Here Is A Method That is Helping Rhys Hoskins Give Salivating Pitchers Nightmares
Leg Kicks May Be Dangerous To Pitchers (And Hitters That Don’t Perfect Them)…
Before I get into the Rhys Hoskins swing breakdown video featuring Mark DeRosa & Cliff Floyd above…
I wanted to give you a heads up of what’s in this post:
- Lesson learned from my school of hard knocks,
- How to fix striking out every at-bat in tournament, and
- Rhys Hoskins swing breakdown.
Lessons Learned from School of Hard Knocks
Rhys Hoskins says his thought is “down to the ball”, then adds, “obviously you’re not swinging down like you’re chopping wood.” He’s hoping that thought process will keep him on a level plane in the strike-zone as long as he can. Photo courtesy: Sports Bay Area
I recently worked with a newer 12/13u hitter of mine, where he shared he had a terrible tournament, where he struck out virtually every at-bat the weekend before.
This immediately raised a red flag for me.
The easy thing to do for a player – and a dad or mom – is to point to a breakdown in hitting mechanics.
As a hitting coach, if this isn’t your first rodeo, then you know this is not the case a majority of the time.
Quick back story,
My last year of Little League was insane:
- Hit .880 regular season, .770 in All-Stars,
- 30+ dingers,
- 40+ doubles, and
- Struck out a grand total of 3 times in the span of 6 months.
By the way, looking at old VHS video of that swing, I was doing what I teach now. All those strikeouts were early in the regular season, and once I settled down, they vanished entirely.
I was ignorance on fire!
Brace yourself for the “fall”…
The next year I made the move to the big field, with no pitching distance transition like there are nowadays. I found myself swinging and missing A LOT.
I got so frustrated with myself, and what do you think my dumb brain thought was the problem?
Right-O!! Mechanics.
Do you know the REAL cause?
Let me give you a clue…the word starts with a “T” and ends with “-iming” 😛 lol
I was being driven by my fear of getting “caught up” to by other players. And yes, the whispers started in Middle School when I struggled to recover my old swing.
Do you know how much of a nightmare that is for a hitter who’s super driven to succeed like I was?
This fear drove me into the bookstore to read every book on hitting I could get my hungry teenager hands on. Ted Williams, Tony Gwynn, Charlie Lau, Mike Schmidt, and on and on. Nothing seemed to help. I obsessively watched film of that swing trying to figure out what I was missing or leaving out.
Hey, at least I wasn’t out stealing cars!
It was a 4-year mind-fudge that ended in recovering my batting average – somewhat – but not my power the last two years in High School. Thinking back now, it’s a miracle I ended up with a scholarship at Fresno State.
The point of this story is, negative tournament outcomes don’t necessarily mean a breakdown in hitting mechanics.
Back to my young hitter…
How To Fix Striking Out Every At-Bat in Tournament
So I had three questions I planned asking my hitter, in diagnosing the challenges he had with his last tournament:
- The first one is, were you focusing on the new stuff we worked on last lesson (which was a week before), during game at-bats?
- If the answer is NO to that question, then I would ask, how many strikes did you swing at, OR not swing at?
- If they’re swinging at good pitches, then on the swings you took, how many were “on-time”?
If they pass the first three questions, then we look at seeking and fixing the ineffective swing mechanic.
However, this particular hitter failed question one. I hadn’t warned him about bringing new swing techniques into game at-bats. I told him that in games, your focus MUST be on swinging at good pitches and getting on-time. It’s to compete.
I teach hitters my painful lesson.
The good news is, this hitter will be on the up and up again, and won’t have to go through the frustration, struggle, and anger I went through attempting to fix something I knew nothing about at the time. And frankly, the only one who had a clue was Ted Williams, but his message was drowned out in the other white noise I was hearing, reading, and watching. Paralysis by over analysis.
