t seen before.

Here’s the root cause. In the cage, a hitter works against predictable speeds, familiar release points, and consistent pitch movement. Her brain builds an accurate timing model quickly, and the swing fires well. In a live at-bat against a pitcher she hasn’t faced, however, everything changes: the arm angle is different, the pitch movement is new, the release point is slightly off from what she practiced against. The brain scrambles to build a model of that pitcher in real time while also trying to execute a decision in under 400 milliseconds.

Because the hitter’s recognition pattern doesn’t match what she’s seeing, she swings at pitches she should take, takes pitches she should hit, or makes contact on a different part of the ball than intended. This is what researchers call the practice-to-game gap, and temporal occlusion studies — the gold standard for measuring pitch recognition in hitters — show that elite hitters distinguish themselves not by having faster reaction times, but by reading pitch cues earlier in ball flight. That earlier read gives the swing mechanism more time to execute. Most hitting programs never train this layer, which means a hitter with clean mechanics still walks into a game with an untrained front-end trigger.

For a direct breakdown of what this looks like — including late swing problems that have nothing to do with bat speed — see the linked post. In addition, pitch recognition tools that use real pitcher video can close this gap at home, between cage sessions.

“Exit velocities are up, averages are up, power is up. Three girls going D1, six at D2, two at JUCOs. I credit the HPL approach for proving the science and providing convincing evidence.”

Ronny Weber — Baseball & Softball Coach

“You’re on the right track to unlocking what it takes physically and mechanically to translate what the best in the world do every day. Keep up the great work.”

TGARCIA247 — 13-Year Professional Baseball Player

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4 quick questions identify the specific gap between cage performance and live at-bats — and exactly what to work on next. Works for baseball and fastpitch softball at any level.

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What Is the Right Attack Angle for Fastpitch Softball Hitters?

The optimal attack angle for fastpitch softball hitters is typically between +5° and +15° through the contact zone — matching the upward trajectory of the pitch as it crosses the plate.

Attack angle is measured at the moment of contact, not during the load or stride. A +8° to +12° range at contact keeps the barrel on the pitch plane the longest, which directly increases the probability of solid contact. At the same time, it’s important to distinguish attack angle from launch angle: attack angle describes where the barrel is moving at contact; launch angle describes where the ball travels after contact. Getting attack angle right is the prerequisite for improving launch angle in a repeatable way — not the other way around.

Hitters with consistently negative attack angles — meaning the barrel moves downward at contact — fight the pitch plane directly. Frequent topped grounders, weak pull-side contact, and “almost” misses are the tell. For practical hitting timing drills that establish the correct barrel entry into the zone, the linked resource covers specific drill progressions. In addition, tracking contact location on the barrel over a BP session is a fast self-assessment: consistent contact on the bottom third of the barrel almost always signals a negative attack angle at contact.

Which Fastpitch Softball Hitting Drills Build the Most Game-Ready Mechanics?

The fastpitch softball hitting drills with the strongest game transfer all share one quality: they force the hitter to read and adjust in real time, rather than groove a committed pattern against predictable feed.

Therefore, the most effective approach layers two types of training. First, mechanical drills build the physical pattern — swing plane, hip rotation, barrel path. Batting timing drills with variable pitch speeds or load-anchor cues are especially effective here because they develop a recognition pause before the swing commits. Second, recognition training builds the front-end trigger — the ability to read pitch type, location, and movement early enough for the mechanics to fire correctly in a live at-bat. Most programs run only the first layer and wonder why the cage results don’t transfer.

Specifically, these three approaches produce the highest game transfer for fastpitch hitters:

Pitch-type calling during BP. Before swinging, the hitter calls out the pitch type — “rise,” “drop,” “change” — as early in ball flight as possible. This forces active visual processing rather than passive waiting. Most importantly, it starts building the pitch library that determines how early the swing trigger fires under game pressure.

Variable-speed soft toss with spin cues. The feeder varies rotation between topspin and backspin, and the hitter adjusts barrel plane to match. As a result, this drill trains the specific adjustment mechanism that breaks down against pitches the hitter hasn’t seen before — which is exactly what happens in almost every game situation.

Video-based pitch recognition at home. Platforms that use real pitcher video with temporal occlusion — cutting the video at different points in the delivery to force early reads — have over two decades of peer-reviewed research showing that recognition speed gains from this training transfer directly to live performance. No cage required for this layer.

Common Questions About Fastpitch Softball Hitting Mechanics

How is fastpitch softball hitting mechanics different from baseball?

Fastpitch softball hitting mechanics differ from baseball in pitch plane, release distance, and reaction time. Fastpitch pitchers release from 43 feet in a windmill motion, driving the ball upward on a rising trajectory — the opposite of a baseball pitcher throwing downward from a mound. The shorter release distance also compresses reaction time to roughly 350–380 milliseconds, compared to 400+ milliseconds in baseball. As a result, the optimal softball swing plane is slightly upward through the contact zone — not flat or downward, as many coaches mistakenly teach.

What exit velocity should a fastpitch softball hitter have by age?

Exit velocity benchmarks for fastpitch softball range from 40–50 mph at 10U to 78–88 mph at the college level. Above-average hitters at 14U typically exceed 68 mph; elite 16U hitters approach 80 mph or above. However, exit velocity is a product of bat speed AND attack angle. A hitter who improves her swing plane to match the pitch’s upward trajectory often sees larger exit velocity gains than those who focus exclusively on bat speed training — because better contact quality does more than raw swing speed when the attack angle is wrong.

Why does my fastpitch hitter look good in the cage but struggle in games?

Fastpitch softball hitting mechanics that work in the cage often break down in games because cage training develops the swing, not the front-end recognition trigger. In a live at-bat against a pitcher she hasn’t seen, the hitter’s brain must identify pitch type, location, and movement early in ball flight and commit to a swing decision in under 150 milliseconds. That recognition skill requires deliberate training that is entirely separate from mechanical cage work. Because most programs never address the recognition layer, the cage-to-game gap persists even when fastpitch softball hitting mechanics look technically correct in practice.

What is the correct attack angle for fastpitch softball?

The correct attack angle for fastpitch softball hitters is typically +5° to +15° at contact. This upward barrel path matches the rising trajectory of the pitch as it crosses the plate, keeping the barrel in the contact window longer. Hitters who consistently have a negative attack angle — meaning the barrel moves downward at contact — create a bat path that diverges from the pitch plane, producing topped balls and thin contact even when their timing is correct. Improving attack angle to the +8° to +12° range is one of the fastest ways to improve both contact rate and exit velocity simultaneously.

How do I fix a late swing in fastpitch softball?

Fixing a late swing in fastpitch softball almost always requires addressing two separate problems: load timing and pitch recognition. On the mechanical side, the hitter’s load or stride initiation is often too late — the pitch is already well on its way before she triggers. However, even a hitter with a correctly timed load can swing late if her pitch recognition is undertrained — she starts the swing based on a guess rather than an early read of pitch cues. Therefore, the most effective fix combines earlier load initiation with recognition training that builds the habit of committing to a swing decision based on information earlier in ball flight.

What is the most common fastpitch softball hitting mechanics mistake?

The most common fastpitch softball hitting mechanics mistake is a downward or chopping barrel path — the result of coaches applying the baseball “swing down” cue to a sport where the pitch moves in the opposite direction. In baseball, a descending pitch means a slightly negative attack angle can still produce contact because the bat path and ball path converge at the right moment. In fastpitch softball, the pitch rises into the zone — so a downward barrel path actively diverges from the ball, producing weak contact or misses even when timing is correct. The fix is re-orienting barrel entry to match the rising pitch plane.

How can fastpitch hitters train pitch recognition at home?

Fastpitch hitters can train pitch recognition at home using video-based temporal occlusion platforms — tools that show real pitcher video cut at different points in the delivery, forcing early reads of pitch type, location, and movement. This training method has over two decades of peer-reviewed research behind it, with measurable gains in recognition speed that transfer to live game performance. In addition, reviewing video of a hitter’s own at-bats with a focus on decision quality — which pitches she swung at and why — builds the pattern recognition library between cage sessions. Neither approach requires a cage, a pitching machine, or a live pitcher.

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Hitting Training For Baseball & Softball Swing Trainers | Hitting Performance Lab

How To Increase Hitting Power Stats Like Jose Altuve Swing With Fundamental Baseball & Softball Drills In 2022

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Jose Altuve Hitting Analysis Reveals A Pathway To Repeatable Power

 

Jose Altuve Hitting Analysis

Look at Jose Altuve’s ‘bat lag’ and weight off the back foot. Photo courtesy: Melissa Phillip / Houston Chronicle

Learn how to increase hitting power stats like Jose Altuve swing with fundamental baseball and softball drills in 2022.

In doing Jose Altuve hitting analysis, here’s what I hear…

“Well, he’s a big hitter, that’s why he can hit for power”…

…Is the EXCUSE from coaches who’re removing any responsibility to help their smaller hitters hit the ball farther and harder.

Or, oftentimes I hear this about a hitter like Dustin Pedroia (5’9″, 175-lbs – these numbers are fudged “up” btw):

“He’s just gifted.”

Wa?!!

ALL Major Leaguers are GIFTED!!! lol

Tell me one physical advantage that Dustin Pedroia has over most…??!

Don’t say eye hand coordination or vision because that’s another common rebuttal.

There are countless other MLB hitters with the same superior eye-hand coordination and vision.

The reality is, smaller sluggers MUST be MORE effective, in order to compete with sluggers bigger than them.

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Now, this Jose Altuve hitting analysis post isn’t about the ‘laser show’…however,

Standing in at 5’6″,

…and weighing in at a soaking wet 165-pounds, we’ll look at Jose Altuve (his height and weight numbers are a little closer to reality I think).

Although,

I do think Jose Altuve has one thing over the ‘laser show’, and that’s dancing (parental guidance is recommended 😉:

In this Jose Altuve hitting analysis video, we’ll go over:

  • Jose Altuve stats,
  • Presents of Forward Momentum (FoMo)?
  • How well he dominates the plane of the pitch,
  • Where his power comes from, and
  • Does he practice Pitch Recognition?

FYI: the pitch Jose Altuve is hitting in the video analysis looks like an 87-mph FB straight down broadway, and it does look like he’s on-time.

Without further adieu, here are the notes for the…

 

Jose Altuve Hitting Analysis Stats (the averages of averages)

CLICK HERE for the FanGraphs.com post  I pulled the following stats from*:

  • ISO = +20 points
  • BABIP = +34 points
  • GB% = +4%
  • LD% = +1%
  • FB% = -6%
  • HR/FB% = -3.5%

(*a (+) denotes how many points OR percentage points or above league average, and a (-) denotes below league average.)

 

Presents of Forward Momentum (FoMo)?

  • Is FoMo present?
  • Shifting foot pressure (mentioned landing with closed front foot), and
  • Moving Center of Gravity (COG).

