TR,
Couldn’t disagree with you more except maybe when you said increased strength doesn’t help hitting in a post a couple months ago.
Even the most fundamentally sound top hitters may not hit the top level pitching if they don’t see it on a regular basis. It’s not unusual for most all rookie hitters at all levels to go through an adjustment level and struggle. It happens to college freshman that now face pitching that even the worse pitchers may be better than the top pitchers they faced at the high school level. The same goes for players in the minors who not only have to face better pitching, but also now have to face it with wood. Some players who were considered good hitters at the previous level will now be eliminated while the players that are truly top hitters will soon come to the top. Many of the players that fail to hit at their new level have broke mechanics or lack enough bat speed.
When you say that “real good hitters have more problems with mediocre pitching”, I don’t accept it and if that is truly the case, I don’t believe they were truly a real good hitter. Does this same hitter do well in batting practice against even worse than mediocre pitching? Then why do you accept the excuse that they can’t hit mediocre pitching during games because it’s not tough enough for them? I say the problem is either a breakdown in mechanics, mental or both.
When you say, “Hitters" are Hitters no matter what the pitching level” you underscore exactly what my main point of my initial post is. It is possible and in fact highly probable that a hitter can be a “hitter” against high school pitching but not be able to hit high-level college pitching. The two likely causes like I mentioned earlier are either, their bat speed may be enough to catch up to high school pitching speed but not faster or their swing fundamentals do not allow them to get their hands through on better pitching or some similar fault.
So that brings up the point of my initial post that seemed to have received very little interest the first time around. I contend that one of the reasons that there are truly very few hitters that eventually will hit top level pitching is because of the lack of training and instruction they get at an age where it might do them some good.
One of the reasons I believe is that many people see a young kid hitting the ball well and automatically believe that nobody should even suggest that the kid might need to make some changes. It’s too bad because while they may be successful at the level they currently are, they eventually are going to find that their swing mechanics will eventually hold them back.
So TR, when you say coaching may have nothing to do with it, I believe that coaching may have a lot to do with it. The problem is that by the time someone who may really know what they are doing tries to work with the kid, his mechanics has been ingrained so much that the only way to really help him at this point might be to break both his arms and just have him start over.
Parents and coaches, if you really want to develop a player for the next level, you need to look ahead and not get hung up on how your son was the top hitter at the recently completed Little League or high school district games”.
When you are lucky enough to find someone or the right information to improve your swing for the next level, do not give into the temptation to say, “Don’t change Little Johnny’s swing; he’s hitting good”.