Anyone have some strategies for hitters?

See the ball, hit the ball!

 

In my years around kids; they hear too many theories and are told too many things before during and after each at bat. Encourage them to be prepared (ie practice and practice some more) then take good swings and hit the ball hard. With more bats and more experience they will figure out the nuances of fouling off marginal pitches to get at another pitch. With experience they will learn how to work a count.

 

Hitting is hard enough; tell a kid to take a strike or two and you have made their job more difficult.

 

Most young players are that; young. Keep it simple, tell them to get in the box and swing at pitches they think the can hit. Period, nothing more!

Been there done that. lol.

 

Short and sweet

A to B

See the ball hit the ball

See straight and hit

 

I am at the point where I am going to give a must swing sign if I know the pitchers is throwing a fastball lol

If you are working on timing and load, then I'd recommend you do a lot of front toss.  In doing so, work on helping hitters establish their sequence as you throw the front toss.  Always have a timing mechanism built into your throw or toss and you can even call it out as you prepare to deliver the ball. 

 

If you are wanting to work on their hands, then you need to incorporate actions like "tip and rip" into their swing.  Donny Buster used to talk a lot about "rockin the U" and so that sequence work really helped my child but became better as we also included the "tip and rip."  I believe that if you google either one of those phrases and/or also Donny's name, you will come across other information on this. 

 

Finally, slow or dead hands are not the result of the hands alone.  The way a player loads has to also be focused on.  I don't talk hitting too much anymore as I don't care to get into the fray.  Take my advice with a grain of salt. 

Are your kids 13-14U playing up against older competition in the fall? If so, keep working and they will catch up.

 

If your kids are 17-18 year olds and can't catch up to 80, then tell them to sit on the offspeed.

 

If the kids aren't ready to hit, why not have them "pre-load" by getting some of their weight to their front ball of foot as the pitcher goes into his wind-up?  The kids will also be able to "feel" the load across the quads.  I found this re-packaging of the load instruction helped communicate better to those players who weren't doing what I thought was plainly expressed.

Passion 4

 

Go deeper in the box, erase the back calk line, do not step in the same hole as the previous hitter [you back side is then lower], keep the bat on the shoulder and then "explode".

If you desire a long look at the pitch, do you crowd the plate or step away?

Answer: step away

Bob

Now there's a sign I would love to see! 

You have "take" signs why not have a "swing" sign. LOL!

 

Seriously though

If I'm reading this a bit, sounds like they aren't loading cause they don't seem ready to hit.

 

Sounds mental to me.

Somewhere in this day and age of instruction, kids have gotten the idea that it's bad to swing at the first pitch and to take a lot of pitches.

They think good approach MEANS taking pitches.

 

Makes me want to put a pencil in my neck!

It is destroying good aggressive hitters as the get older facing pitchers who throw strikes and paint the corners.

I see more backword k's than ever before.

Tell them they have a bat in their hand for a reason.To swing it

Expect, look,PREDICT what that pitcher's going to throw within that at bat,related to the count.

Ahead in the count 2-0? EXPECT a fastball. The hair on your arms should be standing up. Your eyes should be lighting up. Tell yourself here comes a meatball.

CRUSH IT!

Instead they think they're halfway to a walk, might as well take a few more.

 

EXPECT the ump to call strikes even close, and that he's looking to ring you up.

Create a scenario where it's them (pitcher and umpire) against you.

They want you to fail.

Never stop teaching them the importance of being aggressive early, and when ahead in the count. It's everything. IMO

 

 

 

 

Some basic tips, teaches and cues we use in the cage to help those who are late on FB...

 

-"foot down early".  simplify the load, eliminate extra movement and focus on getting the front foot down slightly too early.  Once hitter is caught up you want to work back to the point where he is not so early that it creates breakdown of torque but early enough to allow proper timing of the rest of the swing.

  

-"stay-inside" drills - "short to it/long thru it".  Developing proper bat path will improve timing.

 

-"2" further out front" - controlled front toss with the focus on hitting back up the middle, first take hitter thru slo mo dry swing to identify ideal point of contact relative to the landed front foot.  Then have hitter focus on making contact two inches further out front.  Purely a drill to get the swing started sooner and not an ongoing swing thought.

 

-We also throw firm from a short mound but more like 45' so hitter can use normal load and mechanics.

 

-inside/outside tee work and front toss will help with recognition of necessary timing adjustments.

 

-strength trainging, both forearm/wrist specific and overall, will allow for quicker bat.  In addition to the strength program, working in an occasional top hand/bottom hand drill gives a pretty good indication of where they stand with wrist/forearm strength.

 

With some of these hitters, we also like to create a mental attitude of "swing till you're not".  The hitter's intention should be that they are swinging until they recognize that the pitch is not what they are looking for.  This reversed thought, as opposed to "look for a good pitch", usually results in a more aggressive hitter. 

