Hitting Oppo to develop power

I'm curious how time affects this. My son has a slightly uphill swing, but I think his timing is not right, resulting in pops up. Meaning he got on the plane with the ball, but it was too late. Does that result in pop-ups? Does that make sense?

Kane: Listen to the 2 experts on hitting. Tony Gwynn and Ted Williams

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lDK9CAbSc8

"Proper thinking" Keep it basic, do not over analysis.

Bob

@Kane Holland posted:

I'm curious how time affects this. My son has a slightly uphill swing, but I think his timing is not right, resulting in pops up. Meaning he got on the plane with the ball, but it was too late. Does that result in pop-ups? Does that make sense?

This question really can't be accurately addressed as you haven't given enough details. Slow-Motion Video would be needed for a definitive answer. After all, your kid might have a great swing, but is chasing high fastballs??? maybe he is too small to hit it over someone's head??? etc....

However, from my experience I would bet money it's bat-drag. A lot of guys deal with it and don't even know it.

My best guess to answer your question:

One of the most important parts to a swing happens at front foot contact. At this point your back elbow/shoulder needs to have moved back towards the dug-out. Bat drag will happen when the upper-half lacks proper timing and separation with the lower-half. Classic example is when you see the back elbow racing out in-front of the hands. It happens in fractions of a second and is hard to pick up in real-time. You've basically pre-maturely started your swing. This causes you to loose awareness of the barrel as it drops below the plane of the ball. Very simple way to see this happen is to hold a bat with just your top hand and then start to slot your elbow in front of your hand. You'll see that the barrel falls pretty quickly. This will result in a lot of pop-ups on average pitchers, swing and misses on fast pitchers, and rolled over pull-side ground balls against slow pitchers. Guys can look very good in a cage and have bat drag. Basically they get very use to the timing of BP; however, against live pitchers batting issues become real apparent real fast. Old-timers would say you've got a "long swing".

Seems to me that the official scorer could go either way. I believe it’s no different for an outfielder to field the ball on a hop than an infielder; if he likely would have been out with a good throw, I could definitely see it being scored an error.

Kane;

listen to Willie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyfLxQjV38A

he adjusted his swing when the left field wind and fog at 7 PM cut down his home runs,  he changed his swing to hit the "long ball" to right center field at Candlestick Park.

"True Story"

Bob

a topic that never stops giving...you could leave this site for the next 20 years, log back on and be able to find a thread dissecting the hardest thing in sports to succeed at! There will never ever be agreement but about 90% of will be agreed upon but the terminology and definitions will never allow that to be agreed on!!

Let it travel / hit it out in front...LOL endless disagreement on the exact same thing.

@old_school posted:

a topic that never stops giving...you could leave this site for the next 20 years, log back on and be able to find a thread dissecting the hardest thing in sports to succeed at! There will never ever be agreement but about 90% of will be agreed upon but the terminology and definitions will never allow that to be agreed on!!

Let it travel / hit it out in front...LOL endless disagreement on the exact same thing.

A lot of what people believe has to do with their own experience. Personally I put a lot more stock in what former players say because they have actually done it. I was a front foot hitter and was never taught the rotational approach to hitting. This had a lot to do with me becoming a PO in college. So I don’t profess to be an expert on hitting. But I will use my youngest son as an example. He is an exceptional athlete and hitting came naturally to him. In HS he developed some bad habits that held him back. His swing was too uphill and he tried to pull everything. Baseball people could see the potential but the results were inconsistent. He had some big moment hits but his senior year he hit for a .241 average in a very tough district. I got him with a hitting instructor (who was the AA hitting instructor for the Cubs at the time) and he fixed his swing. He taught him to let the ball travel and take an opposite field approach. He also got rid of the exaggerated uphill bat path. The results were eye popping. The pop ups and warning track fly balls were gone. He was back spinning the baseball and strike outs were down too. His freshman year of JuCo ball there were stretches where nobody could get him out. He went into the JuCo World Series hitting.410 for the season and his OPS was right at 1.000. So you can put me squarely in the “let the ball travel “ category.

@adbono posted:

A lot of what people believe has to do with their own experience. Personally I put a lot more stock in what former players say because they have actually done it. I was a front foot hitter and was never taught the rotational approach to hitting. This had a lot to do with me becoming a PO in college. So I don’t profess to be an expert on hitting. But I will use my youngest son as an example. He is an exceptional athlete and hitting came naturally to him. In HS he developed some bad habits that held him back. His swing was too uphill and he tried to pull everything. Baseball people could see the potential but the results were inconsistent. He had some big moment hits but his senior year he hit for a .241 average in a very tough district. I got him with a hitting instructor (who was the AA hitting instructor for the Cubs at the time) and he fixed his swing. He taught him to let the ball travel and take an opposite field approach. He also got rid of the exaggerated uphill bat path. The results were eye popping. The pop ups and warning track fly balls were gone. He was back spinning the baseball and strike outs were down too. His freshman year of JuCo ball there were stretches where nobody could get him out. He went into the JuCo World Series hitting.410 for the season and his OPS was right at 1.000. So you can put me squarely in the “let the ball travel “ category.

and that is fair but not all former players communicate the same or even agree.

