For those of you looking for a way to convince your hitters that line drives are the best way to go, try tracking your hitters so you can get the minimal information on BIPs of name, ball trajectory, and whether it’s a hit or not. From that you can generate this metric, and if it doesn’t get through some of those thick skulls, you need to try to replace them. 
The 1st 2 pages are the hitters and the last page is the pitchers.
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For those of you looking for a way to convince your hitters that line drives are the best way to go, try tracking your hitters so you can get the minimal information on BIPs of name, ball trajectory, and whether it’s a hit or not. From that you can generate this metric, and if it doesn’t get through some of those thick skulls, you need to try to replace them.
The 1st 2 pages are the hitters and the last page is the pitchers.
Stats - These numbers support what most people would probably think by default. A line drive by definition allows less time for fielders to get to the spots to defend the ball so you have the classic "at'em" as part of the lexicon.
The field gets much larger when defenders radius is decreased to a step or two in the infield from 4 or 5 on a grounder or maybe 7 or 8 or more on pop ups.
In the outfield a ball pulled by a right hand batter on a line to leftfield is going into a area that is approximately 200' deep and probably 75' or more wide or approximately 15,000 square feet. On a line drive that gets out in 1+ seconds a left fielder might be able to cover 7 strides of 5 feet so is covering a 70 foot square box or nearly 5,000 square feet. This would result in approximately 67% of the area from left center field to the line from 125' to 325' deep from the plate open for the ball to fall.
Conversely if the ball hangs for say 4 seconds a single defender can probably cover nearly 50 yard square area (25 yards in every direction) which is 100% of the leftfield area so a ball would have to be at the deepest extremes of the area to be defended and the outfielder would have to be very shallow in order for it to fall.
I have not done the math on it but any ball that takes 4+ seconds to go up and come down probably has a very limited chance of falling if the defenders are spaced evenly, get decent jumps and take clean routes.
He isn't going to hit the ball as far because he is 6 and they are 8. Just relax. As a parent you need to teach him that it is a process. Right now it is about the process and not the results.
If your stats are right he's batting .895. He may not understand...but just tell him the higher numbers are better. Then pull up the MLB batting leaders. When he sees that the top major league hitters are at .340 and he's .895 he'll understand...and probably think he's pretty darned cool 
Have him turn 15. But then you would miss all the fun stuff kids do between being 6 and being a PITA teenager
Seriously, though, you've come to the right place.
1. Relax. Stop keeping track of your 6 y.o.'s batting average.
2. Enjoy him being the age he is. Ask yourself why you came to a HS baseball website when your son is just six.
3. Since you did come here, keep checking in on this site. It will help you avoid some of the pitfalls we made as overzealous parents of athletic kids.
4. If you want him to hit it harder, make a FUN game out of it. I tossed dense foam training balls at my son in the back yard and told him he'd win a prize if he broke one of the windows.
Have him play with other 6 year olds?
He isn't going to hit the ball as far because he is 6 and they are 8. Just relax. As a parent you need to teach him that it is a process. Right now it is about the process and not the results.
Have him turn 15. But then you would miss all the fun stuff kids do between being 6 and being a PITA teenager
Seriously, though, you've come to the right place.
1. Relax. Stop keeping track of your 6 y.o.'s batting average.
2. Enjoy him being the age he is. Ask yourself why you came to a HS baseball website when your son is just six.
3. Since you did come here, keep checking in on this site. It will help you avoid some of the pitfalls we made as overzealous parents of athletic kids.
4. If you want him to hit it harder, make a FUN game out of it. I tossed dense foam training balls at my son in the back yard and told him he'd win a prize if he broke one of the windows.
These two guys - listen to them.
Flush all the numbers until he turns into a teenager and even then keep them at a distance. Don't get me wrong the numbers are good but sometimes you can't get past certain numbers because the focus is on them instead of doing things correctly. Once that ball leaves the bat there is nothing else your son can do to determine a hit or an out / error. Control the things you can control, which is good swing mechanics, good approach, good mental state, attack mindset, and the rest will fall into place.
But seriously he's six - if you get worked up over at six how you going to be when he's 16 and people who matter start watching him play? Let him enjoy the game and then go get ice cream after then talk about how great the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are.
