Batting practice help

I sat in on a coaching conference that Kevein Long, Yankess hitting coach, was a part of. When he works in a one and one situation he starts with t Tee, works to frontal toss, and back to BP behind an L screen. He has the players work back to the L. In discussing situation I was also watching a piece on the Yankees and when they get to there final round of BP one of the hitters from each group will give the player a scenario, i.e. runner at 3rd 1 out 6 inning down by 1, and the hitter takes his next cut with that approach.

quote:

Originally posted by Rock Bottom:
My son wants more BP than he's getting with his high school team. Will try to throw to him twice a week, maybe three as summer ball gets closer. I'm looking for feedback on how I can be of most help to him.

He doesn't get many swings at practice and a lot of what he gets comes underhand from a screen about 20 feet away.

Please share your thoughts on BP.

Some of my questions include:

What mental approaches do you cover? (I know Rusty Staub approached BP swings as if he were up in a certain game situation.)

What are your 2-3 best drills? (When he struggles he usually opens up his front hip and the head goes, too.)

How do you utilize the tee?

At what distance do you throw BP from?

Do you vary the distances and if so in what order?

How many swings per round?

Do you advocate getting in and out of the box after each hit?

I'd welcome any other thoughts as well.

Thanks in advance for your help.

RB ~

Mental approach: hit line drives, BP isn't home run derby. Hit the ball squarely and the home runs will come.

Drills: Stretch and Fire, Happy Gilmore (Walk-up). If he's pulling his head out, I suggest you look somewhere outside of the front hip. That's not what's causing it.

Tee use: Tees are for the cage, in between live BP sessions. I use them.

Distance: From the front of the mound, probably 50-55 feet away. No variation.

Number of swings: Depends on time. If pitching to one person, 3 rounds of 15 swings.

Movement in and out of box: No, we're focusing on hitting. Step out only if you have an issue making contact.

Wow this could be a very long response if I'm not careful.

I start with tee work. Long tee (hitting the ball the length of the cage). This is handy for stretching out and getting loose, but these should still be quality reps. By the end he should be hitting line drives to the back of the cage. I have kids aim for the oppo corner most of the time.

Next we work front toss. 15 feet or so tops. This is a good time to isolate problems and work on fixes. Sometimes we use thundersticks and golf wiffle balls to mix it up. Sometimes we move the L-screen to the oppo side and toss at an angle. Sometimes we bounce the ball in to mix up timing. Front toss is probably my favorite thing to do. Lots of options.

BP I would throw from up to 55 feet based on your ability. If the farthest back you can pound the strike zone is 40 feet than do that. Nothing makes it harder to get quality reps than 1 strike for every 10 throws.

As far as the rounds, again, there are a ton of options. We never take more than 10 swings in a round. I've found kids tire and can develop or reinforce bad habits.

We do a 4-3-2-1 BP. 1st round is 4 swings with an 0-0 count. Next is 3 swings with a 2-0/3-1 count. 2 swings with a 2 strike count. And last is 1 swing with a runner at 3b and less than 2 outs.

We also do a "routine" BP. I'm a big believer in an in-box routine between pitches. In this BP they do step out after every swing, go thru whatever their routine is, and get back in. Slower and a little more focused. Fewer swings per round, but I've found it beneficial.

As long as you have a plan for every round or swing you'll be fine. I'm a big believer in fewer but more focused swings these days. I like kids to get to be able to feel every swing so they can make adjustments themselves when needed. 100 focused and thought about swings is better than 250 with no learning process.

Also, FILM! It's a great tool. Get the swing reader app for the iphone or find a flip cam. Download Kinovea ( http://www.kinovea.org/en/?page_id=3 ) and use it. Great way for kids to learn rather than just being told what they're doing wrong.

I reccomend front toss behind an L screen from about 20 feet away on one knee directly in front of the batter..you can increase speed easily to quicken the swing and throw plenty of strikes,,,after that go to the normal mound length and try to give the kid some good strikes to hit..*HOPEFULLY*..THEN move back to about 90 feet and throw balls for strikes *HOPEFULLY*..this gives the kid the ability to WAIT..that in my opinion is very important.no side toss..nobody hits balls comming from the side..why practice that way?

Seeing I can't hit the strike zone enough from 40-55', I usually sit on a bucket behind L-screen about 30-35' away. This brings pitches in nice and flat.

But now it makes me wonder, does the fact that my son gets NO BP at home from 50+ feet mess up his timing? (He does get normal BP distance in practices, but limited reps, i.e. 10-20 per practice).

You need to work on all the BP variations noted above: Tees, Soft toss, and live.

All have different and important necessities.

Tee work is for working on swing fundamentals, soft toss is good for pitch location variation (low in, low out, etc.), and live for timing.