For the kid who timing mechanism is a hair late or whom naturally hits the ball to all fields letting it travel is a disaster...mine was the opposite, he went to college and tried to be the big bobber they asked for, worked on hitting the ball up (elevate and celebrate) and pulling more. It didn't work, I told him point blank what they said was not relevant because they weren't gonna play him when he sucked doing their way but they might if he was good at doing it his way. It worked out well for everyone but there was a hell of a lot frustration in the middle.

My younger son was dead opposite, I constantly told him to let it get there! His miss was always pulling out early and jumping at the ball. He needed entirely different que to hit the ball in the same damn place.

There will never agreement.

I understand that not the same thing works for every player. That fact is lost on a lot of coaches who believe in one thing and one thing only - and a lot of kid’s careers are ruined by that mentality.

adbono do you happen to remember what the Cubs AA hitting coach did to end the uphill swing? Your son was exactly where mine is now...lots of power...very uphill...when he hits it hard it has a sound and trajectory that's really good...but something is just off a bit...if it got corrected he could be really good...jut got to be more consistent. 

Edcoach;

have you used the "high tee" drill?

Bob

Hi Bob...we do the high tee drill some...maybe he needs to do lots more of it! :-)

@edcoach posted:

Hi Bob...we do the high tee drill some...maybe he needs to do lots more of it! :-)

Bob beat me to it. Set up the tee on the back side outside corner.

ED and Adbono;

it is a "great drill" watch the demo by Ripken. When you place the tee as Adbono stated aim to different sections of the cage. The hitter that achieve the great results was Paul O'Neill.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nstgnb1tv9k

Bob

thank you Bob

My son is a current college Baseball player.  According to him, these days, you don’t have time to be overly selective.  Pitchers have too much “filth” with their secondary pitches.  You gotta jump on the first fastball in the strike zone you see, be on time, and be able to hit to all fields.

In practice, working on hitting Oppo helps you learn to be balanced and stay level through your swing.  In games, you really shouldn’t be thinking a whole heckuva lot in the batters box.

Coaches do love oppo power though.  And last I checked, they are the ones who fill out the lineup card

3and2 I think your son is spot on if he's a D1 player...at D2 Id say 25% of the pitchers you better hunt the first fastball...the rest seem to give in or make mistakes later in the count.  I sit behind home plate at most of our games and I can tell you I saw hundreds of examples our pitchers would get the other hitters 0-2 or 1-2 and then leave a fastball over the plate to get crushed....over and over....other teams did it too...maybe not their top1 or 2 starters or top reliever, but it happened a lot...but still, I agree, go after first good fastball and be able to hit all over the field

I do believe in hitting the ball out front, after getting to a balanced position  (50/50, 60/40 ish) after stride and then staying behind the ball.  At that point the ball needs to travel, but definitely not as deep as say belly button, by that time you are probably blown up.  but you can't go out getting it either and be at the end of your extension.   if you are balanced, head between legs, you don't need the ball to get so deep as you do if you are leaning back on your back leg, you are able to cover the outside pitch with good bat direction and path and still hit it fair say just inside the front knee.  It's all relative to your position.

IF you lean back or collapse/tilt back then you have to get the ball deep, say back corner of plate in order to reach anything middle away. otherwise your bat is in and out of the zone too early, ie running out of barrel.  If you go out to get it and are then too early, you are in and out of the zone, and lack adjust-ability to off speed.

I think in teaching you have to be really careful how what you say is interpreted, cues like Stay back, let it travel, hit it out front, all can mean different things to different players.  You may need to tell one player to let it travel and another to get it out front, and often they end up being the same thing.  You may need to tell a guy to swing down and another to think up, to get them to swing on plane.  So I don't really get caught up in right or wrong when I hear the terms thrown out.  But if the coach is just throwing the term/cue out there and not giving any context or reason, that is not good.

Getting the ball out front does not mean Pull.

Sorry for the long post.

As far as the original topic,, hitting oppo to develop power, I think working to stay inside the ball, stay on the ball, and get the barrel through the ball with direction are all things that during batting practice help develop power and result in going the other way... in my mind there is no debating that pull side is going to be far more power, but it's a trap.  If you work to stay through the ball and happen to get a bit ahead, you will crush it pull side.  But I think you develop far more bad habits trying to pull than working oppo during practice.  But during games, I wouldn't force going the other way either, it should be a byproduct of pitch and location.

All fun topics I love to discuss.