 

How Well he Dominates the Plane of the Pitch

  • Knee Action – ‘getting shorter’ and ‘staying shorter’
  • Barrel Plane – keeping barrel on plane for as long as possible

 

Where his Power Comes from…

  • Showing numbers,
  • Hiding hands from the pitcher,
  • Hunch – Posterior Pelvic Tilt (PPT), and
  • Down shoulders? (not so much here).

 

Does he Practice Pitch Recognition?

My friend Aaron Miles, who was small (5’8″, 180-lbs), and played 9 years in the Bigs, talks about how his High School coach was forward thinking…in that he did Pitch Recognition training with his troops, and Aaron’s coach said he had the best PR on the team.

My hypothesis in this Jose Altuve hitting analysis is that he does some sort of PR training, OR has a God given early pitch recognition ability that allows him to hit the ball so hard, so often.

Sure, according to this Jose Altuve hitting analysis,

…Altuve may not hit over 30 homers per year, but he sure will hit a boat load of doubles, which is just as good to contributing to team wins…just look at his above average (average) ISO and BABIP scores above!

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Hitting Training For Baseball & Softball Swing Trainers | Hitting Performance Lab

Fundamental How To Coach Quick Hands, Contact, & Power Hitting Drills, Beginner Techniques, & Basic Drills For Youth Baseball And Softball 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 Year Olds In 2022

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Zepp Swing Experiment: Here’s a Quick Way to Fix a Flat Bat at Landing (and WHY!) 

 

 

Discover fundamental how to coach quick hands, contact, and power hitting drills, techniques for beginners, and basic youth drills for baseball and softball players in the 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 year old age range, in 2022.  This Zepp swing experiment targeting a ‘flat’ bat at stride landing is VERY age appropriate for the ages previously mentioned.

Fundamental Baseball Question: How Does a Flat Bat at Landing Effect Bat Speed, Ball Exit Speed, & Time To Impact?

Using the Zepp (Labs) Baseball app and Pocket Radar Ball Coach, I wanted to employ the Scientific Method to analyze how a hitter’s “Flat Bat at Landing”, or toe touch,  adds or takes away from key swing performance metrics including Bat Speed at Impact, Time To Impact, Attack Angle, and Ball Exit Speeds.

Let me define what I mean by ‘Flat Barrel’ versus a ‘Vertical Barrel’…

  • A ‘Flat Barrel’ at landing is anything less than a 30-degree angle (like Cargo in the above video as an example),
  • A ‘Vertical Barrel’ at landing is anything more than a 30-degree angle.

Now that we’ve defined the parameters, let’s look at the…

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Background Research

Fundamental Baseball: 'Flat Bat' Swing Experiment

Notice where the “dot” is drawn on the two static images left side, and where it’s drawn on the two dynamic images right side. Photo courtesy: GymSmartsCommunity.com

My background research is more experiential, rather than academic.

I have hitters do a mini-experiment by holding the bat in their bottom hand, laid flat (parallel to ground) over their back shoulder.  And then ask them to hold the bat, using the same hand, but vertical.  I then ask them which bat position is heavier/lighter?  Of course they say the vertical bat is lighter.  I then ask WHY?  And I get a few different answers…

What is the fundamental baseball answer?  Because we’re not adding or taking weight away from the bat by doing this…

It has to do with center of mass of the bat in relation to the hitter’s.  A ‘Flat Bat at Landing’ pushes its center of mass behind the hitter’s. A human’s center of mass is generally around the belly button.  To find the bat’s center of mass you can balance it between your thumb and forefinger.

I’ve also observed when adjusting a hitter’s ‘Flat Bat at Landing’ to a more ‘Vertical Bat at Landing’, there’s a bump in Ball Exit Speed, which I measure at the beginning (before instruction is given) and end of a hitting lesson.  My hitter’s also share they feel quicker to impact, have a little more ‘pop’, and that it’s easier getting the ball in the air.

It’s also interesting to note that I see quite a bit of early barring of the front arm when the hitter lands with a flat barrel.  I also see the hitter “wrapping the bat” around their head.  In my opinion this is a compensation to manipulate the shifted center mass of the bat from behind the hitter.

CLICK HERE to watch this fundamental baseball video on how to fix a ‘Flat Bat at Impact’.

 

Hypothesis

Fundamental Baseball Swing Experiment: Carlos Gonzalez & Cody Bellinger Illustrating Flat versus Vertical Bat at Landing

Look at the difference in bat angle at landing between Carlos Gonzalez (left) – “Flat” and Cody Bellinger (right) – “Vertical”. Just because a Big Leaguer does it doesn’t mean it’s effective or optimized. Oftentimes they succeed despite ineffective mechanics. Photos courtesy: MLB.com

In support of the Background Research above, I’m hallucinating that we’ll see a bump in Bat and Ball Exit Speeds, in addition to a reduction in Time To Impact.  I also think that we’ll see a more positive move in the barrel’s Attack Angle.

 

Flat Versus Vertical Bat at Landing Experiment

Equipment Used:

Fundamental Baseball Experiment Setup:

  • Yellow dimple ball feedback markers to keep starting footwork the same = bat length…I used two yellow dimple ball markers to make my stance setup consistent.  One was placed inside my back foot, close to the plate.  The other was placed one bat’s length ahead of the back marker.
  • Backspin tee was set one baseball’s length behind the front feedback marker, and tee height was about mid-thigh
  • We stayed as consistent as we could with keeping the ball height and depth the same for most swings.
  • I broke each swing down into a couple steps: 1) Get to landing, 2) Pause for 2-secs, and 3) Swing.  The reason for this was to control the bat either flat or vertical at landing.
  • The two tests in the swing experiment were counter-balanced.  Which consisted of eight blocks of 25-swings done in the following order ABBA BAAB.  ‘Flat Bat at Landing’ was letter ‘A’, and ‘Vertical Bat at Landing’ was letter ‘B’.  200 total swings were completed in the experiment, 100 per test.  Counter-balancing helps remove the “getting tired” and “warm up” factors.
  • The objective of ‘Front Facing Swings’ was to start the ‘belt buckle’ pointing at the pitcher, and to minimize pelvic movement.
  • Fundamental baseball Experiment Day-1 on 7/5 we completed 150 total swings (75 ‘Flat Barrel at Landing’ & 75 ‘Vertical Barrel at Landing’).  Experiment Day-2 on 7/10 we completed 50 swings (25 ‘Flat Bat at Landing’ & 25 ‘Vertical Bat at Landing’).
  • We had to break the 200 total swings into two days, with the second day coming 1 week later, because of time constraints.

Data Collected (Zepp Baseball App & Ball Exit Speed Readings):

‘Flat Bat Swings’ Days 1 & 2 side by side…

Fundamental Baseball: Swing Experiment

Flat Barrel at Landing swing averages of the averages: 76-MPH Bat Speed at Impact, 26.5-MPH Hand Speed Max, .209 Time To Impact, -32* Bat Vertical Angle at Impact, & 8.5* Attack Angle.

‘Vertical Barrel Swings’ Days 1 & 2 side by side…

Fundamental Baseball: Swing Experiment

Vertical Barrel at Landing swing averages of the averages: 76-MPH Bat Speed at Impact, 27-MPH Hand Speed Max, .206 Time To Impact, 30.5* Bat Vertical Angle at Impact, & 8.5* Attack Angle.

CLICK HERE for the Ball Exit Speed Google document.  The findings?

  •  Flat Barrel at Landing AVERAGE Ball Exit Speed = 79.01-MPH
  • Vertical Barrel at Landing AVERAGE Ball Exit Speed = 81.08-MPH
  • Difference = 2.01-MPH Ball Exit Speed bump with more Vertical Barrel at Landing

 

Data Analysis & Fundamental Baseball Conclusion

Zepp data analysis comparing the averages of averages:

  • We saw NO change to Bat Speed at Impact between the two swings,
  • We saw a 0.5-MPH boost to Hand Speed Max when holding a ‘Vertical Bat at Landing’,
  • We saw a .003 second reduction in Time To Impact when holding a ‘Vertical Bat at Landing’,
  • We saw a +1.5-degree increase to Bat Vertical Angle at Impact when holding a ‘Vertical Bat at Landing’,
  • We saw NO change to the Attack Angle between the two swings, and
  • We saw a 2.01-MPH increase in Ball Exit Speed when holding a ‘Vertical Bat at Landing’.

Based on the above Data Analysis it looks like my Hypothesis was proved right when it came to a boost in Hand Speed Max and Ball Exit Speed, and decrease in Time To Impact, but wrong when it came to Bat Speed at Impact and Attack Angle.  I think the increase in Ball Exit Speed can be attributed to the decrease in Time To Impact.

When we see ineffective movement at the Big League level, we have to understand that these high level hitters are succeeding despite ineffective movements, not because of them.

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Youth baseball hitter front leg fully braced at impact — demonstrating the blocking position in batting cage

Front Leg in Baseball Swing: Why “Keep It Straight” Is Half Right: and What Actually Adds 6 MPH

“Keep your front leg straight.” Every youth hitter hears it. The front leg in baseball is one of the most coached — and most misunderstood — mechanics in the sport. The cue isn’t wrong. It’s just incomplete: it’s right at impact, wrong at landing, and the difference between the two is where most hitters lose 5–6 mph of bat speed they’ll never get back from a swing thought.

I ran 101 swings with a Zepp sensor to put it to the test — landing with a bent front knee (~146°) and blocking into straight at impact versus landing stiff (~170°) the whole way through. The bent-then-block approach averaged 6 mph more bat speed. That’s 24–48 feet of batted ball distance depending on pitch speed. This post breaks down why that happens, the two-phase front leg sequence elite hitters use, and the three drills that teach it faster than any verbal cue.

What Does the Experiment Actually Show — and Why Is the 6-MPH Result Conservative?

The video documents 100 swings at each front knee angle — bent (~146°) and straight (~170°) — off a SwingAway with the Zepp Baseball app tracking bat speed, hand speed, and attack angle on every rep. The result was a 6 mph average bat speed difference and a 2 mph hand speed difference, both in favor of the bent landing.

One design detail worth noting: the swing was deliberately broken into two steps — stride to landing, then pause, then swing — for both conditions. That pause intentionally stops forward momentum, which means the 6-mph advantage is actually conservative. In a continuous swing with forward momentum feeding into the block, the gain is typically larger. The two-step format was chosen specifically to isolate the front knee variable and keep the comparison clean. If there’s a flaw, it underestimates the blocking benefit, not overstates it.

The other thing the video confirms is the “getting shorter” effect. Landing with the bent knee lowers the eye level by 2–3 inches compared to landing straight, which is visible in the SwingAway footage. That drop is the strike zone compression that elite hitters like Barry Bonds used deliberately. It isn’t a side effect of the bent knee — it’s a feature. The bend produces both the power gain and the zone reduction at the same time.

