Discover how to fix bat drag with these hitting drills. Learn 3 tips to avoiding bat drag for baseball and softball beginners.
Never Suffer From Bat Drag Again
Here are the TOP-3 blog posts in 2014 on fixing bat drag, based on my Google Analytic Metrics, that are still relevant today! The top-3 were:
One of my High School hitters Keenan, using the Swing Blaster to ADD more barrel on the plane of the pitch (swings are synced).
- Baseball Training Aids: Long Slow Swing Fix?,
- Josh Donaldson: Stay CLOSED & Add Ball Exit Speed, and
- Youth Baseball Online ALERT: Hitting Fix For Bat Drag…
PLEASE NOTE that along long the bat drag lines, I recently tapped into my readers’ knowledge-base with this article titled, Hitting Tips To Boost Barrel Time On Pitch-Plane, that offered up some handy gold nuggets for correcting bat drag. There almost 30 comments! So go check it out and get involved in the discussion.
To refresh your BEST-of 2014, let’s recap by hitching a ride in my time baseball and softball hitting machine…
SCIENCE-BASED TRAINING:
Improve your hitting strategy dramatically by applying human movement principles.
Learn not only how and what to train but also the science behind the methods.
Baseball Training Aids: Long Slow Swing Fix?
SpeedHitter promo featuring Tampa Bay Rays hitting coach Derek Shelton. Photo courtesy: Momentus Sports YouTube video
In this baseball online post, we talked about:
- Speed Hitter baseball training aid review,
- Barrel path science, and
- A better alternative…
CLICK HERE for a 2-minute Swing Hitter demo video. Momentus Sports promises the Speed Hitter will help a hitter achieve four ingredients all great hitters do (watch the video to see what they are). When proven human movement science is applied to the Speed Hitter, it doesn’t deliver on any of the promises.
Unbeknownst to Momentus Sports, the question the Speed Hitter attempts to answer is, “When is the barrel suppose to accelerate?” Is it at impact or before impact? The answer is the latter, but the Speed Hitter’s focus is the former. So, what better alternative is there? The Swing Blaster
. Focus should be on hearing a clear audible “click” before impact, NOT at contact.
Post UPDATE: Click Here for an article on how barrel path changes based on pitch dept (e.g. middle-in versus middle-away pitch).
Josh Donaldson: Stay CLOSED & Add Ball Exit Speed
Josh Donaldson “staying closed” with his shoulders at landing. Photo courtesy: MLB.com
In this baseball online video, we analyzed:
- Josh Donaldson v. Jose Bautista metrics,
- What “staying closed” means to spine engine mechanics, and
- Where Josh Donaldson might be leaking force at impact.
How eerily similar Jose Bautista and Josh Donaldson’s body types AND swings are. CLICK HERE to listen (start at the 1 min, 10 sec mark) to Josh Donaldson discuss how he modeled his swing after Jose Bautista. This was an interview after being traded from Oakland to Toronto. By the way, this post got some air time on Canada’s National Post!
In the above post, “staying closed” DOES NOT mean an inward turn of the hips – towards the catcher – to “load”. It also has ZERO to do with striding with a closed front foot. But what this baseball online BEST-of post does do, is go into the counter-rotation of the shoulders – versus the pelvis – during the fall. Or what my hitters will tell you, “showing the pitcher their numbers.”
Upon analysis, it was interesting to note that Josh Donaldson didn’t commit his weight to his front side like Jose Bautista did. And this led to inferior ball exit speeds and a lower average home-run distance because of an inefficiency to use Gravitational Forces.
Youth Baseball Online ALERT: Hitting Fix For Bat Drag
One of my local High School hitters Charles fixing an early arm bar.
In this baseball online post, we went over:
- What is Bat Drag?
- The science of Bat Drag (to hitting an unknown moving pitch), and
- How-to fix Bat Drag.
Youth bat drag is causes mostly by over rotation of the upper and/or lower half. It is NOT like what some coaches say, being caused by a dominant top hand or back arm, quite the opposite actually. Bat drag can be caused by a weak and disconnected top hand and back arm.
This article I originally posted back in 2015, and blamed bat drag on a barred out-front arm. I’ve since revised my position on this thanks to Perry Husband. A barred out-front arm DOES NOT result in a long slow swing, an early barrel in the hitting zone does. Specifically on pitches that are middle in. For a refresher on how barrel path changes based on pitch depth, then click this post.
