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

Discover the best Backspin batting tee experiment for youth baseball, slow pitch, and fast pitch softball to hit more launch angle style line drives.  Get swing Backspin Tee trainer reviews and coupon codes.  Also learn how to STOP your son (or daughter) from hitting too many weak ground balls to shortstop.

Baseball Batting Cage Drills: Here’s A Quick Way To Hit Less Ground-balls

 

 

Question: Does The BackSpin Batting Tee Help Hitters Elevate The Ball?

In this baseball batting cage drills experiment using the Backspin batting tee, I wanted to use the Scientific Method to analyze what would happen to a hitter’s spray chart (ME!!) by taking:

  • 100 swings using a conventional tee (ATEC Single Tuffy Tee), versus
  • Taking another 100 swing using Taylor and Jarrett Gardner’s BackSpin batting tee.

I’ve done a couple posts promoting what Taylor and Jarrett are doing with the Backspin Tee because I really believe in their product and what it can do for young hitters in getting the batted ball off the ground.  Whether we’re talking baseball, fast pitch softball, and slow pitch softball…

And to let you know, this experiment has been brewing in my head since the summer of 2015, but the stars just didn’t align…until NOW!

Background Research

Here are two baseball batting cage drills posts mentioned earlier, to give some background on the research for The Backspin batting tee:

Hypothesis

Baseball Batting Cage Drills: ATEC Tuffy Single Batting Tee

ATEC Tuffy Single Batting Tee photo courtesy: ATEC

Okay, so I cheated a little bit…

Before the OFFICIAL baseball batting cage drills swing experiment, I’ve been using the Backspin batting tee with my local hitters and the results have been positive.

And now, I’m making my Hypothesis official…

I think by using the Backspin batting tee, it will allow the hitter to cut down on ground-balls, and will empower them to get more effective at putting the ball in the air (line drives primarily).

In addition, I think that not only will the tee reduce a hitter’s ground-balls, but will contribute to above average line drive launch angles.  Average line drives would be within the reach of a fielder.

 

Baseball Batting Cage Drills: Backspin Batting Tee Experiment

Equipment Used:

  • Backspin Batting Tee,
  • ATEC Single Tuffy Tee,
  • Flip Camera,
  • Baseballs, and
  •  33-inch ProXR wood bat

Setup:

Baseball Batting Cage Drills: Backspin Tee

Closeup of the ‘inverted’ rubber cone that holds the baseball or softball. Photo courtesy: TheStartingLineupStore.com

  • I had two of the same laminated images of the batting cage I was hitting in (Hitting Spray Chart images below).
  • After each swing, I’d use a Sharpy pen to mark where the batted ball hit first (on the ground or the location on the batting cage netting), right after coming off the bat.
  • All swings for the baseball batting cage drills experiment were taken off either a Backspin or ATEC Tuffy Single tee.
  • I used the Backspin batting tee rubber cone for baseballs (they have one for softballs as well).
  • I stayed as consistent as I could with keeping the ball height and depth the same for both tees.
  • 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 plus two baseballs in front of the back marker.
  • The two tests in the baseball batting cage drills experiment were counter-balanced.  Which consisted of eight blocks of 25-swings done in the following order ABBA BAAB.  Hitting off the “Backspin Tee” was letter ‘A’, and off the “Conventional Tee” was letter ‘B’.  200 total swings were completed in the experiment, 100 per test.  Counter-balancing helps remove the “getting tired” and “not being sufficiently warmed up” factors.

Data Collected (Hitting Spray Charts)

Backspin Batting Tee Spray Chart:

Baseball Batting Cage Drills: BackSpin Tee Spray Chart

The Backspin tee spray chart is cleaner and resembles a bit of a tornado

Conventional Tee Spray Chart:

Baseball Batting Cage Drills: Conventional (Regular) Tee

As you can see, the spray chart is a bit messy…

 

Data Analysis & Conclusion

  •  The Backspin batting tee spray chart looks much more tidy than the “regular” tee chart (the former looks like a tornado),
  • You can see when using the conventional tee, I tended to pull the ball to left side of the cage.
  • There are definitely a higher concentration of batted balls in the above average line drive spots (not within reach of the fielders), using the Backspin batting tee, and
  • There were more balls hitting the ground or bottom of the cage when using a conventional tee.