+6 mph
avg bat speed added
24–48 ft
of extra distance
~146°
optimal landing angle

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What Does “Keep Your Front Leg Straight” Actually Mean?

The front leg in baseball hitting has two jobs — and they’re opposite. At landing, the front knee needs a slight bend (roughly 145–150°). At impact, it needs to be near straight (~170°+). The movement from bent to straight during the swing is called blocking, and it’s the mechanism that transfers energy into rotation. Most hitters hear “keep your front leg straight” and lock the leg through the entire stride. That collapses both jobs into one position and removes the energy transfer that blocking creates.

Think about what a wide receiver does cutting on an L-route. They don’t plant a stiff straight leg — they bend into the plant, then push off to change direction. The hitter does the same thing: bent at landing to absorb and load, straight at impact to transfer force and rotate. Jaime Cevallos in Positional Hitting calls the bent landing position a “cushion” for normal timing and a “double cushion” for adjusting to off-speed. It’s the same principle. The landing bend creates options. Straight from the start eliminates them.

Homer Kelly, the aeronautical engineer who wrote The Golfing Machine, described this precisely: “The slant is up in the direction of a straightened knee.” That slanting-up motion — triggered by the front knee going from bent to straight — is what tilts the hitter’s torso and sets a positive barrel attack angle. Without it, the hitter stays flat, chops down, and loses the ability to match a pitcher’s downward plane consistently.

Why Must the Front Leg Bend at Landing in a Baseball Swing?

Landing with a stiff, straight front leg in baseball isn’t just mechanically inefficient — it removes four distinct force contributors from the swing. Together, they account for the majority of that 6-mph difference in the Zepp data.

Springy fascia loading. Thomas Myers’s Anatomy Trains research identifies the Spiral and Deep Functional Lines that run through the legs as stirrups under the feet. These fascial lines can only be loaded — and unloaded for power — when the knees bend. My colleague Lee Comeaux, who works with professional golfers, found the combined knee bend at landing needs to add up to roughly 45 degrees total between both legs. Land straight and the springy rebound simply isn’t available.

Ground Reaction Forces. Newton’s third law: push into the ground, and the ground pushes back with equal and opposite force. A bent knee lets the hitter push against the ground during the block. A straight knee is already at end range — there’s nowhere to push from. Try jumping with straight knees to feel what’s missing. The same physics apply to the swing.

Strike zone compression (“getting shorter”). Landing bent lowers the hitter’s head and eyes by 2–4 inches. That closes the gap between the hitter’s eye level and the bottom of the effective strike zone. It also creates an illusion for umpires that the zone is smaller. Barry Bonds, Josh Donaldson, and Mike Trout all do this deliberately — their knee action at landing compresses the zone and makes low pitches more reachable.

Pitch adaptability. A stiff front leg means the hitter is fully committed from the moment the stride foot lands. A bent front leg gives a brief window — sometimes just one or two frames on video — to recognize off-speed and deepen the timing. That’s the “double cushion” Cevallos describes, and it’s the difference between rolling over a changeup and squaring it up. See how Hanley Ramirez used this to crush breaking balls specifically because of his front knee action.

Which Front Leg Drills Fix the Stiff-Leg Pattern in Baseball?

Three drills fix the stiff front leg pattern in baseball: Get-to-Landing, Breaking-Apart Swing with Pause, and High-Tee Blocking Confirmation. Verbal cues don’t work because the motor pattern fires faster than conscious thought — these drills teach the land-bent-then-block sequence through repetition and feedback, in the order they need to run.

Drill 1: Get-to-Landing (Feel the Bend)

Set up in a normal stance. Take the stride and land — stop there. No swing. The goal is to feel the front knee at 145–150° with weight loaded into the front side, eyes level, and the back knee still carrying some bend too. Hold for two seconds. Check that the stride foot landed at about a 45° angle, not closed. Repeat 10 times. This drill isolates the landing position so the hitter can feel what “slightly bent” means kinesthetically rather than trying to interpret a cue mid-swing.

Drill 2: Breaking-Apart Swing with Landing Pause

Add the swing to Drill 1, but break it into two steps: stride and land (pause 1–2 seconds), then swing from that loaded position. The pause forces the body to re-learn the push-off from a bent front leg into blocking, rather than letting old motor patterns rush through. Hit off a tee or take front toss in this format. After 5 reps with the pause, do 5 continuous swings and compare the feel. Most hitters immediately notice more rotation and better launch when the pause has re-set the pattern.

Drill 3: High-Tee Blocking Confirmation

Set the tee at chest height or slightly above. At that height, a hitter who lands stiff and doesn’t block will either pop the ball up or miss under it — the barrel can’t get to chest-height without the front knee firming up to tilt the torso. A hitter who blocks correctly will drive the high pitch with authority because the block creates the spine tilt needed for barrel-to-ball contact. Run 10 reps. If the hitter is consistently under the ball, the block isn’t happening and Drill 2 needs more reps before coming back to this one.

Want the step-by-step drill card for all three drills?

The free Front Leg Blocking Drill Card has cues, rep counts, and softball adaptations for every drill — printable and cage-ready.

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Does Front Leg Blocking Work for Softball Hitters?

Yes — and for fastpitch softball hitters, the front leg landing bend has an extra benefit that doesn’t exist in baseball: rise ball recognition. Because a rise ball climbs through the last 15–20% of its flight path, a hitter with a stiff front leg is already committed by the time the ball begins to move. A hitter who lands with a slight bend has a marginally longer recognition window. That’s the difference between fouling it off and swinging through it entirely.

For softball, the same three drills apply with one adjustment on the high-tee drill: set the tee 2–3 inches higher than for baseball to simulate a rise ball through the zone. A softball hitter who is blocking correctly at impact will drive that pitch on a line. One who isn’t will foul it back or pop it up. It’s the clearest feedback tool in the cage for confirming the block is happening at the right moment.

Additionally, softball hitters who use a toe tap as their stride rhythm cue should note that the toe tap naturally produces a slight bent-knee landing — because the toe-down position prevents full knee lockout on the stride. That’s one reason the toe tap works for timing: it enforces a small landing bend without the hitter thinking about it. If you remove the toe tap in favor of a no-stride approach, you need to consciously maintain the landing bend through the get-to-landing drill above, or the stiff-leg pattern tends to creep back in.

What Coaching Mistakes Make the Front Leg Problem Worse?

Mistake 1: Cuing “straight” without specifying when. “Keep your front leg straight” is one of baseball’s most common front leg coaching cues — and it’s correct at impact, counterproductive at landing. Without the timing context, hitters default to the most conservative interpretation — stiff the whole way — and lose the GRF transfer and fascia load the bent landing provides.

Mistake 2: Letting hitters land too bent. A landing angle deeper than ~145° — closer to 130° or below — means the hitter is collapsing into the front side rather than absorbing and converting. The springy fascia load happens in a range, not an extreme. A hitter who “sits” into the front knee on landing loses forward momentum into rotation and usually produces a slow, arm-dominant swing through the zone. The landing bend should look athletic, like a wide receiver’s plant foot — not like a hitter lowering themselves into a chair.

Mistake 3: Not including a blocking drill in regular practice. The land-bent-then-block sequence is a motor pattern. Cues won’t maintain it. Hitters who fix it with the breaking-apart drill and then go back to unstructured tee work will revert inside two weeks without intentional practice of the pattern. Three to five reps of the breaking-apart swing at the start of every cage session is enough maintenance volume to hold the pattern across a season. Without it, the default motor pattern — whatever the hitter was doing before — reasserts itself.

Frequently Asked Questions: Front Leg in Baseball Swing

Should your front leg be straight when batting?

At impact, yes — the front leg in baseball should be near straight (roughly 170°+) to create the spine tilt that matches the pitcher’s downward plane. At landing, no — it should be slightly bent (~145–150°) to load ground reaction forces and springy fascia. The common cue “keep your front leg straight” is correct for impact only. Applying it to the entire stride removes power from the swing.

What is front leg blocking in baseball?

Front leg blocking is the movement from a slightly bent front knee at landing (~145–150°) to a near-straight front knee at impact (~170°+). This movement transfers ground reaction force into rotation and creates a slight upward slant in the torso that lets the barrel attack the ball on a positive angle. Discus throwers and shot putters use the same blocking mechanic — it’s not unique to hitting, which is why it’s validated across multiple movement disciplines.

Does a bent front knee really add bat speed?

Yes — in a 101-swing Zepp experiment comparing landing at ~146° (bent) versus ~170° (straight), the bent-knee approach added an average of 6 mph bat speed and 2 mph hand speed. The Bat Vertical Angle at Impact shifted 6 degrees, suggesting the bent landing also improved barrel path. The 6-mph gain is equivalent to 24–48 feet of batted ball distance depending on pitch speed.

How do you teach a hitter to stop landing with a stiff front leg?

The get-to-landing drill is the fastest fix. Have the hitter stride and stop — no swing — and hold the landing position for two seconds. The goal is to feel what 145–150° of front knee bend feels like while fully weighted. Verbal cues rarely fix a stiff landing because the landing happens too fast for conscious adjustment. The drill builds the feel kinesthetically over 10–20 reps, which the swing can then replicate without thinking about it.

What does “getting shorter” mean in baseball hitting?

“Getting shorter” refers to the hitter’s head and eye level dropping slightly at landing because the front knee bends. It compresses the effective strike zone — both by bringing the hitter’s eyes closer to low pitches and by creating a visual illusion for umpires that the zone is smaller. Barry Bonds, Mike Trout, and Josh Donaldson all demonstrate this on film. The bent front knee at landing is what produces it. It also improves contact rates on low pitches by aligning the hitter’s eyes closer to ball flight.

Does front leg blocking work the same way in softball?

Yes. The front leg baseball blocking mechanics carry over to fastpitch softball without modification. In softball, there’s also an additional benefit: the slightly bent landing gives the hitter a wider recognition window for rise balls, which climb in the final 15–20% of their flight. Stiff-leg landings commit the hitter earlier, making rise balls harder to lay off or hit solid. For the high-tee confirmation drill in softball, raise the tee 2–3 inches above the baseball position to simulate a rise ball coming through the zone.

How long does it take to fix a stiff front leg with these drills?

Most hitters feel the difference within 1–2 cage sessions using the breaking-apart drill with the landing pause. The motor pattern typically stabilizes after 2–3 weeks of intentional practice — 5 reps of the breaking-apart drill at the start of each session is enough. Without a maintenance protocol, hitters revert to the default stiff-leg pattern within 1–2 weeks, so the drill needs to stay in the warm-up rotation, not be treated as a one-time fix.

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Giancarlo Stanton: Closed Stance

STOP Stepping In The Bucket & Out Of The Box When Hitting A Baseball Or Softball 2022 | How To See Ball Better, Keep Front Shoulder In During Swing, & Best Batting Stance For Power?

