Hitting outside pitches

I'm a bit confused....the plate is 17 inches in width.  The typical bat in High School is at least 31 inches.  That technically means the batter can stand 14 inches off the plate and still be able to hit an outside pitch...especially if he is extending his arms at all.

 

Why can't they make contact with the ball?

Sorry for mentioning, my son is playing 12U right now.  Most of them use bats that are 30".  So your point probably still holds true.  I don't think it's a matter of the bat being long enough - its a matter of approach.  Is teaching them to stand way back in the box a good thing? I don't know, and would like to know if someone else has heard of this.

If they are taught "rotational" hitting mechanics they are probably "over rotating" or spinning and thus pulling off the ball.  If they loose their front side too soon, they are toast.  The correction is to resist the rotation by keeping the back foot down, let the ball get deep and then pound it to the opposite field.  Good luck.    

My 2017 had the same problem back when he was 10 or so. He was a dead pull hitter.

Now he can hit wherever the ball is pitched. Get them on the tee and force them to hit to the opposite field. Bring hands in and hit opposite field only. Do this all summer until it feels natural.

Wabs, makes more sense now.

 

My son is also 12u and the standing back in the box is to give them some extra time to see the ball, to compensate for faster pitching, nothing to do with outside pitches.

 

As for the outside pitch problem, agree with rroque, they need to be taught to pull the ball.  Let me guess, when someone does get a hold of an outside pitch it just goes foul?

 

This has less to do with where they are standing at the plate and more to do with proper swing mechanics.  It doesn't sound like your coach is teaching them what to do with their body/bat to manipulate where the ball will go, some 12u coaches don't.

 

Might want to look into a private lesson with a reputable facility to have your son understand how his arm/him/leg movements affect where the ball will go.  Once he understands how that all works he should be able to hit any pitch in the strike zone and make it go where he wants it to, at least at 12u. 

Wow.  Nice subject.  Compliments to the OP.  Unfortunately you could write a book to answer this one.  I will try my best to be brief.  After all it will take caco half the day to read her PM I sent her.  Don't want to overwhelm too much!  First standing at the back of the box (nearer the catcher) is absolutely and unequivocally correct.  Less reaction time is NEVER a good thing.  So that extra fraction of a second you gain by being back helps.  Now I get that in youth ball you get some umps who want to call that low strike.  With a 6'2" 13u I feel this pain.  He gets strikes called at his shins regularly.  Moving up in the box may help these at least be knee high but it also decreases reaction time.  And again I believe if you won't do it at the highest levels don't do it now.  If your son gets called out on strikes with a shin high pitch its not the end of the world.  And there is no such thing as moving up in the box to 'get it before it breaks'.  This is yet another of the great baseball myths.  Plus if you believe it can have that much 'late break' then it will be a ball.  Now as for standing closer or further from the plate I always prefer closer.  Crowd the plate if you can.  Remember plate 'coverage' is a tricky thing.  Do some research on the node of a bat (sweet spot) its not as big as you think.  Hitting a ball squarely with the last inch of a bat doesn't do you much good.  Same thing on the handle.  So really you have to be able to cover the whole plate with the sweet spot.  This is where the key is to be up on the plate and let the ball travel to hit the outside pitch.  Hit the down the middle pitch out in front and hit the inside pitch well out in front.  Extension happens AFTER contact in all cases except when you are fooled and take a weak desparate cut.  so hopefully you are not being taught to throw your hands at the ball and extend to hit the outside pitch.  Then there is the down and away pitch.  Look at mlb batting averages on this one.  Not good.  Bottom line is if a pitcher can paint the black at the knees there all day he will win the war.  Plain and simple.  Got to take these early in the count and fight them off late.  There is very lose to zero percent chance of pulling these with power.  So don't swing or with 2 strikes try to just serve them into right field or foul it off.  This is one pitch you simply can not cover.  You would have to practically be standing on the plate.

Where a hitter stands, front or back of the box may depend on his bat speed. The standing away from the plate to hit the outside pitch is old school linear instruction. The idea is to see the ball better (questionable) and be forced to poke the ball the other way. Extend those arms when you hit. (geez ... shaking head)

 

Through kiddie ball to soph year of high school my son pulled everything. Outside pitches often caused grounders to second or quails to right. He spent the off season with a hitting instructor just working on letting the ball get deep and driving it the other way. It was done without altering his stance, swing or positioning in the box. His batting average went from .340 to .525. He wasn't getting less quality pull hits and power. The grounders and quails turned into line drives the other way. He was also bigger, stronger and a year older.

I would say many (most?) 12U players have trouble hitting outside pitches.  Also, many Little League umpires add an extra 6" to the outside part of the strike zone.  Given where you are in the season no major mechanical fixes are going to happen, so I'd suggest having the boys crowd the plate to they can get at the outside pitch.

 

It takes most hitters a lot of training to keep the front side in, let the ball travel deep and drive the ball the other way.  I would say lots of tee work and soft toss to that spot, and probably hitting lessons to learn the proper way to do it.

It is difficult to understand that the 12 year old pitchers can locate the pitch where they want to. Maybe you are taking too many good strikes.

 

Eddie Murray said "you will have only one good pitch each time AB - BE READY!

 

Teach your players to "slow the ball down" in their mind.  AND BE READY TO HIT!

NO take signs until 3 and zero.

 

Bob

After the curve, not being able to cover the outside pitch is the next separator of hitters.

 

My son got messed up at 10 by a coach that was a "pull" coach.  He ended up with a mess of stepping in the bucket, flying open, casting and yanking his head.

In order to cure it I had to force him to hit the other way and up the middle.  It made him stay balanced, keep his weight and hands back, front shoulder in, locate the ball and drive into it. We'd go to the batting cage and I would drop $10 and have him drive the ball into the opposite net for 150 swings.  Anything pulled or back at the machine was a bad swing.  I would move the rubber mat so he would have pitches the rode in that he inside outed, or back so the ball was 3 or more inches off the corner.  He got used to recognizing early where the ball was and the repetitions allowed him to get the muscle memory in his approach.  This was backed up by tee work that emphasized the same things.  At tournaments people would look at him funny when he hit off the tee that set the ball at his back foot and he was at a 45 to 60 degree angle into the net.  The stopped laughing when they saw him play.

 

The upshot was he became a dominant hitter at 11 and 12 that rarely hit the ball to the pull side of 2nd base. He became very hard to strike out, gobbled up the off speed pitch and killed any spinner curves he saw.  He was a little vulnerable to the good hard fastball in and occasionally got jammed.  Since there weren't that many guys at 12 that had 70 ish fastballs that actually came in to left handed hitters it didn't happen much and that tradeoff was worth the plate coverage.

 

It got him noticed as a 7th grader by the HS coach who put him on the JV for summer ball because he could hit the other way with authority which made him different and a more mature hitter than almost all the other 13 year old kids.

 

A player that cannot hit the other way will become a project for the coach and will be at a disadvantage if the HS has a deep pool of players. 

Luv I am wondering how old your son is now?  I think there is a happy medium here.  You need to be able to turn and burn on the inside fastball also.  Pulling the ball has become a dirty term for a lot.of people for some reason.  But all the best hitters can do it.  Early in the count I think you should look middle in and try to drive it.  Later in the count you go with the pitch.  The inside out swing is a valuable tool but really used when you were fooled and late on an inside fastball.  Don't know why you would intentionally want to inside out a ball.