 

Notes

  1. Addressing the excessive of pulled balls using the conventional tee, I thought maybe my tee was moving on me (getting too far out front).  I even tried pushing the regular tee slightly deeper than the position I started it in for a couple swings, to counter this, but that wasn’t the issue.
  2. Now, here’s where it gets interesting…remember in the “Setup” section above, I hit on the Backspin Tee (‘A’) FIRST.  I started to notice a pattern after switching tees…I didn’t have an issue getting the ball in the air with the Backspin tee, sometimes getting into the pop-fly territory.  But what I found was after taking a Backspin tee 25-swing chunk, the first 10-15 swing launch angles off the conventional tee mimicked what I was getting with the Backspin Tee.  As the conventional tee round approached the last 10-15 swings, the launch angle slowly creeped downwards into the average line drive arena.  So when I repeated TWO conventional tee 25-swing chunks (the BB in the ABBA pattern), by the time I got to the end I was having a hard time getting the ball back up again using the conventional tee.  And on the last BAAB 25-swing chunk pattern (last 100 swings), I noticed the same thing emerge.
  3. It was like the “magic” of the Backspin tee wore off after 10 swings into hitting on the conventional tee. My Hypothesis?  If I took 100 STRAIGHT swings on a conventional tee, then 100 STRAIGHT on a Backspin tee, I’m willing to bet there would be WAY more ground-balls and average line drives using the conventional tee than I got in this baseball batting cage drills experiment.
  4. The other weird thing (in a good way) I noticed hitting off the Backspin batting tee, was that it trimmed up my spray chart (making it look more like a tornado rather than a cinder block).  I rarely pulled the ball towards the left side of the cage hitting off the Backspin tee.  And the ones I did pull that way, I’d be willing to bet it was after hitting off the conventional tee. CRAZY!

The Bottom Line?

Well, the baseball batting cage drills experiment data showed that not only did the Backspin tee elevate ball launch angles, but it also cleaned up horizontal outcomes.  Meaning, I didn’t hit the ball to the left side of the cage as frequently when using the Backspin tee than I did with the conventional tee when the ball is located virtually in the same position every swing.  Also, the “Backspin tee effect” lasted a good 10-15 swings into switching over and using the conventional tee!

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

Discover how to spot disconnected front arm swing drills and learn how to STOP hitting inside out, casting, bat drag, and looping baseball or softball swings.  Perry Husband (EffectiveVelocity.com) and I will discuss bat lag drills for power validated by science.

5,000 Swing Experiments Validate Locked Out Lead Arm Is Superior To Bent

 

 

Here’s the Hitting Jam Session Interview Collection with Perry Husband:

  1. Why You Should Not Teach Hitters To Hit Homers?
  2. What’s The Biggest Mistake Coaches Make In Boosting Ball Exit Speeds
  3. How To Make Teaching Proper Weight Shift In Swing More Understandable To Hitter
  4. Teach: How To STOP Hitting Excess Of Ground-balls & Fly-balls
  5. [YOU ARE HERE] 5,000 Swing Experiments Validate Locked Lead Arm Is Superior To Bent
  6. Overload Bat Training: Hitting Has To Work Butt Off To Resist “Casting”

Here’s what we discuss in this episode:Perry Husband & Joey Myers Hitting Jam Session #5

  • Instructors confusing what “casting” is and is not,
  • What if only fastball Mike Trout gets is what produces the 80.8-mph avg. BES, would that change his offensive stats?
  • Hitter using bent lead arm comes at a cost,
  • “Deep barrel dump” – great barrel path for down/away pitches, but TERRIBLE for up/inside pitches,
  • And much more!