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STOP Pulling Off The Ball, Increase Batting Average, and Boost Power By Using The Closed Stance?

 

What’s the best batting stance for power?  How do we STOP a hitter from stepping in the bucket (out of the box) when hitting a baseball or softball in 2022?  This post will shine light on how to see the ball better, keep the front shoulder in during the swing, and will suggest the best batting stance for power…

I know, I know,

Some well meaning coaches will think, “Well, a closed stance cuts off a hitter’s vision, and/or restricts hip movement”…

I get it.  I used to believe the same thing a couple years ago,

…But what I found in my research was counter-intuitive, yet very promising for hitters.

Giancarlo Stanton: Closed Stance

Giancarlo Stanton using his “closed stance”. Photo courtesy: MLB.com

You don’t know what you don’t know, right?

My process is to chew and digest the science, observe how elite hitters apply the movements, and then try it out!

As you’ll soon find out, Giancarlo Stanton did his homework before making this particular change in his swing.

Since there may be many of you raising the same objections I started with, I wanted to discuss:

  • Addressing the above “Study of Planes” video, then we’ll move on to…
  • Analyzing the small change that has netted BIG results for Giancarlo Stanton this season.

 

Study of Planes

My good friend Seo Perales shared the above video with me a few years ago.  By the way, he’s a multiple level black belt in Brazilian Jujitsu.

We love comparing notes because we both like to seek and explore human movement principles that are validated by science.  The only difference is, in his line of work as a Jujitsu instructor, he wants to learn how to break down the body, and I’m into maximizing its effect.

The above video demonstrates the science of movement planes.  What are considered weak and strong planes of movement from a Judo perspective.

I think you’ll find the video enlightening.

Now, you may be thinking, “A Judo video? Really?!  What can I learn from a video about Judo?”

If you find yourself camped out in ONLY baseball or softball circles, then you’re missing out on A LOT of useful information that will take your hitters to a whole other level.

The video is very applicable to hitting.

Furthermore,

My good friend Lee Comeaux from Texas, who teaches professional and amateur golfers, also brought the power of movement planes to my attention about a year ago…

He told me draw an “X” in the batter’s box from opposite corners, and have the hitter stand on either line when hitting.  He’s very versed in Thomas Myers’s book Anatomy Trains.  He says hitters standing on one diagonal leg of the “X” encourages the springiness of fascia.  He taught this to his 15yo daughter, who has hit over .600 the last couple years playing Fast-Pitch Softball in Texas, which is one of the hotbeds for both baseball and softball competition in the country.  Oh and by the way, she also hit a half dozen homers as well.

The second part of this post, I wanted to share the tipping point in addressing Giancarlo Stanton’s new closed stance…

Giancarlo Stanton & The “Dreaded” Closed Stance

The straw that broke the camel’s back for me in writing this post, came from this MLB.com article by David Adler titled, “Closing time: Stanton’s stance fueling surge: Marlins slugger’s home run tear lines up with change to batting stance in June”.

You can go there and read the full article, but I wanted to tease out the quotes from Giancarlo Stanton (and some of David Adler’s commentary), and how Stanton arrived at the batting stance change…

“I just said I was going to try it. Honestly, I had about 30 minutes of work, maybe 45 minutes, before the game,” Stanton told MLB.com Sunday, when he crushed his Major League-leading 45th home run against the Mets at Citi Field. “And then 10 minutes before the game, I was like, ‘This feels more comfortable.'”

Stanton was already having a helluva year, so it’s interesting to me that he made the change when he did, typically a change like this follows a slump.  However, this wasn’t a spur of the moment decision – like it sounds from that quote – he did his homework, which you’ll read about shortly…

“My best striking position is closed,” Stanton said. “It’s not smart to try to completely change something in the middle of the season. But if you are 100 percent committed to it … well, you’ve got to be. You’ve got to trust what you’re trying to do. If you change something, you want results right away, otherwise you try to go back. But I trusted it completely and let it ride.”

Sounds contradictory doesn’t it?  To have the attitude that you can’t completely change something in the middle of the season – especially when you’re already doing well!!  But then he says you MUST commit to giving the change time – that is – IF you’ve done your homework beforehand.

I’ve heard some parents and coaches say mid-season changes aren’t smart.  I don’t like to think that way…WHY?  Because if you don’t guide the hitter, the hitter will make changes on their own.  And if they don’t get highly resourceful on the subject, then this could lead to DISASTER with all the junk hitting info on the net these days.

David Adler did fantastic research illustrating the evolution of Giancarlo Stanton’s closed stance in this Tweet:

In the earlier mentioned article, Adler states…

“Stanton’s closing of his batting stance has correlated with his massive power surge. On June 18, he had 17 home runs in 282 plate appearances; since June 19, he has 28 in 236.

When Stanton hits from those positions [open or straight up], his front side can come open before the pitch arrives, leaving him exploitable.

The closed stance is a natural counter. When Stanton is already turned inward to start, his rotation drives him into the pitch, instead of causing him to fade away from it.”

By the way, for those not doing the math:

  • From start of season to June 18th, he hit 1 homer every 16.5 plate appearances, and
  • From June 19th on, he hit 1 homer every 8.4 plate appearances…

He cut his rate in half!!!!  The closed stance was the ONLY change to his swing in that time frame, so this makes an interesting case study with a decent sample size of plate appearances.  See for yourself with the following David Adler Tweet:

David Adler adds some terms of comparision you may be familiar with…

“With his adjusted stance, Stanton has been driving the ball in the air more often. His rate of fly balls and line drives, per Statcast™, has risen from 41.5 percent prior to June 19 to 50.3 percent since. Stanton’s average exit velocity on those balls has increased from 97.6 mph to 100.8 mph, the highest in the Majors over that time.”

I don’t care that Stanton is a beast, if you increase your Line Drive and Fly Ball Rates (Launch Angle), and Ball Exit Speeds that much, you’ll make a lot of Ground-ball teams VERY VERY upset.  Small hitters CAN and DO take advantage of this formula too.  Statcast has given hitters the cheat codes to increase offensive productivity!

Furthermore, in the Adler article…

“[His stance] gets him in the position he wants to be in. It looks like it’s keeping him on the ball more, and he seems like he’s seeing it better,” said Christian Yelich, who’s played alongside Stanton as long as any current Marlin — since 2013, when he was 21 and Stanton 23. “Some guys have different problems than others. You go about fixing them or covering them in different ways. It’s all about feel. That’s what works for him, that feel.”

Look at that bold sentence once more because that is one of the most critical keys to this whole thing.  Yelich is also tapping into making extreme adjustments, for example, Stanton’s challenge in the past has been pulling off, maybe because of when he tragically got hit in the face a few years ago.  Whatever the reason, the extreme adjustment (a closed stance), helps him stay on the ball longer.

CLICK HERE for a video I did on how to make adjustments…the scientific term for this is “Paradoxical Intention”.

Now, here is where the article gets into the research that brought Giancarlo Stanton to the point of taking the stance change seriously…

“But at a level of the game where emulation is fundamental, success begetting imitators, Stanton found his prototypes: Nolan Arenado, Matt Kemp, Adrian Beltre, prominent hitters who do close off. He recognized past greats, too: Hall of Famer Andre Dawson works as a special assistant to the Marlins, and he hit with a closed stance in his playing career. Stanton didn’t copy the technical aspects of their batting stances, but their accomplishments gave him precedent to actually make the change himself.“

Some on Twitter have written this change off as a band-aide, avoiding a true fix.  A true fix?  Are you kidding me?!  Cutting his home-run per plate appearance rate in half IS NOT a true fix!?  Dude!!  Success leaves clues.  These people are saying Giancarlo Stanton is “playing to the slice”, where a golfer who chronically slices the ball will angle his body at setup so they don’t have to fix the real problem…which is not squaring up the club face at impact.

This is a poor attempt to protect an inflexible teaching philosophy, and sheer laziness on their part to get educated on their craft they claim to know a lot about.  You instructors seriously think Giancarlo Stanton is not “squaring the ball up” at impact since June 19th and is just “playing the slice”?  That is laughable.  You don’t know what you don’t know, right?

This is the problem I have with instructors with inflexible hitting systems…they’re WILLFULLY IGNORANT to experimenting with things that could push their hitters forward, especially movements validated by science.  We’re ALL in this together, and we’re ALL helping hitters.  It’s NOT about your ego or protecting “your brand” coaches.

But I digress…

Here’s some insight into Giancarlo Stanton’s thought process with the change…

“I just know the guys with success,” Stanton said. “Arenado and Kemp, those guys, you know you can have a high average with it. So that kind of gave me the green light to try it…I knew it could work. Not very many people did it. But I know people like Hawk and them did it in the old days — and it worked for them, too.”

 

The Bottom Line…

Giancarlo Stanton: Tweet About Closed Stance

A day or two after re-tweeting Homer Bush’s Tweet about Giancarlo Stanton’s closed stance, I received this response from @Omaha_Outlaws4…

I understand your objections that a closed stance may cut off a hitter’s vision, and/or restricts hip movement.  You’ve heard me talk a lot about “keeping the back foot sideways”, well, this plays right into that.

Matt Nokes is religious on restricting hip movement to the point of impact with keeping the back foot sideways.  Homer Bush agrees in this interview.  So are the Backspin Tee guys Taylor and Jarrett Gardner.  LIGHT BULB! The closed stance does this naturally.

The main benefit of restricting hip movement at impact (includes keeping back foot sideways) that you’ll hear from Nokes, Bush, and the Gardner Brothers, is to keep the barrel in the hitting zone longer.  This increases BA and Slug%.

Here’s my advice:

  1. Chew and digest the science,
  2. Observe how elite hitters apply the movements, and then
  3. Try it out!

If it doesn’t work after giving it the ol’ college try, then toss it.

As many of you know, I will gladly eat crow and change my hitting system IF you can show me the science, swing experiments, and many elite hitting examples that I can’t ignore the issue.

This is an informal Part-1 to a Zepp swing experiment I’ll be doing on the Giancarlo Stanton closed stance in the near future.  So stay tuned…

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How To Use Legs In Swing Like Rizzo, Altuve, & Trout

Fix Stride Landing Fast: 2025 Youth Baseball & Softball Batting Drills to Build Power Swings Today

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Discover how to use the legs when hitting a baseball or softball in the 2023 year.  Does a powerful swing depend on footwork, hitting against a firm front side or a straightened front leg, front foot, or do the hips play a big role.  Learn batting drills to optimizing legs ARE NOT what you may think…

Answered: “How To Get My Kid To Stop Rising And For Him To Utilize His Legs More During Batting?”

 

 

 

Here’s what we cover in the above video:

  • Legs DO NOT equal power – water polo example,How To Use Legs In Swing Like Rizzo, Altuve, & Trout
  • What is leg function in swing & Adjusting to pitch height,
  • Distance between the feet equal more control over line drives,
  • GRF’s but not as much as you think,
  • Buying time – back foot sideways, directional force, & pushing the “pause” button, and
  • How to utilize the legs in the swing?