 

Lastly, if you are working toward more aggressive and quicker, focusing on FB, you have to be consistent in your message.  For the time being, you can't ride them for swinging at pitches slightly outside the zone or getting fooled by being out front of a good off-speed pitch.  Applaud the aggressive approach until they become more accomplished at recognition.

 

 

I have moved my pitching ramp to about 30 feet and thrown hard BP to them to start their hands early.

 

Is it possible you've taken their legs out of the swing with this?

I see so much hitting instruction is focused on the hands that hitters begin to lose their lower half.  Tough to catch up to a fastball without the lower half firing because you're only thinking about "throwing the hands" or "start the hands early"

Just my 2cents.

hand cock and hip cock..does your kid load his hands? does your kid coil the lower half?..

I see the word “aggressive” being thrown around a lot. When you say an “aggressive hitter”, what do you mean, and how would you measure it?

When the bat travels 400'

 

Bob

 

Well Bob, I for one have never seen a bat travel 400’ on its own. But assuming you meant ball rather than bat, I’m taking it that you’d judge aggression by the distance a ball traveled once it was put into play, or bat exit speed. I fail to see how that measures aggression though. It might measure strength or bat speed, but batter aggression? I don’t think so.

 

On the other hand, if you really did mean bat, I assume you mean hitters who can’t hold onto the bat through a hard swing are therefore the most aggressive. Again, I really don’t see how that measures much of anything other than grip pressure through the swing. It also seems like it would be pretty silly if a coach told a player to be more aggressive and the play asked what you meant and you said throw the bat as far as you can.

 

Stats - are you a high school player or a grown adult? Just checking.

Passion i go up to the plate with the mindset that i am going to crush the ball. Which usually works out except for the times when i hit it hard and it is right a a defensive player which i cant do nothing about because that's baseball as long as i drilled the ball in my ab i am happy.

Originally Posted by PA2016Backstopdad:

Stats - are you a high school player or a grown adult? Just checking.

 

Why don’t you ask Bob? I asked about something addressed in this week’s SI, and I get some kind of childish answer as though the real answer was common knowledge. Of course everyone’s entitled to post anything they like, but if he doesn’t know the answer or doesn’t wish to even attempt to give an answer, why bother to take up server space?

 

Have you ever told a player to “be aggressive” or commented on a player being too passive or aggressive? If so, what did you mean and how would you measure it? Why is that such an unreasonable question?

Stats is an adult who wishes to challenge everything with numbers, thats why he asked how do you measure an aggressive hitter.

It was an another attempt to hijack the topic.

The comment about taking up server space is downright hysterical.

Maybe throw the hammer, the bat, the ball. "this is aggressive".

fficial&channel=sb&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=q4RNVP6RDcH2igLQmIHQDw&ved=0CCYQsAQ&biw=1357&bih=697" target="_blank">https://www.google.com/search?...biw=1357&bih=697.

 

Bob

 

 

AGAIN??  REALLY???

 

Another Stats hijack.  This is getting VERY tiresome.  As great a resource as this place is, it has become far less enjoyable to visit and participate because one antagonist is repeatedly allowed to  continue his shtick. 

 

Can our esteemed moderators, anyone, please explain why this is allowed to continue?  Am I the only one who thinks this is wearing on the integrity and appeal of the site? I am aware of the option to block someone but the feature becomes somewhat useless when he hijacks so many mainstream threads.  I hate to see this place go the wrong direction after the years of hard work and great efforts by so many.

 

Apologies to the OP... hope you got some decent feedback before the thread was wrecked.

       
       

A tendency to swing as opposed to not swing. Measure of aggressiveness may rise when pitches are swung at outside of strike zone. It is my mental definition and my definition may not really be quantifiably measured.

RFF,
What no stats?!!!!!!

The term "aggressive," at least for me, isn't that tough to define.  I want a player to walk to the plate with the "hit mentality" instead of taking a pitch.  As we all know, we might ask a player to look middle in and for a FB on a first pitch.  In the case of being "aggressive" a hitter might go to the plate with an idea to drive a 1st pitch FB gap to gap instead of just looking middle in for something to drive.  What it doesn't mean in my case is for a hitter to expand the zone early in the count.  That is foolish and helps the pitcher.  If I tell my hitters that we are being "aggressive" and "hitting backwards" then I am telling them that if they are looking for a 1st pitch off speed pitch or curveball, then they can jump on it. 

 

IMO, "aggressive" in no way means that a hitter has lost discipline at the plate.  I hope some of you agree.  As per Stats, he wants people to define their decisions statistically.  That's fine but most of us don't make decisions on stats alone.  He and I have had discussions before on this.  I coach using stats but also using my gut.  No, I can't verify how accurate my gut is.  However, I've looked kids in they eye before and just knew that I believed in them so much that they would have success because I showed them how much I believed in them.  I once watched a HC replace a first team all state player with is freshman brother who was every bit of 5'2" tall in the state championship game.  That little guy walked.  He was then replaced by his brother who stole second, was bunted to third and then squeezed home for a state title.  No stats could ever predict that.  LOL!