Now, let’s tie in the Rhys Hoskins video above…
Rhys Hoskins Swing Breakdown
Below you’ll find video notes I took. Afterward, I’ll only focus on about a couple of these, I think others will make for good conversation in the Comments section below…
- About 1:20 min mark, DeRosa: “Hands go along for the ride…not a lot of hand load”
- About 1:40 min mark, DeRosa brings up examples of “violent hand loads” featuring: Cecil Fielder, Vlad Guerrero, Gary Sheffield…and Manny Ramirez, Buster Posey, Justin Turner, and Daniel Murphy used as examples of “not a lot of hand load”
- About 2:20 min mark, DeRosa: asks Rhys is he’s conscious about his pre-swing hand movement. Rhys says all he’s worrying about is having some separation between his body and where his hands are during load
- About 2:50 min mark, Rhys: “The only thing I’m thinking about is getting my leg up”. Cliff Floyd talks about having a leg kick is a perfection type of approach. Pitchers are trying to disrupt a leg kicker: tempo, changing speeds, etc.
- About 3:20 min mark, Floyd says Rhys has something you can’t teach: “He hits the fast-ball, he hits the curve-ball, he hits the change-up”…Floyd says it’s going to be tough to get him out when he covers the plate well and doesn’t like to strikeout.
- About 4:00 min mark, Cliff Floyd goes into more detail about a hitter focusing on perfecting the timing of a leg kick, and not worry about anything else, or else you’re screwed. Rhys talks about getting “inside the pitcher’s rhythm in the on-deck circle”. Cliff Floyd comments: “Did I pay attention to what that pitcher really does consistently” with his timing and rhythm in the on-deck circle.
- About 5:10 min mark, Mark DeRosa is wanting Rhys to explain the use of his hands and back elbow. Cliff Floyd says if you want the kid to go into a slump keep talking about hands and elbows. Rhys says his thought is “down to the ball”, then adds, “obviously you’re not swinging down like you’re chopping wood.” He’s hoping that thought process will keep him on a level plane in the strike-zone as long as he can.
- About 6:10 min mark, talks about “knee to knee” “hover” leg kick. More balance, don’t get over backside.
A lot more good than bad in this video. I wanted to focus on the timing aspect though…
Just to be upfront with you, I’m not one of those instructors that teaches a leg kick to ALL my hitters. I think this is a BIG mistake. If my hitter doesn’t have what I call a “Float” (aka stride type) built into their swing already, then I ask them to experiment a little. Or if what they’re using isn’t effective at getting them on time and dynamically balanced, then we get resourceful.
We experiment with:
- A leg kick (medium or high),
- Slide step, and
- Toe-tap.
By the end, they find that one of these techniques allows them to time the ball better, and it may not be what they started with. We’re looking for what they’re comfortable with, and can execute the swing dynamically balanced.
You heard Rhys Hoskins say,
“The only thing I’m thinking about is getting my leg up”
This was after DeRo prodded him to explain what his hands and back elbow are doing. Cliff Floyd got on DeRo that he’s going to force Rhys into a slump with all this hands talk! lol
Floyd also said that a lot of time and energy needs to be spent on perfecting the timing of the leg kick. He added, “Did I pay attention to what that pitcher really does consistently” with his timing and rhythm in the on-deck circle. This is very important.
Some of my good hitting friends online, who I highly respect in their knowledge, don’t believe timing can be taught or calibrated. I respectfully disagree.
If you can teach a pair of chickens to play ping-pong, then yes, timing can be taught. True story by the way – with the chicken (read Don’t Shoot The Dog: The New Art Of Teaching And Training
).
I’ve also heard pitching coaches on the Socials say they lick their lips when seeing a hitter with a leg kick. And you heard Cliff Floyd address a pitcher’s job is to disrupt a leg kicker by changing their delivery tempo, changing speeds, etc.
But then Floyd turns around and compliments Hoskins saying, “He hits the fast-ball, he hits the curve-ball, he hits the change-up”…and adds, it’s going to be tough to get him out when he covers the plate well and doesn’t like to strikeout.
Calibrating a hitter’s timing and pitch recognition training are a deadly combination for pitchers who salivate over seeing a leg kicking hitter. I asked this coach whether he’d salivate over facing Josh Donaldson, Justin Turner, or Mike Trout. He didn’t answer.