Hey, what’s going on. It’s Joey Myers again from ‘Hitting Performance Lab’. In this video, we’re going to answer the following reader question:

“How to get my kid stop rising, and for him to utilize his legs more during batting?”

Now this is a question that comes either through a form, survey, or email or even from my local lessons. The coaches out there in the high schools tend to meddle a bit too much, subscribing to the hitting myth that: ‘it’s all about the legs’, or ‘you need to use your legs more’.

In this video, I want to talk about what that means, and what is the function of the legs…

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Legs DO NOT equal power – water polo example

Legs are only 20-30% of the consistent power equation, and most of that is in the function of the pelvis.  If you’re a coach and power is the deficiency in your hitter’s swing, then it’s the spinal engine you want to focus on.  The Catapult Loading System is where 70-80% of consistent power is found.  The best example I like to share can be found in water polo.

And my favorite demonstration to do for hitters is showing what a beach towel and the spinal engine have in common.

 

What is Leg Function in Swing & Adjusting to Pitch Height

Now a couple things, one is they help to adjust to pitch height. If you’re looking at hitters like Cody Bellinger of the Dodgers, Joc Pederson of the Dodgers, Corey Seager, looking at Anthony Rizzo of the Cubs or some of the past players like Adrian Beltre or Pedroia. When the pitch is down in the zone, you tend to see them bend their front knee to go down and get it. They tend to do that consistently on those pitches, those lower in the zone pitches, not locking out their front knee like many teach.

I’ve seen these same hitters Rizzo, Bellinger, I’ve seen them with a bent front knee hit balls 440 to 460 feet.  So, locking out the front knee IS NOT all about power.  So, this raises a question of, if you want a hitter to use their legs more often because you think it has to do with power, well that is just not true – that’s not what we’re seeing. So, adjusting to pitch height, and you can study the hitters discussed as examples.

 

Distance between the Feet Equal more Control over Line Drives

Distance between the feet, this is a big one, that we can use the legs or utilize the legs to allow hitters to hit more line drives. The problem happens when, say if we are teaching our hitters to skip their back foot that they end up skipping their feet too close together.  Or it could be they don’t stride that much. They don’t skip at all and, so their feet tend to be closer together. What we want is what you see with the top 50, top 100 hitters in the big leagues….

You’re going to see distance between their feet. So, whether that is a longer stride and their front foot moves away from their back foot. Whether they don’t skip but they don’t stride as much, you still see that wideness of their feet. You see them scissor, you see different things like that, but what they all have in common, all the top hitters in the big leagues, is they have distance between their feet.  When the feet come close together, it makes the hitter taller, which this reader is asking how to keep the hitter from “rising”.  The taller the hitter gets, the more in the ground the ball is gonna get hit.

If the hitter knows better, and they try and get the ball in the air, even though they have narrow feet during their turn. Then they’re gonna do something unnatural with their hands to try and get under it, which we don’t want them to do either. Because that is going to cause uppercuts.  It’s going to cause inconsistencies in their swing path.

 

GRF’s, but not as much as you think

I just mentioned that hitters don’t have to lock their front knee out for power. When you think about ground reaction forces (GRF’s), they DO play a role. I’m not taking away from ground reaction forces, or saying “Oh, well the legs don’t do anything in the swing”.

No, they do. It’s about a 20 to 30% increase in power by using the legs. Most of that though is in the pelvis, and the rest in the spinal engine. I tell my hitters that the spinal engine, their combination of your shoulders and how you use them.  Neck, shoulders, and pelvis account for about 70 to 80% of the power. That gets you to the wall. The legs help get you over the wall. So, you do need the legs, and it’s like what Dr. Serge Gracovetsky, the author of the ‘Spinal Engine’ said, that locomotion, the arms and legs aren’t necessary for locomotion, they’re an enhancement, they help enhance movement of the spinal engine.

So, we’re not taking away from the legs, the use of the legs, and how they can benefit the swing. It’s just that they’re an enhancement to the spinal engine, the taller the player is, the longer the levers, the more the force multiplier at the end of that lever. So, guys like Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton are gonna have longer levers, if they lengthen those levers at impact. When we’re talking about the front arm shape, they’re gonna hit the ball pound-for-pound, apples-to-apples swings farther than Jose Altuve with the locked out-front arm. It’s just because the longer limbs enhance more, they’re more of a force multiplier.

Buying Time – Back Foot Sideways, Directional Force, & Pushing the “Pause” Button

Buying time. So, the lower half, the legs can help buy time. Jamie Cevallos in his book ‘Positional Hitting’ way back, I think it was in the early 2000’s or mid to late 2000’s. He talked about this idea of a ‘Cushion’. You’ll see a hitter especially, if they’re looking fastball, and they see a curve ball or changeup. You’ll see them actually bend, sink, or cushion into their knees. They use their knees by bending them to buy them a little bit of time to get on time a lot better.  It’s pushing the ‘pause’ button.

The other thing we want to do to buy time, is keep the back foot sideways.

We talked about this idea of directional force, Matt Nokes, he says that to hit a ball 400 feet, it takes 8,000 pounds per square inch of force in one direction. In hitting, both in baseball and softball, we have 90 degrees to work with. The other 270 degrees is in foul territory, it doesn’t do a hitter any good or a team any good to play in that 270 degrees outside of a fair territory. We have to stay between the 90s, we have to stay between the lines. If you think about a bowler, every single professional bowler out there, “scissors” their legs.

I’m not saying that all hitters have to scissor. I just give my hitters that option.  But if you think about bowlers, they bowl between a two-foot Lane. I don’t know if that’s correct or not, but it’s somewhere around that. They also put a spin on the ball, so if they over rotated their lower half, not keeping their back foot sideways, they’re over rotating their pelvis. Then what you would see is that ball bouncing into the outside lanes.  Try scissoring your legs, then try and open your hips up more, and it’s almost impossible.

You want to make sure that we’re creating directional force, and that’s another thing the legs do. They help us stay between that 90 degrees, and use all 90 degrees effectively. That comes in handy at the higher levels when hitting to the opposite field is a lot more important, and when we see shifts.  Most of the time, hitters are not very good about going the other way. You can see the hitters that do go the other way very well, their batting averages seem to be higher.

 

How do we Utilize the legs in the Swing?

Now again, if it’s power you want, this isn’t the place. You want to look at the Catapult Loading System, and harness the power of the spinal engine.  If you want a majority of power, 70-80% of consistent power.

Getting Shorter, Staying Shorter

To properly utilize the legs in the swing, you want to look at getting shorter and staying shorter.  You see most great hitters when you draw a line over their head before they stride, by the time they get to stride landing, you’re gonna see distance between where they started, and where their head is at stride landing. You’re gonna see what we call ‘Getting Shorter’.

Then as they swing, it’s almost like that bottom ladder rung they create at landing, they tend to stay under that line. What we do is, we could take a PVC pipe. We can put it at the start of the hitter swing, before they even stride…we can put it maybe at their nose or their chin, and we can have them practice getting the top of their head under that PVC pipe. As they swing, stay under that PVC pipe. I’ve also had my hitters get next to a piece of furniture that’s about the same height, then have them stride, and get their head to where, now they’re under the top of that, say dresser or whatever, or picture frame, could be anything around the house.

When they swing, do some slow motion swings, and they stay under that line. That’s a way to get shorter, stay shorter.

Okay to “bend the knee”

It’s okay to bend the knee, I also get my hitters to do this if necessary. We don’t really practice this, but I tell them it’s okay to bend the knee, if the pitch is down in the zone.

Distance between the feet

Also working distance between the feet, you can either get them to stride longer, or you can cut down on their skip. We usually try to manipulate one of those two things or both things to get that distance between the feet, so that allows them to hit more line drives or at least control their line drives.

Keep back foot sideways

Then keeping their back foot sideways. You can use the VeloPro, they use it in pitching a lot. But in hitting, we use the VeloPro.

We tell the hitter to make sure they keep their back foot, their back heel on the ground as they swing. Almost like you would see with George Springer, or Altuve, or Mike Trout, any of those kinds of hitters or in softball Sierra Romero. They keep their back heel on the ground and it turns sideways, so they stay sideways. They do a better job of staying between those 90 degrees.

One last thing on keeping the back foot sideways, as mentioned, scissoring helps with that as well. So, that’s something that you can play around with, and let your hitters’ experiment with.

Hope this answered the question of “How to get my kid to stop rising, and for him to utilize his legs more during the swing”. Make sure that we’re swinging smarter by moving better, and before I let you go…

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Baseball Swing: Alex Rodriguez Interviews Barry Bonds

Improve Launch Angle Hitting Path For Baseball & Softball By Swinging Down? | 2022 Swing Plane Drills, Optimal Distance, & Ideal Home Run Formula

Perfect Baseball Swing By Swinging Down?

 

 

1) Can we improve launch angle hitting path (angle batted ball takes off the bat) for baseball and softball by swinging “down”?  2) What kind of swing plane drills or cues can we use to optimize batted ball distance?  And 3) What is the ideal home run formula?

  1. ANSWER – listen closely to Barry Bonds’ answers to Alex Rodriguez’s questions… (I’ve included my video stamped notes below)
  2. ANSWER – CLICK HERE for Paradoxical Intention and CLICK HERE for how to properly teach ‘launch angle’ swing (not what you think)…
  3. ANSWER – CLICK HERE for the ideal home run formula…

This baseball swing video where Alex Rodriguez interviews Barry Bonds was a two parter to this video post. Here are four of the interview’s finer points:Baseball Swing: Alex Rodriguez Interviews Barry Bonds

  1. “X” factor. Why top hand and back shoulder have to communicate with front leg,
  2. Per-fect swinging down because it’s easy to go up,
  3. 200+ Stikeouts as long as you hit 40-homers? And,
  4. How bunting can ‘line up’ your hitting.

