Help with timing issue

Has he tried counting to 1 or 2 after the pitcher releases, before he begins his stride?

Is he beginning his swing before his front foot lands? His front hip should begin to open after toe touch and during heel drop.

Well, it certainly sounds like he has made a cognitive decision, here lately (to paraphrase your words), to pull the baseball.

Focus on nothing but hitting the ball gap to gap. I'm assuming you are baseball savvy enough to know what and how to accomplish that during cage work? It will likely take longer to turn it around than it did to get to this point. The famous coaching phrase; "trust your ................s (fill in the blank)" comes to mind.

Other than posted above two other things he can also do. 1) Focus on hitting the inside of the ball. 2) Work with him in the cage on hitting the ball exclusively to the opposite field.

Start with a T and set up the ball on the outer half of the plate and deep and then make him hit everything away. Move to live throwing and keep the ball on the outer half of the plate and repeat. Then lob the ball to him (simulate the trajectory of a curve) and make him wait and hit the ball the opposite way. This will make force him to adjust his timing by a considerable amount and will get his focus on the inner half of the ball. One other thing to check making sure his stride is not drifting open without really realizing it.

C o c k the hips (as Williams describes in The Science of Hitting) and do not stride to balance. Good hitters do not use their front leg intentionally. The rear hip is far more important than the front leg.

These are some great tips. We will work on this stuff and I'll get back with you.
Thanks sooooo much.

If you start early you will be early. If you start late, you will be late. If you start on time you will be on time.

Front heel should drop when the ball is halfway to the plate.

When he loads he just comes up on his toe, then comes down (doesnt stride). Are you saying he's just starting his load too soon?

It's more likely mental, not mechanical. tell him to intend to hit the right center gap if he's RH. Visualize it.

quote:

Originally posted by Low Finish:
This is bad. He should pick up his whole foot. He can no-stride, but he shouldn't just raise and drop the heel. You need to pick up the foot to get torso activation.

Couldn't disagree more. Whether or not the toe is touching is irrelevant to "torso activation" if you mean what I think you mean.

Anything that happens before that front heel touches the ground is preference as long as the posture and alignment are correct.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with dropping the front heel and turning and is rather a good fix for many ailments.

quote:

Originally posted by NDD:

quote:

Originally posted by Low Finish:
This is bad. He should pick up his whole foot. He can no-stride, but he shouldn't just raise and drop the heel. You need to pick up the foot to get torso activation.

Couldn't disagree more. Whether or not the toe is touching is irrelevant to "torso activation" if you mean what I think you mean.

Anything that happens before that front heel touches the ground is preference as long as the posture and alignment are correct.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with dropping the front heel and turning and is rather a good fix for many ailments.

It depends what you want to teach. If you're teaching a certain pattern, it's a fine way to teach. There are MLB and non-MLB patterns. I'm not going to jump into what is MLB and what is not MLB because it'll end up as a ****ing match.

Joe Dimaggio is arguably the greatest no-strider of all time. He picked his whole foot up. Edmonds did it too. To be completely honest, there is no stride in MLB hitting. There is coil-uncoil, something else I won't go into.

quote:

Originally posted by Low Finish:


It depends what you want to teach. If you're teaching a certain pattern, it's a fine way to teach. There are MLB and non-MLB patterns. I'm not going to jump into what is MLB and what is not MLB because it'll end up as a ****ing match.

Joe Dimaggio is arguably the greatest no-strider of all time. He picked his whole foot up. Edmonds did it too. To be completely honest, there is no stride in MLB hitting. There is coil-uncoil, something else I won't go into.

Glad we could agree.

Jim Edmonds Home Run Up on toe, dropping heel. Not picking up whole foot off the ground.

DiMaggios Stride Striding, albeit not much.

Pujols "Striding" back to up on toe, dropping heel and turning.

Cabrera No stride in MLB hitters?

Bonds "NOT" Striding

quote:

Originally posted by Low Finish:
To be completely honest, there is no stride in MLB hitting.

There are TONS of MLB hitters who stride. Just as example, if you go to NDD's link on Cabrera and look at the related player swings, the first six that come up all stride. Mauer, Votto, Giambi, Sandoval, Chipper, etc, etc.
Not just lifting and replacing... gaining ground.

Put the cursor on the front foot before they start then look where their foot is v. the cursor - STRIDE!

quote:

Originally posted by cabbagedad:

quote:

Originally posted by Low Finish:
To be completely honest, there is no stride in MLB hitting.

There are TONS of MLB hitters who stride. Just as example, if you go to NDD's link on Cabrera and look at the related player swings, the first six that come up all stride. Mauer, Votto, Giambi, Sandoval, Chipper, etc, etc.
Not just lifting and replacing... gaining ground.

There is no stride. There is coil-uncoil (forward by coiling) You have no time to stride when you're facing 90 mph fastballs, along with cutters, curveballs, sliders, and any other nasty pitch that you can come up with.

Do me a favor. Stand on one leg. Slightly IR the back leg. Pull back with the core. The leg should feel like it's going one way, and the hip should feel like it's going the other way.

You'll move forward without trying to move forward. If you don't believe me, do it on two legs and open up when you pick up the foot.

Note: The press of the foot should be the interior part. The pressure should be in the big toe region.

quote:

Originally posted by Low Finish:


There is no stride. There is coil-uncoil (forward by coiling) You have no time to stride when you're facing 90 mph fastballs, along with cutters, curveballs, sliders, and any other nasty pitch that you can come up with.