Hitting Jam Session 5 above jumps right into the conversation already started…

Show Notes

  • At about the 2-minute mark, disclaimers…I was a skeptic on the locked lead arm since about 2 years ago, some out there cannot subscribe to a locked lead arm BECAUSE of what they teach – the “deep barrel dump” on every pitch depth, instructors are confusing what “casting” is and is not, it’s not a locked lead arm, it is a deep barrel dump regardless of pitch depth, nobody is 100% right or wrong, if stay in Science, then most will come to the same conclusions (on macros – maybe not micros),
  • At about 5-minute mark, what is and is not working for Mike Trout – bent lead up arm v. locked lead arm, fastballs up and in 80.8-mph avg. BES in 2018 (bent lead arm), and down and away 101.8-mph avg. BES (locked lead arm), what if the only fastball he gets is what produces the 80.8-mph avg. BES would that change Mike Trout’s offensive stats?  Trout is hitting in a target rich environment where pitchers are throwing fastballs DOWN and off speed and breaking stuff UP, which puts timing that sequence VERY similar – easier to hit, pitchers are STUPID to keep fastballs down to him, Perry’s categories for pitches: #1’s – fastest version of the fastball – 96+ mph, #2’s – slowest version of the FB and fastest version of off speed (splitter/cutter/slider up in the zone), #3’s – slower versions of splitter/cutter/slider down in the zone, and #4’s – curveballs, Trout killed 2’s, 3’s, and 4’s, Perry referenced the SBNation article about Trout on Effective Velocity, article had wide reach and pitchers started pounding Trout up – and he adjusted to an up/in approach, changed his attention of where he focused and hunted, can only cover so much as a hitter when it comes to hitting 1, 2, 3, and 4’s,
  • At about 14-minute, 30-secs mark, hitter using bent lead arm comes at a cost, in Trout’s case 80-mph avg. BES v. 101-mph BES, split A/B testing metaphor on Facebook ad changing only 1 thing – see what ad wins out over being shown randomly to an audience, split A/B test locked lead arm versus keeping it bent, what if all FB’s down/away disappear to Trout?  What would happen to his numbers?  What happens when an EV minded pitcher like DeGrom, Scherzer, Verlander, Bauer face Trout or Miggy? What about bettering reaction time? What happens to policeman when you take away time?  Ugly stuff – they have less time to make a decision (Perry referenced the book Blink), give extra time, see pitches easier, slow down fast stuff and speed up slow stuff…allows Trout to cover A LOT of pitches with same timing, as a pitcher you’re more likely to get away with hanging off speed or breaking stuff up in the zone than a fastball down and/or away,
  • At about 27-minute, 30-secs mark, Perry talks about how Jacob DeGrom ONLY mixed in a higher percentage of fastballs up in the zone (61% of the time – avg. postseason team was 44%) one year and cut his ERA in half!  Debunking the “deep barrel dump” – great for pitches on the outer 1/3 of plate or lower in the strike zone, but is TERRIBLE barrel path for inner 1/3 to inner half part of plate, some confuse “long swing” with locked lead arm, but it’s because of casting or deep barrel dump, Perry talks about the ball bungee attached with surgical tubing experiment: found bigger the stretch, the faster and less time it takes ball to hit wall, connection to hitting is taking slack out of the system (more elastic energy built up!),  fence drill – can do drill with locked lead arm if hold angle of bat close to following shoulder, keep 90-degree wrist angle tension w/ locked lead arm versus bent,
  • At about 36-minute, 30-sec mark, Stanton, Donaldson – when they hit 114-mph BES they’re in a closer to lead arm lock out position, why not find out how to figure out how to get hitters doing it versus explaining it away, multiple 100-mph BES younger hitters hitting balls off the tee, how many 100-mph BES players are being cheated by inferior mechanics, locked lead arm doesn’t just increase power but it also improves consistency of sweet spot to ball, Perry’s done 5,000 swing experiments on locked out front arm (Jay Bell was most known), in golf if golfers could hit it farther with a bent lead arm, then driving ranges across the world would be using bent lead arm, goal is still the same in baseball as in golf – hit it at max
  • At about 42-minute, 30-sec mark, locked lead arm being longer…it’s not a question of locked lead arm causes long or casting swing – it’s about when the hitter “releases” the barrel from the rear shoulder that causes the long or casting swing, the stubborn “deep barrel dump” barrel path being taught will become extinct when pitchers get more EV efficient and begin using hard stuff up in the zone, even if pitchers miss their mark by a foot they’ll still be effective – execute one in three pitches, you’ll be a super star just as long as you understand what your misses are doing, hitters must apply 100/100 all the time – 100% on-time, 100% effective, pitchers like Scherzer will be the norm and not the exception, dumping barrels on all pitches WILL NOT work, can lock at load or at start of the turn – objective is to take slack out before the turn,
  • At about 56-minute mark, pitcher and hitter adjustments over the decades: Bob Gibson days attacking up, hitters adjust and get good at driving up, then in 70’s and 80’s pitchers attacked down in the zone, now pitchers are beginning to adjust back up again, Perry says we’ll see one more drop with hitting, which will force hitters to rock bottom, buy a little more time swinging with bent front arm but at what costs, going to be really hard when hitter sees 100-mph up, then followed up with curveball that looks the same in the tunnel and drops, how longer arms effects contact points, all data right now is based on control of bent front arm, JUST TEST IT!  CLICK HERE for testing protocol Perry and I have talked about in these Jam Sessions, any change you make MUST positively affect ball exit speed AND frequency of line drives, message to those who are anti-tee, bent lead arm ball exit will be close to the same off tee and LIVE
  • You can find Perry Husband at EffectiveVelocity.com, use EV25 coupon code for any of the online courses.  @EVPerryHusband on Twitter, and @PerryHusband on Facebook
  • My offer…FREE Catapult Loading System 2nd edition print book – just pay $8.95 shipping and handling (retails on Amazon for $19.97) – in addition you’ll get our essential consistent power online video mini-course Power Hitter 2.0: Engineering The Alphahttps://www.truthaboutexplosiverotationalpower.com/pl/60039
Hitting Training For Baseball & Softball Swing Trainers | Hitting Performance Lab