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Here are my interview time stamped notes…

  • At about the 1-min, 40-sec mark, Alex Rodriguez asks Barry Bonds about the “Ferris wheel” v. “merry-go-round” swings.  Bonds says he’s more of a down-angle swinger. “Down” means to flatten out the barrel path.  Not talking about swinging straight down.
  • At about the 3-min mark, Barry Bonds goes into what he calls the “X” factor and the “center-line”.  Back shoulder going to communicate with front leg.  And front shoulder with back leg.
  • At about the 4-min, 15-sec mark, Alex Rodriguez asks Barry Bonds if he hits off his back leg.  Causes head to fly open, front shoulder, and uppercut.  Bonds talks about using top hand as “guide” hand, bottom is power.  Top hand (back shoulder) and front leg have to communicate.  If they don’t, then head can pull open.
  • At about 6-min, 30-sec mark, Alex Rodriguez asks Barry Bonds about the advice Barry give him about not dipping his back shoulder too much.  Bonds expects hitters to work chopping ball off ground during tee work.  It’s easy to go up.  Over exaggerate down on a consistent basis. “Per-fect” the down level swing.
  • At about 9-min mark, Alex Rodriguez asks Barry Bonds about in today’s game it’s okay to strikeout over 200 times per season, just as long as you hit 40-homers.  A-Rod asked Bonds how he developed the discipline and balance at the plate.  Game has changed.  Don’t blame the players, they adapt to the environment.  In Barry’s day, had to hit .300, strikeout less than 100 times per season or you were sent down.  Bonds was told growing up to be a great hitter.  Home-runs don’t matter.  Tony Gwynn was a big influence to Barry. Use line to line, that will open the gaps.
  • At about 11-min, 30-min mark, Barry and A-Rod talk about bunting against the shift.  Bonds adds that bunting can always get you lined up for hitting.  Playing “catch” with the baseball.  Bunting slows things down.  My buddy Aaron Miles tells a story about this.
  • At about 13-min mark, Alex Rodriguez asks Bonds that if he was graduating from Arizona in 2020, gets drafted by the Giants in a Sabermetrics heavy environment, would he have listened to his dad?  Baseball is a eye hand coordination sports.  Computers are limited on what they can predict.
  • At the 15-minute mark are Alex Rodriguez’s “takeaways”.
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Baseball Analytics: Miguel Cabrera Launch Angles

Has New 2023 Baseball Analytics Changed Baseball OR Ruining Sports? How To Guide Translating Data Science Metrics Into Hitting Mechanics

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How Fast (or Slow) Until a Data-driven Swing Replaces an “Old School” One? (Baseball Analytics Shenanigans)

Baseball Analytics: Miguel Cabrera Launch Angles

Baseball Analytics Photo courtesy: HittingNow.com

Why extremes are ALMOST never good

(Estimated reading time: 18-minutes)

Has the new way of baseball analytics changed baseball in 2022?  Or are they ruining sports?  I want to present a how to guide that translates data science metrics into hitting mechanics.  Old school versus new school.

How did we get here with baseball analytics? The ‘Launch Angle’ era.  Where did it originate?  What was the tipping point of choosing Sabermetrics over traditional scouting?  You’ll find out in the coming post.  But first,

We’ll be discussing what a data-driven swing looks like – we’ll be covering:

  • Story of Minor League hitting coaches having almost ZERO hitting experience,
  • Pros of a data-driven swing,
  • Cons of a data-driven swing, and
  • How it’s bad (or good) to track ball exit speed and launch angle in the batting cage.

Once upon a time in the Minors…

Story of Minor League hitting coaches having almost ZERO hitting experience

I have an interesting story to talk about. A true story. In an almost magical land called the Minor Leagues.  At the time, a little birdy playing for a National league professional organization whispered in my ear.  This little birdy told me…

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Their are budding baseball analytics hitting coaches sprouting up in some professional organizations – having almost zero hitting experience.  No this isn’t fake news.  These whirlybird propeller seeds are traveling by wind from the sparkling land of economics … planting their baby hitting coach seeds in fresh dark batter’s box soil.  With a little gray water, bright sunlight, and the swift tap of a fairy’s wand… instantly sprouts an economics hitting fairy!

These magical Econ-hitting fairies are now happily coaching professional hitters on what they need to be feeling as a hitter … regardless of whether they’re hitting line drive after line drive … AND, with no more playing experience than Little League.  Imagine the Mathlete schooling the High School Baseball Jock in everything hitting.  And the Jock MUST listen or … YOU’RE FIRED!

Okay, so I may have embellished the story a bit.  The Minor Leagues ARE NOT magical lands – just ask any Minor Leaguer.  It wasn’t a little birdy that shared the story – it was a professional baseball human being.  And sorry to kill your hopes and dreams, but magical Econ-hitting fairies aren’t born by adding gray water, sun, and the tapping of a fairy wand.  C’mon man, everyone knows those aren’t real!  Magical Econ-hitting fairies, I mean.  Fairy wands are VERY real.

It is true though – how this story sounded in my head. It was an interesting story coming from a single-A ballplayer.  That is, the state of  professional baseball in the so-called ‘Launch Angle’ era.  It does beg the question…

How are these baseball analytics Econ-hitting fairies, who have zero college, professional, or Major League experience, finding themselves coaching professional hitters on what they need to be doing, and how they need to be doing it?  Listen, this may sound counter to what I just spent a few sarcastic paragraphs mocking.  But listen closely…

As a coach you DO NOT need to have extensive experience to teach hitters to be effective in their movements.  Just as long as you understand how to apply human movement principles that are validated by real science to hitting the ball. In other words, as long as you understand the rules of the human movement game, you can help hitters at all levels succeed, regardless of experience.

So what is happening?

From my understanding, these data-driven Econ-hitting fairies with extensive backgrounds in economics DO NOT understand the rules of the human movement game.  Let me take you back to the future…

For those with your head in the sand the last two decades, there’s been a revolutionary baseball movement since 2001.  Just after Michael Lewis wrote Moneyball.  You may or may not have read the book, but may have seen the movie starring the always dreamy Bradley Pitt.

At the heart of the story is former General Manager of the Oakland Athletics, Billy Beane (played by Bradley Pitt). Beane reached out to Paul DePodesta, a Harvard alum, with a background in economics.  And coincidentally had a knack for baseball statistics.  DePodesta would soon become Beane’s first analytics department.

And it was here, Billy Beane transformed a low budget, bottom of the barrel, SEEMINGLY professional franchise known as the Oakland Athletics, into a real David and Goliath story.  Beane and DePodesta used key player statistics to recruit.  Stats that optimized scoring more runs, and as a result would win more games.  Like how often a hitter gets on base – or On-base Percentage.  And how often a hitter gets an extra base hit – known as Slugging Percentage.  Think about it.  How do you score more runs?  Get more runners on base, and have hitters who can drive them in.  Nowadays there are more advanced stats that measure run scoring value, but the point is this changed the game forever.  For the better, and for the worst.  I’ll get into why in the coming pages.

Furthermore…

This helped the baseball analytics powered A’s be highly competitive against top budget franchises.  I apologize, but I’m going to spoil the ending … this was until other big market teams caught on.  Oops!  The cat was out of the bag.  Yuge budget teams like Boston and New York were able to take the same system, but now pay BIG sums of money for the same undervalued players Oakland was getting at a steep discount.  Yes, Oakland shot themselves in the foot.  It wouldn’t be the last time.  The jig was up.  The A’s magic run was over.  But not before Billy Beane and the A’s proved the system worked.  Regardless of a franchise’s budget.  Like a fairy’s wand, player valuation metrics transformed the game.

And it was a good thing at the time, because you had players and coaches still in the game or retired, that were helping teach the game through their personal experiences.  They’re now considered “old school” coaches.  Filling a gap on the coaching side of things that the Econ majors and analytics departments weren’t able to do.  It was a healthy debate between old and new school methods.  Friction and debate in a system are a good thing.  But now this friction is like the political climate between Republicans and Democrats.  Toxic.

This healthy balance of baseball analytics debate went MIA somewhere along the way.  Like crabgrass in your lawn, metrics soon took over.  Pushing many of the experienced baseball minds out of the game.  Labeling them dinosaurs.  Or maybe, the experienced minds couldn’t keep up.  Or didn’t want to keep up.  In my humble opinion, player valuation using metrics has its place.  But it should not be the totality of scouting, recruiting and developing players.  I’m not a Math-hater or numbers-denier.  I love Math.  Love Geometry, Economics, and Statistics. I did hate Algebra 2 though.    My point is, data without context is not optimized.  Data is a puzzle piece.  NOT the whole thing.

Teaching hitters isn’t just about metrics.  Doesn’t have to be completely data-driven.  AND, teaching isn’t just about old school teaching methods.  It’s a blend of both. Mutually inclusive. Not mutually exclusive.  We can use data AND we can also use old school teaching methods to help hitters at all levels. We don’t have to be on one side or the other.  You don’t have to be Tom OR Jerry.  Bert OR Ernie.  Han Solo OR Chewbacca.  When it comes to hitting, the following will replace ‘Or’ with ‘And’.

Let’s make the Mathletes happy and discuss the…

Pros of a data-driven swing

Here are some pros to a data driven baseball analytics swing. Famed business management consultant, Peter Drucker once said,

“You can’t manage what you can’t measure.”

You business owners and managers understand this. You understand that you can optimize certain operations. You can optimize certain metrics in a business, it could be using Profit First in finances, it could be building Software as a Solution (SaaS) in technology, it could be optimizing sales funnels in marketing.  Optimization is working on the right things, and then doing those things right.

How can numbers help hitters?  Swing experiments.  In online marketing, we can run what’s called split A/B test.  Meaning, we can test whether a green button gets more clicks than a pink one over a period of time.  Like online marketing, we can split A/B test the swing by running swing experiments.

One of the things we used to accomplish this, when we started HittingPerformanceLab.com back in 2013, was technology such as the Zepp swing app, a knob tech swing analyzer.  Like BlastMotion and SwingTracker today. We can compare key swing metrics, whether it’s bat speed, attack angle, or time to impact and contrast two different swing movements.  It’s the ultimate baseball analytics split A/B test for hitters!

Here are the 5 steps to applying the Scientific Method to running swing experiments…

We start off with a QUESTION: “Are loose hands fast hands to a hitter?”  We can do a swing experiment using a BlastMotion or SwingTracker bat knob sensor. And we can test that. We can test it comparing apples to apples.

We then form a HYPOTHESIS on how we  think the experiment will turn out: “I think loose hands ARE fast hands”.  And then,

We go down the rabbit hole of RESEARCHING other studies that confirm and deny our hypothesis.

Then we COLLECT THE DATA from using the Zepp, BlastMotion, SwingTracker, or a PocketRadar for measuring ball exit speed.

For example in our ‘loose hands are fast hands’ swing experiment … we would take one hundred swings with loose hands. And one hundred swings doing the opposite.  In this case, using what we call finger pressure.  So the top hand, bottom three fingers squeezed tight, eight out of ten squeeze, from the moment the hitter picks up their front stride foot, to the swing follow through. Then we counterbalance those swings. This helps remove any warm-up or getting tired biases out of the experiment.

We break the two hundred swings into twenty five swing chunks, and layer them so that loose hand swings are symbolized with the letter ‘A’, and finger pressure swings are symbolized with the letter ‘B’. Remember, each letter represents one 25-swing chunk.  The first 100 swings will be broken into the following sequence: ABBA. And the last 100 swings will be broken into the following reverse sequence: BAAB.  This is how to do split A/B testing, from a hitting perspective.