If you concentrate on the timing aspect, he may lose fundamentals and ability to hit varying locations. All three must be worked on so if he's getting zero live pitching you need to do it, find a reliable & suitable batting cage faciilty, or have son tell coach he wants some extra BP after practice and see if there's a teammate available that would like/need some extra pitching reps....

But what I'm saying is that from 30-35' feet, I can throw with a little zip on it and still work on various locations. We don't use the tee much during the season.

FWIW, we have a cage in our yard, so access isn't an issue.

My question was a bit of a tangent from the original post, and specifically regarding the effect of close pitching on timing.

IEBSBL;

you are correct with the suggestions of Kevin Long.I would add the "high tee" to any drill and if a parent is throwing daily BP, he needs to mix up the speed and location of pitchers. If you can add a "plastic cover" ball it makes a great slider.

Jim Lentine former Rangers hitting instructor and ML player from Southern California
traveled to Australia with our Rangers team coached by Jim and Dave LaRoche [Yankees pitcher]. One of the Sandberg's [Jared] also traveled and he struck out 3 times in our 1st game in Adelaide, South Australia. He "sat out" the next game and Jim worked with Jared for 2 hours and then we placed Jared in the line-up as a PH. Jared hit a 3 run HR and then over the next 10 games he hit 8 HR.

There is an addition to this story.

Bob

Thanks for taking the time. Lots of help here. I really appreciate it.
RB~

Some good suggestions here, I just wanted to commend you and your son for wanting to work more and him giving a good effort. Too many kids just do the minimum and don't understand why they are not doing so well. It's nice to see someone with a passion for the game willing to put in the work.That trait will be useful to him to in the "real world" in his life and at his job. Good luck to you.

It seems like many HS programs do not take quality BP, as a result the kid does not develop his hitting skill.

My recommendation is Tee work at home daily. 30 - 50 swings, that are smooth and relaxed. Work on hitting the inside part of the ball, which will allow you to use the middle of the field, create back spin and loft.

Get to the cage for live BP 1-2 per week. Tough to do sometimes. 30 minutes from 50-60 feet, and mix up the pitches.

This is a repetition game. Not many of us can fall off the apple cart and hit.

SDlefty;
you did not add the "high tee" drill to your daily BP.

also the tire drill.
Bob

PS: is your son a Senior?

Great question. High school bp is all a matter of repetitions with purpose. So often high school bp is structured to get 25-35 cuts working on very little that relates to hitting in a game. Front toss is great if structured. Let me back up to a bp progression. Like to start working off the tee. Set the ball in the middle of the body. This is deep and we never will hit the ball this deep in game, but we are over emphasizing keeping our hands inside the ball. Work to the oppo gap. We want to be able to hit line drives consistently doing this. Rembember everything we do in bp needs to be a sequential progression. I would then recommend putting tee on outer half of plate at contact point which is a little deeper on outer half (2-3 inches)deeper and work to oppo gap. Then put tee at contact point to drive back through the middle (front knee is contact point). Then put tee at contact point to work to pullside gap. contact point would be inner half 7-8 inches out front of front knee. So many hitters try to "cheat" to get to this pitch. They want to open front side thinking this is correct bat path. This is actually counter productive as you are gaining length deep in the hitting zone instead of out front. To correctly get to inside pitch, hands still stay inside ball with front side staying closed. High tee is also good drill to work on working down and through the ball. All tee drills i would prefer to use either half cage or full cage as you get so much more feedback as compared to hitting into net 3-4 feet away. Front toss is great if structured correctly. I would follow a similar progression as well. We can actually take front toss and progress to where we are making front toss game like in terms of mixing up location and changing speeds. Why do we want to change speeds in front toss? Teaching hitters to stay back. Approach!! This is what separates hitters. So many hitters step in box with very little idea of what they are trying to do. Our approach is very simple. We step in box are sitting on fastball every single pitch (never guessing) and adjusting to off speed trying to drive every single pitch back through the middle. We like our guys to try and stay gap to gap. With this apporach if we are a little eary we are in good shape, if we are a little late we are in good shape. If we get off speed we have not "opened front side" creating length deep in hitting zone getting us in trouble as well. Several years ago when Randy Johnson was still in his prime i heard some major league hitters say they would sit on 1 pitch and if they did not get it they simply would not swing. That is exception to rule. Their methodology was their is no way i can look for 98 mph fastball and hit his slider and vice versa. High school little different. Avg. guy is 80-83 with avg/decent breaking ball. If we are looking off speed and get fastball unless very gifted you are beat. Much easier to look fb and adjust to off speed. As far as live bp always hit with a purpose. Working oppo, middle, inner half, what we call read (working on approach and mix locations and speed)looking fastball and trying to drive back through middle. After 8 cuts, catch breath. If you stay in and take 25-30 without catching breath you can develop bad habits due to fatigue. In terms of head coming off ball, we see it everyday.
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