Count me in on the side of limiting Stats's posts and or full participation on this site. I know I would be more active if he wasn't allowed to talk at all. Just too tiresome and annoying to want get involved when he does his thing. And everyone knows it, but he keeps going on and on and on.

Guys, he's fishing and some of you always take the bait.  Just ignore him when he posts irrelevant stuff. 

When I say "aggressive" I mean swing the bat - even at balls.   Once the player has gotten to the point of needing to be told to be aggressive, they have watched too many strikes go by for a continuing patient approach.

 

Now to measure aggressivesness at the plate, I would begin tracking pitches per plate appearance for the team and swinging & called strikes.  Doing it for the team provides some context.

 

Once being aggressive becomes the instruction, the coach(es) has/have to stay committed to it and not send the player conflicting messages.

 

 

Google Steve Springer. He has some excellent CDs and DVDs on this topic. His mantra is, forget about batting average: hit the ball hard you win.

Originally Posted by RedFishFool:

A tendency to swing as opposed to not swing.

 

That seems to be the general definition of the SI article, as they say they measured aggressiveness as ratio of pitches seen to pitches swung at.

 

Measure of aggressiveness may rise when pitches are swung at outside of strike zone.

 

There’s the rub. I happen to agree, but I don’t know of any way, even with the help of pitch F/X, to get any REAL data on pitches swung at outside of the strike zone. It’s pretty easy to tell a pitch is out of the zone when the batter flails at one over the bill of his cap or chases something in the dirt, but those close pitches are much more difficult to determine from anyplace other than the umpire’s view. But maybe the true aggressive hitter does a lot of flailing and chasing.

 

It is my mental definition and my definition may not really be quantifiably measured.

 

I understand. There are many things like that in the game that are difficult if not impossible to measure, but as long as the observer, you, understands that and can communicate it to a player when he says “be aggressive” or something to that effect, its fine.

 

It’s only those who want to throw around such things, ASSUMING everyone they talk to thinks exactly the same way, that there a lot of miscommunication, and we all know what miscommunication promotes.

Originally Posted by CoachB25:

…As per Stats, he wants people to define their decisions statistically….

 

Actually, I don’t care one way or the other what decision is made. I try to get people to define things like that in such a way as to be able to prove why it is they have the belief they have. This has nothing at all to do with gut feelings or what’s right or wrong. It’s merely a matter of here’s a definition, and here’s how the numbers look when that definition’s applied.

 

I’m afraid you too have the belief that I insist that all decisions should be made using the numbers, but that’s completely wrong. I only advocate using the numbers to look at what actually took place as objectively as possible in order to assist in the decision making process, not replace it.

I stand corrected. 

Originally Posted by ephins:

When I say "aggressive" I mean swing the bat - even at balls.   Once the player has gotten to the point of needing to be told to be aggressive, they have watched too many strikes go by for a continuing patient approach.

 

That seems to be exactly how MLB defines it.

 

Now to measure aggressivesness at the plate, I would begin tracking pitches per plate appearance for the team and swinging & called strikes.  Doing it for the team provides some context.

 

This isn’t a knock, but rather just a question. Are you saying you don’t currently track those things?

 

Another question. When you say swinging strikes, would you include fouls, misses, and BIPs?

 

FWIW, the attachment’s a report on our hitters that I’ve been working on with some other folks. I added in the totals you suggested, then made all the pitperpas that were above the team average blue, suggesting they were less “aggressive”, and the ones below the team average red, suggesting they were more “aggressive”. The sort order is % of pitches swung at.

 

Once being aggressive becomes the instruction, the coach(es) has/have to stay committed to it and not send the player conflicting messages.

 

AGREE 100%!!! One of the reasons I like to see definitions is that eliminates many of those conflicting messages. By having a definition that’s the same for everyone, and having it measured, confusion diminishes.

Originally Posted by CoachB25:

I stand corrected. 

 

Absolutely no problem! But if you can be wrong, think about how many others are as well, and for no reason.

 

There’s some kind of built in “belief” that anyone who advocates the use of stats is insisting that they be the only thing used to make decisions, and that hasn’t changed since the 1850’s. It’s something folks like me live with. The thing that makes it tolerable is, it happens so often we just live with it and keep trying to tell those who believe we’re some kind of stat crazed nuts, that they’re misunderstanding what’s being said. The neat thing is, over the last 2 decades, more people are understanding what being said rather than believing what they THINK’S being said. It’s an education process on both sides, and sometimes it’s slow and painful. J