After all 200 counterbalanced swings, we extract the averaged out data from the BlastMotion, SwingTracker, Zepp device, or PocketRadar.  Then we can base our CONCLUSION on the averages.  Which factor, loose hands or finger pressure swings contributed to better bat speed, hand speed, time to impact, attack angle, etc.?  By the way, Finger Pressure won out in our own swing experiments.

Simply put, here’s the Scientific Method…

  1. Question
  2. Hypothesis
  3. Research
  4. Data
  5. Conclusion

Essentially, we use the above process, take one hitting myth, and test it against its opposite. Don’t get me wrong, no swing experiment is perfect.  Experiment findings are based on probability.  Experiments are repeated by others, and the findings are either proven or proven false.  Over time, this increases or decreases confidence in the findings.  The bottom line is this, using the Scientific Method may not be perfect, but it’s one step in the right direction.  It gives us a process and path towards the truth. Take of from Peter Drucker: “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.”

We satisfied the Mathletes – somewhat – talking about the Pros of a data-driven swing, especially when it comes to Moneyball. Billy Beane, all that stuff.

Now, let’s make the old school athletes happy and look at the…

Cons of a data-driven swing

Outside of applying the Scientific Method to optimizing the swing, here are the Cons to a baseball analytics data driven swing. Typically, in a data driven swing, not enough attention is given to the context of the numbers.

I always say, numbers don’t have brains. People do. Here’s the problem … take the example of our Econ-hitting fairy story.  Knowing zero about hitting.  Having virtually zero experience hitting.  Teaching hitters based on hearsay. Basically guessing on connecting the dots.  This presents quite a challenge.  It would be like asking me to re-roof your house … I have a lot of skill sets, but that ain’t one of them!  You’d be better off making YouTube your friend and doing it yourself!

In today’s game, these hitters are in the Big Leagues because their statistics work for ‘Launch Angle’ era Econ-scouts. On paper, the numbers work.  Aaron Miles played 9-years in the Big Leagues, from 2003-2011.  Played for almost half a dozen teams.  Most notable, he played with Albert Pujols on the St. Louis Cardinals.  He was a switch hitting middle infielder and third baseman.  Standing in at 5-foot, 8-inches, 180-pounds.  Beautiful .281/.320/.352 career average slash line (batting average/on-base percentage/slugging percentage).  Note that he played when the baseball analytics ‘Launch Angle’ era was just getting warmed up.  When there was a somewhat healthy balance of old and new school.  That’s the context.

Let me set the scene…

I’ve had a few enjoyable phone conversations with Aaron Miles over the years.  Great dude.  Not afraid to challenge the status quo.  He told me a pretty revealing story once.  Which will say a lot about the hitting times we find ourselves in.  I asked him what decision he made in the past that now – looking back – he sees was a mistake?

He was slumping one year, and was briefly demoted.  Before the demotion, he knew he was a small-ball situational hitting guy being smaller, faster, and a switch hitter.  But with the demotion, he didn’t have much to lose, so he decided to air out his swing.  Again, this was the start of the ‘Launch Angle’ era.  Interestingly, he began smashing more extra base hits.  At one point, a coach came up to him saying something to the effect of, “C’mon Miles, you’re a role player, don’t swing beyond your role”.

Remember, at this time there was still a strong old school hitting mentality present in the game.  So what did Miles do?  What any rational, logical, smart Big Leaguer would do in that scenario … he got back to being a role playing hitter.  You see, the respect for the “numbers community” wasn’t as high as it is now.  So in Aaron’s case, old school hitting was more representative of the times.

Here’s the point…

Here’s how Aaron Miles answered the question of what decision he made in the past that now – looking back – he sees was a mistake…  In this day and age of rewarding hitters that get on base more often and get more extra base hits … he expressed that he would have given the “air-it-out” swing more time.  Maybe he could have added another year to his career.  Maybe 2?  3?  4 maybe?  Who knows!  Give up some strikeouts.  Hit more dingers and doubles.  This formula seems to work out better for hitters in the Launch Angle era.

Let me be clear.  This blog post isn’t about giving up a hundred strikeouts and fifty batting average points a season to hit for more power.  What we believe is having your cake and eating it too!  Power AND average.  Mutually inclusive, NOT mutually exclusive.  Just like Batman AND Robin!

Getting back to our baseball analytics Econ-hitting fairy friends taking numbers out of context…

They’re looking at a hitter’s high ground ball percentage – say 50 percent, while league average is 43 percent. And they’re telling that hitter to get the ball in the air.  You may agree with this. And I can see where you’re coming from.  But there’s a catch…those numbers don’t mean anything, if you don’t understand what mechanics are causing a higher than average ground-ball rate.

Let me give an example…

Christian Yelich in 2015 had a ground-ball rate of 62.5-percent!  Remember league average is 43-percent.  Then, that rate steadily dropped in the years that followed 56.5, 55.4, 51.8, and in 2019 he finally arrived at a league average 43.2-percent ground-ball rate.  Do you know how many doubles he hit in those respective seasons, starting in 2015?  30, 38, 36, 34, and 29 doubles in 2019 – where he had about 100 less plate appearances than prior years.  Dingers? Starting in 2015 with 7, 21, 18, 36, and 44 in 2019.

Yes, hitting less ground-balls will lead to more extra base hits.  But what in a hitter’s mechanics (or timing) cause an above average ground-ball rate?  Do you know?  Off the top of your head, what can you point to mechanically?  Believe me, if you tell a hitter to get the ball in the air without looking at mechanical ground-ball choke points, then you’ll most likely get an extreme uppercut.  Not to mention, most young hitters will make unnatural compensations to get the ball in the air.   This collapses consistency!  Low batting average and high strikeouts will be the ultimate result.  Believe me.

Baseball analytics numbers by themselves are dumb. Numbers don’t have brains, people do. So hitting coaches have to understand how mechanics translate into metrics. Back to our Econ-hitting fairy friends. That’s the problem.  Not having the ability to translate metrics into mechanics.  To optimize the numbers, we have to understand the context.  The good news for our Econ-hitting fairy friends?  This can be learned and applied in today’s ‘Launch Angle’ era.  Regardless of playing level experience.

How it’s bad (or good) to only track ball exit speed and launch angle in the batting cage

There are some hitting coaches that will say tracking ball exit speed and launch angles in the batting cage is really dumb, is REALLY not smart.  And then there are those who do it all the time.  And their hitters are successful versus doing nothing.

Look, I treat the batting cage as a Laboratory.  It’s a place to experiment.  To work out the kinks.  To be free to make mistakes and learn.  Use data to measure and manage swing mechanics.  Logical coaches get this.  Others?  They’re just guessing.

Same polarized perspective about tee work. Some coaches don’t like hitting off batting tees.  Because at the end of the day, the hitter has to translate what they’re doing mechanically to a LIVE pitch.  Agreed.  But when teaching something new, a batting tee has its place.  It can also help coaches understand cause and effect in mechanics.  How?  By isolating the variable.  If you can’t isolate the variable, you’re guessing.  And guessing is an anti-optimization strategy.  If you don’t know what’s causing what, then how do you know what works and what doesn’t?

Isolating the variable?  Brilliant.org defines it:

“Isolating a variable means rearranging an algebraic equation so that a different  variable is on its own. The goal is to choose a sequence of operations that will leave the variable of interest on one side and put all other terms on the other side of the equal sign.” 

I know, rough definition when comparing against baseball analytics.  Let me rephrase … in relation to hitting mechanics, it’s finding out what in the swing contributes to the majority of power…  Hitting more line drives…  Getting on-time more often…  How would one go about isolating those mechanical variables?  I can tell you it’s not hitting LIVE pitching.  WHY?  Because LIVE pitching is too random.  Humans.  Pitch speed.  Pitch depth.  Pitch height.  Pitch type.  Pitch distance.  Pitch reaction time.  All this can be controlled in a swing experiment off a tee.

I believe, there’s a time and place for the tee.  I subscribe to the Goldilocks Golden Rule – not too hot, not too cold…I like my hitters using the tee just the right amount.  The brain has to organize in a certain way.  With LIVE pitching, there is a lot of data collection the hitter has to take in.  Pitch recognition.  Tracking.  Timing.  Learning a new mechanic also taxes the brain.  High cognitive load.

Consider this…

What if I asked you to write your first and your last name in half the letters. In other words, what if I asked you to write every other letter of your name? So for me, JOEY MYERS, I would write it as J-E-M-E-S.  Now, I’ve never done that before.  So, if I was timing myself, the first five out of ten tries would be slow. The more I practice though, the faster I’d be writing half my name.  Why?  Because I’m writing it in half the letters!

But it takes a little time for my brain and body to connect and figure this out.  To learn how to do it.  Learn how to do something that I’m not used to doing.  It is the same exact thing when learning something new mechanically. Keep this in mind when thinking about your seven, eight, nine year olds learning something they’re not comfortable doing.  Hitting off the batting tee is an okay thing to do in the beginning. When something’s new.

Again, the batting tee shouldn’t be something you spend a lot of time using, but it is a proper regression-progression when compared to dry swings, soft toss, or LIVE toss.  In connecting tee work to ball exit speeds and launch angles … they give us a unit of measure off the tee with a uniquely controlled environment.  Apples to apples comparison.

Launch angles are a data point. A lot of these coaches don’t like the launch angle swing. Well, launch angle is a number. The launch angle is the angle of the ball coming off the bat. It’s hard for hitters to control it.  However, hitters can control their barrel Attack Angle.  The angle the barrel takes to the incoming pitch.  Launch and Attack Angles don’t have to be the same. And most likely they aren’t going to be.  But hitters can better control the latter, not so much the former.

What’s measurable is manageable.  We can use swing experiments to do it. Hitting off the tee shouldn’t be something we hang our hat on, but it is something that gives us a data point, a standard data point that we can give baseball analytics context to.  Not like analyzing metrics without looking at context.  Remember numbers don’t have brains, people do.  What are the causes of an above or below average fly ball, ground ball, or line drive percentage?  Home run to fly-ball ratio?  Higher percentage of pulling the ball or going the other way too much? What is the mechanical causation-correlation relationship making those metrics above or below average?

We’ll find out in upcoming blog posts…

We covered A LOT:

  • Story of Econ-hitting fairies in the Minor Leagues – having almost ZERO hitting experience and knowledge.  What’s going on here?
  • Pros of a data-driven swing – what’s measurable is manageable.  Using the Scientific Method: 1. Asking a question, 2. Forming a hypothesis, 3. Doing the research, 4. Collecting the data, and 5. Formulating a conclusion,
  • Cons of a data-driven swing – numbers by themselves are dumb. Numbers don’t have brains, people do. Hitting coaches have to understand how mechanics translate into metrics.  What does a hitter with an above average ground-ball rate mean?  How do you bring him or her to average or below average? And…
  • How it’s bad (or good) to track ball exit speed and launch angle in the batting cage – if you’re not collecting data and comparing with strategic swing changes, then you’re guessing. Tracking ball exit speeds, attack angles, and launch angles are part of data collection.  And using a tee is essential when isolating the variable and teaching something new.
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Softball hitter working through softball hitting drills in batting cage — swing flaw correction drills for youth and high school players

Softball Hitting Drills: 5 Fixes for Common Swing Flaws

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Five faults. Five targeted drills. Free drill cards for every one.