“Best Drill For Being Out In Front All The Time. Always Makes Contact Way Out In Front, Weak Hits & No Power”…

 

Here’s the Hitting Jam Session Interview Collection with Perry Husband:

  1. Why You Should Not Teach Hitters To Hit Homers?
  2. [YOU ARE HERE] What’s The Biggest Mistake Coaches Make In Boosting Ball Exit Speeds
  3. How To Make Teaching Proper Weight Shift In Swing More Understandable To Hitter
  4. Teach: How To STOP Hitting Excess Of Ground-balls & Fly-balls
  5. 5,000 Swing Experiments Validate Locked Lead Arm Is Superior To Bent
  6. Overload Bat Training: Hitting Has To Work Butt Off To Resist “Casting”

Here’s what we discuss in this episode:

  • Short Intro’sPerry Husband & Joey Myers Hitting Jam Session #2
  • Most effective ways to boost BES
  • How to know “who/what” to follow – by doing swing experiments
  • Swing eval at home & future case study Jam Sessions
  • Q/A

You can also CLICK HERE to view the original video and comments from the Jam Session on Facebook.

 

Show Notes

  • At about the 30-sec mark, the whole point of these Jam Sessions, equipping coaches to do petri dish evaluations at home collecting data, bringing us this data, and we can help coaches get their hitters better using real data and human movement principles validated by real Science.
  • At about 5-minute, 30-sec mark, Perry answers what he thinks is the biggest mistake coaches make in boosting ball exit speed, watching videos on YouTube, the lead arm shape (bend or straighten?), locking out beforehand causes a chain reaction that stretches out rubber bands, going from bent to straight right at impact doesn’t optimally stretch out rubber, not most important thing – is a piece of the machine, a bunch of things pieced together.
  • At about 8-minute mark, addressing why a barred front arm gets a bad rap on causing “longer” swings, correlation DOES NOT equal causation in this case, a consistent front arm shape equals consistency at bat-ball contact, Perry talks about “laser” experiment comparing a bent lead arm versus a barred out front arm (about 11-min mark), interestingly laser was all over with bent arm versus closer to “line” with straight front arm, getting barrel in line and keeping it there, with front arm bend there’s too much free play, at least twice as good arm bar versus bend when it comes to consistency.
  • At about 13-minute mark, talk about the main benefits to a front arm bar, longer levers multiply force at the end of the lever, a longer swing IS NOT about a bent or straight front arm – it’s about when the barrel leaves the rear shoulder, end loaded heavy bats are fantastic for training barrel path for different pitch depths, look at hitters hitting 95-mph inside – they use shorter more compact swings (the barrel leaves the shoulder later).
  • At about the 17-minute mark, Perry shares another experiment where he used a ball attached to surgical tubing attached to an anchor, pulling ball back 8-feet, then letting go and measuring speed, then stretching the tubing back further, speed increases and ball hits wall sooner than the shorter pull back, Perry explains shortening front arm can help get on time but hitter gives up hard ball contact (70% their 1-arm max).
  • At about 20-minute, 30-sec mark, talking about when you’re teaching hitters, what is your hitting “operating system”?  Is your goal for hitters to increase hard ball contact?  Is it to reduce strikeouts?  Based on your hitting operating system, you’ll choose specific hitting mechanics that organize that support the specific operating system,  barrel path will change based on pitch depth, swing to match timing – reactionary hitting, the other side of the coin is to max out 100% on-time, 100% swing effective.
  • At about 25-minute, 30-sec mark, how do we know who to follow or what to follow, Perry goes over swing evaluation you can do at home (CLICK HERE for a PDF spelling this out), build a target – Home Depot tarp, 2-foot diameter circle, cut hole in middle of circle (1-foot) creating donut, bottom of target is inline with bottom of ball on tee, target is 10-feet in front of hitter, hit top of target roughly 20-degree, middle roughly 10-degrees, measure ball exit speeds, give points: 1-point for hitting it through the middle, hits outside ring 0.5-point, miss target = 0.  Out of ten swings good is 4/10 (or .400).  If not at .400, then something is missing.  Average ball exit speed should be around 90% of your 1-rep. max.  Plot where the misses are, and number which hits they were. (Ask Perry for blank diagram on this).  Measuring ball exit speed with Zepp, SwingTracker, BlastMotion, PocketRadar, Bushnell Radar gun,