Coaches, if you don’t give hitters tools for their toolbox, then they’re up there hitting blind. Don’t make them hit the pinata blind folded!
Here are some resources to take back to your hitters on timing and pitch recognition:
- 2-Plate and Float Variance Drills (you can also have hitter switch bat sizes and randomly throw different ball types to train timing as well),
- “Load slow and early” post,
- Random Pitch Drill (read Cal Poly study under sub-heading “Myth of Massed Practice”)
- Pitch Recognition interview post with Dr. Peter Fadde, and
- Effective Velocity interview post with Perry Husband.
You can teach timing. You can teach pitch recognition. Woe to the pitcher that pitches to hitters who train both. The winds of change are a blowin’ for hitters over pitchers. When troubleshooting with your hitters, remember:
- The lesson from my school of hard knocks,
- How to fix striking out every at-bat in a tournament, and
- Timing lessons from Rhys Hoskins.
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Joey,
Good stuff! Your timing drills are excellent. I saw this segment on MLB Central when it was on the other day. DeRosa is all caught up in the “hands” thing. I think his calling attention to role of the hands in the swing reveals an unconscious resentment of what he was taught and his regret of not being taught better, at least that is what Dr. Sigmund said. 😉 DeRosa also is caught up in launch angle. Spoiler Alert: launch angle is as old as Babe Ruth and Ted Williams discussed it at length in his book, THE SCIENCE OF HITTING, except that he didn’t call it that.
Keep up the good work. Maybe they should have you on MLB Central but you’d have to travel to beautiful downtown Secaucus, NJ.
I agree with you Joe. This new stuff is mind blowing for DeRo, just like it was for me when I first started playing with it. Also, these human movement rules have been around longer than you and I. I definitely wouldn’t turn down an appearance with these guys, but I’m not going to wait around holding my breath 😉 It would be good to meet up my friend.
Joey,
New school is old school. What goes around comes around. When i see DeRosa demonstrate his swing, I want to call in to the show. There was a reason why Babe Ruth did what he did, thanks to Shoeless Joe Jackson, and why Mickey Mantle hit the ball 500 feet.
You’d blow their doors off. Give them a call. Better yet, tweet them.
Ok… People see and feel what they want… The hands are important… All I’ll say is if you swing 10000 times you educate your hands to a certain extent… perhaps the batter at that point doesn’t feel what the hands are doing…
I’m not going into detail about the hands as I believe that is the REAL secret especially the lead hand as if you get that right the rest just falls in place with some practice and trail and error…
The hands start the load… the load with the hands comprises getting into a load posture and loading…. Than the hands get the batter on plane… Than the hands go to the ball…Than after that TRIGGER they hold that position (HOLD meaning going along with the bat which entails, not moving, rotation, twirling, rolling…etc…) in order to push and pull the bat with the right posture and with power…
When he speaks of not thinking of the hands… translation… I educated my hands but don’t know it… said another way… he practice so much that he got it by feel not facts… and he’s one BAD slump away from trying to think and if thinks he’s done because he doesn’t know it… one little change and that feel is gone…
The hoover is no more than built in side bending… lead foot in the heel or hip extension blah blah blah while the opposite for the other foot and yes it’s built into the hands… and you just need to trigger your lead knee or heel or whatever works for you….
The hands ( elbows to the finger tips) control a lot but only if it’s set….
SETTING is where the Magic is because if you don’t set right the hands are not doing anything….Said another way, watching slow motion from the start of the swing is meaningless well perhaps that strong but only tells the product… what we need to see is what batters are doing once they touch the bat and put there foot down….
By the way you don’t need a big move… a the big move is subjective and depends on other things…
~DM
Joey
As you mentioned human movements… Question?????
If you aligned correctly what could the hands control?
What muscles or parts of the body?
Indirect and/or directly???
Notice: most understand feet alignment changes how one can engage the right muscles… same goes for the hands….
~DM
If you read my comment than standing tall has a different meaning… again what we think we feel my not be what we are really feeling…but if you know it you can always get the REAL feel in no time meaning no slump to mechanics… that is big time!!!
~DM