What do you do in practice to make your team get ready for a good pitcher throwing in the high 80s? What hitting drills do you do to get ready for a hard thrower? How do you get your team ready to put the ball in play more and be confident against a good pitcher/s in playoff time? Trying to see what teams do in practice to be able to be successful vs. quality pitchers.
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We vary distances in BP to simulate different velocities. If we're facing a hard thrower we simulate a hard thrower. See chart.
What distance are you at on 45mph, 50mph, 55mph?
You do any curveball drills? Changeup drills?
Nathan posted:What do you do in practice to make your team get ready for a good pitcher throwing in the high 80s? What hitting drills do you do to get ready for a hard thrower? How do you get your team ready to put the ball in play more and be confident against a good pitcher/s in playoff time? Trying to see what teams do in practice to be able to be successful vs. quality pitchers.
Great chart from Ironhorse... always curious about specific translation with distances for regular BP.
We have a recent college grad P on staff. He will throw the on-field BP (at least once during the week, usually the day before the game) and we will vary sequences. Most often, he will throw from about 50 ft on a portable platform, giving enough distance for recognition and movement but not full distance so he can throw 80 -90%, throw longer and throw a lot of strikes. He can emulate a slider or curve and of course, we will try to simulate if we know specifics of opposing P. So, he is a great tool, in more ways than one 
An example of sequence for each hitting group is...
-3 bunts, 3 hit & runs firm FB's, 8 cuts firm FB's, 8 cuts mixed telling hitter what pitch is, 8 cuts mixed not telling hitter, 3 cuts firm FB's to finish.
We will do variations of that. Depending on opponent, the old lefty will come in and try to do something similar from another then feet closer 
Meanwhile, in the cage, a group is working on a variety of focuses, depending on the day. We almost always include working bunts and hit and runs against the machine that is set pretty firm, as well as basic T work. So, if we know we have a high velo P coming, we will just crank the machine another notch or two and otherwise focus on getting foot down in time and staying inside.