Most coaches run the same three cage drills every week and wonder why nothing changes in games. The problem isn’t the hitter’s effort — it’s that the wrong softball hitting drills are being used for the wrong flaw. Each swing problem has a specific root cause, and each root cause needs a targeted drill to fix it. Effective softball hitting drills are fault-specific, not general.

This post covers the five most common swing flaws in softball hitters and the softball hitting drills that address each one directly. Every section links to the full free resource for that fault — drill cards, PDF guides, and full drill systems — so your hitter can go as deep as the problem requires.

Joey Myers has coached 5,000+ hitters using a physics-based approach — these systems are used by coaches from Little League to Division I.

“Exit velocities are up, averages are up, power is up. Three girls going D1, six at D2, two at JUCOs. I credit the HPL approach for proving the science.”

Ronny Weber — Baseball & Softball Coach

If you’re working on pitch recognition and timing alongside these swing fixes, that combination tends to produce the fastest results in game performance.

Jump to Your Hitter’s Flaw

What Softball Hitting Drills Fix Swing Timing?

Swing timing is the most misdiagnosed flaw in softball. A hitter who is consistently late gets told to “start earlier.” A hitter who is early gets told to “wait longer.” Neither cue fixes anything because the real issue isn’t start time — it’s that the hitter has only one timing speed regardless of pitch velocity.

The batting timing drills that actually work train the hitter to read pitch speed and adjust in real time — not commit to a timing trigger before the pitch arrives. Two drills from that system are especially effective for softball hitters.

2-Plate Reaction Time Challenge. The hitter stands in front of two plates set at different distances. The coach calls which plate to hit to at the moment of release — forcing the hitter to read, decide, and fire without pre-committing. Additionally, this drill builds the decision-speed that breaks the one-timing habit fast.

Float Variance Drill. The coach varies the timing of front toss intentionally — sometimes holding the toss half a beat, sometimes releasing early. Because the hitter doesn’t know when the ball is coming, she can’t lock in a pre-set trigger. Her timing system learns to stay flexible. Most hitters improve contact consistency within one practice session using this drill.

For hitters who look great on a machine but fall apart against live pitching — this is almost always the gap. The full drill sheet covers five progressions and is free.

Free Drill Sheet

5 Batting Timing Drills

Float Variance · 2-Plate Challenge · 3 more progressions

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Is Your Hitter Bailing on the Inside Pitch?

Stepping out — also called bailing or opening up early — looks like a mental problem. Most coaches respond with more encouragement or pressure to “stay in there.” However, stepping out is almost always a mechanical timing fault, not a confidence problem. The front foot pulls toward third base before the hitter reads pitch location, which means every inside pitch becomes unreachable even when she swings hard.

The drills in the fix stepping out in softball system use three progressions that isolate foot direction from swing timing. The key insight: the hitter needs to learn to read pitch depth before her foot makes any decision about where to go. Verbal cues can’t teach that. Drill repetitions can.

The first progression uses a tee and a barrier to physically prevent the foot from pulling away — creating a new motor pattern without conscious thought. The second progression moves to front toss and reinforces the foot direction. The third takes it into live at-bats. Most hitters see measurable improvement within two to three batting practice sessions.

Free Drill Card

Stepping Out Fix — 3-Drill Progression

Printable · Use at practice starting today

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Which Softball Hitting Drills Build Cleaner Ball Contact?

Contact quality is determined at three points: how the barrel arrives at the zone, where it contacts the ball, and what happens to ball spin after impact. Most batting practice trains hitters to make contact — it does not build the barrel awareness to make contact that consistently carries. The result is hitters who always seem to “get a piece of it” but rarely hit the ball with authority.

The bat path drill system covers five progressions that address barrel path from multiple angles — straight ball flight, pull-side contact, inside-out contact, and swing speed through the zone. Furthermore, each drill can be run without a pitching machine, making them practical for home or small-space training.

According to the National Fastpitch Coaches Association, contact mechanics — not raw swing speed — are the primary differentiator at the high school and college level. Hitters who produce straight ball flight consistently outhit harder swingers because the ball simply goes where it’s supposed to go.

For hitters who make contact but rarely hit with authority, bat path through the contact zone is almost always the problem — not swing speed. These softball hitting drills fix the path first, and power follows naturally.

Free PDF — Instant Download

5 Softball Hitting Drills to Fix Her Swing

Bat path · Swing speed · Ball contact · No pitching machine required

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No account needed · Instant access · 100% free

How Do You Stop a Softball Hitter from Dropping Her Hands?

Dropping hands is diagnosed at stride landing — specifically, where the hands are at the moment the front foot strikes the ground. If the hands are at belly-button height instead of back-shoulder or armpit height, the hitter has hands drop. The barrel has to travel a longer path to the ball, which produces late contact, looping swings, and pop-ups on fastballs.

The drills to stop dropping hands use RNT (Reactive Neuromuscular Training) to fix this. In an RNT drill, light resistance is applied in the direction of the error — so if the hands drop down, the band pulls them down slightly. The nervous system responds by overcorrecting upward, which trains the correct position without any conscious thought from the hitter.

This is one of the few swing flaws where a simple band and a tee are all the equipment you need. Most hitters show measurable improvement in hand position within one or two sessions. The full drill card includes the RNT setup, the load-phase diagnosis checklist, and the progression into front toss and live pitching.

Free Drill Card

Dropping Hands Fix — RNT Drill Card

Diagnosis checklist · Band drill setup · 3-phase progression

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What Softball Hitting Drills Fix Bat Drag?

Bat drag happens when the back elbow races ahead of the hands during the swing — causing the barrel to lag behind and arrive late to the contact zone. The result is weak fly balls to the pull side, ground-outs to the second baseman, and a hitter who looks like she’s muscling the ball rather than swinging through it. Additionally, bat drag is one of the most common causes of a hitter losing velocity on pitches she should be crushing.

Most coaches try to fix bat drag by telling the hitter to “keep the elbow in” or “stay connected.” That verbal cue addresses a symptom rather than the cause. The actual root is an incomplete upper-body loading sequence — the scapula and shoulder don’t finish loading before the swing fires, so the elbow jumps ahead to compensate.

Showing the Numbers Drill. The hitter loads into stride and deliberately “shows her numbers” — her back jersey numbers — to a spotter behind the mound. This forces a complete shoulder turn during the load phase. Therefore, when the swing fires, the elbow has nowhere to go but the correct path because the upper body is already loaded and sequenced properly.

The full bat drag drill card includes the CLS 3-movement sequence, the diagnosis method for racing back elbow, and the tee-to-live progression. Most hitters eliminate visible bat drag within two weeks of consistent softball hitting drills work.

Free Drill Card

Bat Drag Fix — CLS 3-Movement Drill Card

Showing the Numbers · Upper body load sequence · Full progression

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Do These Softball Hitting Drills Actually Work in Games?

Softball hitting drills only matter if results transfer to games. Here’s what coaches using the HPL drill systems are seeing on the field.

“Exit velocities are up, averages are up, power is up. Three girls going D1, six at D2, two at JUCOs. I credit the HPL approach for proving the science and providing convincing evidence.”

Ronny Weber — Baseball & Softball Coach

“I coach Fastpitch travel softball. From top to bottom of our batting order, pitchers have no batter to pitch around — they can all crush the ball and do so consistently!!”

Shane Beever — Travel Softball Coach

Common Questions About Softball Hitting Drills

Coaches and parents ask about these softball hitting drills more than any others. The answers below are pulled directly from the HPL drill systems.

What are the best softball hitting drills for beginners?

For beginners, the best softball hitting drills target timing and contact point before anything else. The Float Variance Drill (for timing flexibility) and a simple tee drill focusing on hitting the center of the ball are the highest-leverage starting points. Additionally, the Stepping Out Fix progressions are valuable early because the bail-out habit forms quickly and becomes harder to break the longer it goes untreated.

How often should a softball hitter practice drills?

Three to four targeted drill sessions per week are more effective than daily general cage work. Specifically, 20 focused swings on one flaw per session produces better motor learning than 200 swings with no target. Most drill systems in this post are designed to be run in 15–20 minutes alongside normal batting practice.

What softball hitting drills can be done at home without a pitching machine?

All five drills covered in this post can be run with a tee, a front-toss net, or a partner — no pitching machine required. The RNT Hands Drop Drill needs only a resistance band and a tee. The Showing the Numbers Drill for bat drag requires nothing except a bat and a wall. Therefore, limited equipment is not a barrier to effective drill work.

Why does my hitter look good in practice but struggle in games?

The cage-to-game gap is usually a timing problem, not a mechanics problem. In practice, hitters know what pitch is coming and can pre-set their timing. In games, they can’t — and a swing that has only one timing speed breaks down against any pitcher who changes speeds. The 2-Plate Reaction Time Challenge directly targets this gap by removing pre-set timing from drill work.

What causes bat drag in a softball swing?

Bat drag is caused by an incomplete upper-body loading sequence during the stride phase. When the scapula and shoulder don’t fully load before the swing fires, the back elbow races ahead of the hands to compensate — dragging the barrel late into the contact zone. Most coaches misdiagnose this as an arm or elbow problem and give cues that address the symptom rather than the cause. The CLS 3-Movement Fix targets the load sequence itself.

How do you stop a softball hitter from stepping out or bailing?

Stop stepping out by retraining foot direction with a physical barrier rather than verbal cues. Place a bat, cone, or foam block along the outside of the front foot to block the pulling motion. The hitter takes 20–30 swings with the barrier in place, then removes it. Because the nervous system adapts to physical feedback faster than to auditory instruction, the corrected pattern often holds after just one session of barrier work.

What is the fastest softball hitting drill to fix timing issues?

The 2-Plate Reaction Time Challenge produces the fastest timing improvement of any drill in the HPL system. In one session, the hitter’s decision speed improves because she cannot pre-set a launch trigger — she must react to information rather than anticipate it. Furthermore, this drill transfers directly to game at-bats because the skill being trained (reading pitch speed and responding) is the exact skill required against live pitching.

Ready to Go Deeper

The Free Drill Cards Fix Individual Flaws.
The RocketHitting Formula Fixes the Whole Swing.

Each drill card in this post targets one specific fault. The RocketHitting Formula is the complete system — the full adjustment framework, pitch-type approach, two-strike strategy, and the drills that connect every piece into a swing that transfers from practice to games automatically.

See the RocketHitting Formula →

60-day money-back guarantee · Works for baseball & softball, ages 7–17



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