Do me a favor. Stand on one leg. Slightly IR the back leg. Pull back with the core. The leg should feel like it's going one way, and the hip should feel like it's going the other way.

You'll move forward without trying to move forward. If you don't believe me, do it on two legs and open up when you pick up the foot.

Note: The press of the foot should be the interior part. The pressure should be in the big toe region.

You are quite simply wrong and were wrong about Edmonds and DiMaggio.

They are stepping forward. Like I said, use the cursor. They are picking the foot up in one place and placing it further forward - the very definition of stride.

Calling it something different doesn't change anything.

quote:

Originally posted by NDD:

quote:

Originally posted by Low Finish:


There is no stride. There is coil-uncoil (forward by coiling) You have no time to stride when you're facing 90 mph fastballs, along with cutters, curveballs, sliders, and any other nasty pitch that you can come up with.

Do me a favor. Stand on one leg. Slightly IR the back leg. Pull back with the core. The leg should feel like it's going one way, and the hip should feel like it's going the other way.

You'll move forward without trying to move forward. If you don't believe me, do it on two legs and open up when you pick up the foot.

Note: The press of the foot should be the interior part. The pressure should be in the big toe region.

You are quite simply wrong and were wrong about Edmonds and DiMaggio.

They are stepping forward. Like I said, use the cursor. They are picking the foot up in one place and placing it further forward - the very definition of stride.

Calling it something different doesn't change anything.

The coil-uncoil process moves you forward. MLB players DO NOT stride. (caps for emphasis). Why?
There is no time for a stride. Two moves is one move too many. You have to be quick, because you have less than .4 seconds to make a decision and execute the swing. The stride 1. Doesn't allow you to "stay back" and 2. Takes up valuable time.

I know I won't change what you believe, but I hope you test it out.

quote:

Originally posted by Low Finish:

quote:

Originally posted by NDD:

quote:

Originally posted by Low Finish:


There is no stride. There is coil-uncoil (forward by coiling) You have no time to stride when you're facing 90 mph fastballs, along with cutters, curveballs, sliders, and any other nasty pitch that you can come up with.

Do me a favor. Stand on one leg. Slightly IR the back leg. Pull back with the core. The leg should feel like it's going one way, and the hip should feel like it's going the other way.

You'll move forward without trying to move forward. If you don't believe me, do it on two legs and open up when you pick up the foot.

Note: The press of the foot should be the interior part. The pressure should be in the big toe region.

You are quite simply wrong and were wrong about Edmonds and DiMaggio.

They are stepping forward. Like I said, use the cursor. They are picking the foot up in one place and placing it further forward - the very definition of stride.

Calling it something different doesn't change anything.

The coil-uncoil process moves you forward. MLB players DO NOT stride. (caps for emphasis). Why?
There is no time for a stride. Two moves is one move too many. You have to be quick, because you have less than .4 seconds to make a decision and execute the swing. The stride 1. Doesn't allow you to "stay back" and 2. Takes up valuable time.

I know I won't change what you believe, but I hope you test it out.

I have been testing it out for over 40 years. Yes they do stride and you are still wrong. The definition of stride is to take a single long step. That is exactly what those that use it do. How long it is varies.

I have shown you videos that give clear pictures that everything you have said in this thread is incorrect. You are arguing with a video camera.

Put the shovel down son.

A hitter has from the time he steps in the box, until 0.2 seconds before the ball crosses the plate, to execute his stride/weight shift.

He has plenty of time.

Fine, I don't want to argue this any longer. It's obvious to those who have felt. Goodnight gents.

quote:

Originally posted by Eaglecoach:
My son has been way out in front of everything here lately. It doesn't matter if pitcher throws 60 or 85. And forget about staying back on a curve or change. He's not casting but pulling everything bad. Pulling a lot of foul balls and fouling pitches off the end of the bat. Any ideas how I can fix this?

Can you post a video?

OK, I promised to stop debating about this, but I'm bad at keeping promises. There is a linear move forward, and I will not dispute that. This linear move forward is not caused by the hitter physically picking up his foot and moving it forward. It is caused by a twisting around the rear leg that causes rear foot eversion.

If you twist around the rear leg correctly, your Center of Gravity will lower. This is how MLB players stay back. Hip c o c k/ hip coil are the way it's done. If you maintain a form of pressure between the legs, you will have additional adjustability. This does not mean don't open up into toe touch. Rotation into toe touch is very good. But you shouldn't actively open your front leg or actively keep your front foot closed.

You have already been shown. We are ruining eaglecoach's thread. If you want to argue about this, I'm your Huckleberry but not here. Perhaps we can get a mod to split the discussion off into another thread. I am not going to post any more about this in this thread. Eaglecoach came here asking for advice on a specific issue, that should be respected.

Yes, I agree, I will start another thread.

quote:

Originally posted by Walawala:
If you start early you will be early. If you start late, you will be late. If you start on time you will be on time.

Front heel should drop when the ball is halfway to the plate.

Many times when a hitter starts his load late, he rushes through it and ends up uncontrollably pulling off the ball. In other words... Late with the timing of the load can lead to the barrel flying to the pull-side too early.

I bet the hitter being discussed here is late getting started and rushing through his swing as the pitch approaches him. (reason why he can't lay off the off-speed in the dirt)