  • At about 33-minute mark, Perry talks about use of imagination or visualization, physical changes are tough under competitive pressures of a game, practicing your game swing, changing intent changes the swing, i.e. hitter hitting pop ups, changing intent to hit a low screaming line drive helps brain organize body to change the swing without thinking internal cues.
  • At about 39-minute mark, imagine a bendy tube attaching the pitcher’s release to contact, we want the hitter to hit the ball back through tube the pitch came from, external cues versus internal cues, getting a ballpark of what the hitter is doing by setting hitter up on a tee that is positioned as a middle middle location, if hitter is pulling all the time or going other way too much or popping ball up too much or hitting a lot of ground-balls, along with ball exit speed measurements.
  • At about 42-minute mark, Perry asks me about the springy fascia, the idea of a “rubber suit” creating stretch in the suit as you twist up, springy ‘X’ pattern – ‘X’ on chest and back, compression and tension forces, Granite has a high compression rate but has a terrible tension rate, Boom crane tension forces can be found in the cable holding the wrecking ball, body uses both compression and tension forces, hitter’s front shoulder comes in and down (shortening chest leg of the ‘X’), other leg of the ‘X’ on the chest lengthens, on the backside – the corresponding legs of the ‘X’ does the opposite, Scapula Row?  Biggest mistake coaches make is forcing hitters to keep front shoulder straight instead of protracting the front Scapula, Arm barring front arm helps with ‘showing numbers’ AND ‘hiding hands’.
  • At about 60-minute mark, hitter lets go of bat hits 370-foot homer, while holding on hits ball 480-feet, pitch velocity and location were same, timing was a little different, Physicist Dr. Alan Nathan says once bat is in motion hitter doesn’t have to hold onto bat at impact – force is already there, locking out at impact helps transfer energy better, look at all the data on batted balls that go the farthest – they look the same, arm is locked out, test hitting a fully inflated basketball exit speed should be around 80% of 1-rep max – if not then losing swing effectiveness, Newtonian Physics v. non-Newtonian Physics, Physics is limited to Physics (external forces), Bio-Mechanics is limited to Biomechanics, etc.
  • About about 57-minute mark, Perry answers question: “Best drill for being out in front all the time, always makes contact way out in front, weak hits and no power?” Every pitch location has one ideal contact point, make swing in slow motion to find what’s optimal, body is reaching too much, one drill: the “Riiiiiight-Now!” Drill (“Right” is at release, where impact is the “now”).
  • HittingIsAGuess.com @EVPerryHusband, special offer for any of his online courses use: EV25 discount code
  • Special offer from me the FREE print Catapult Loading System Book, just pay $8.95 Shipping & Handling (retails on Amazon for $19.97)https://www.truthaboutexplosiverotationalpower.com/pl/60039
Hitting Training For Baseball & Softball Swing Trainers | Hitting Performance Lab

 

Swing Experiments Defining Ground-balls, Fly-balls, and Line Drives

Defining terms is CRITICAL for a swing experiments.

This was a technical presentation that I gave to my local Toastmasters club about HOW TO keep swing experiments objective.

What we’re covering in the above video presentation:

  • How important maintaining an objective process & avoiding the destruction cargo cult sciences causes,
  • What is the scientific method?
  • Evolution of my swing experiments (visit: http://gohpl.com/swingexperiment to learn how to do a swing experiment), and
  • How far I’ve come since my 11 year old swing experiment…

CLICK HERE to download presentation PDF cliff notes.

CLICK HERE to download presentation power-point slides.

The following books and resources were mentioned in this presentation: