Hitting the ball harder

is the angle between your index finger and middle finger on your top hand greater than 22 degrees?...

kidding.  swing a lot (and fix your swing faults, of course).  get stronger. get flexible. grow.  that's pretty much your formula for hitting the ball harder.  and throw harder, too, fwiw.  

my son is a 2023 and a pretty good player.  he's big and has always been one of the better players.  However, it hasn't been linear.  He has some friends who hit puberty earlier than him who absolutely dominated in 12-14u.  My son was more of a normal developer and eased his way into puberty over the past couple of years. he's caught up to and passed some of those other guys.  One of his best friends, on the other hand, was a bigger kid at the younger ages, but was passed by a lot of their friends in the past few years because he's a later developer.  His dad was, too and his older brother as well. He's starting to grow, though, and I think he'll be pretty good as soon as the strength comes.  I think he's the type of player who will struggle to make varsity before junior year but will be a legit D1 recruit type from then on.

the take home is that you grow when you grow (absent chemical assistance) but it's your job to maximize what you have at any one time.  lift or do body weight exercises.  stretch or do yoga/pilates.  eat healthy foods.  get your rest. put yourself in a position to take advantage whenever puberty hits you and you get your natural growth and strength spurts.

Yeah, get bigger and stronger.

Also a simple thing is intent. You shouldn't swing out of your shoes but make sure you swing at 90-95% of your max batspeed  all the time. Many kids simply swing only at 60-70% because they are afraid to miss.

Try to crush the ball an occasional swing and miss is ok.

Of course you should still work on your mechanics and that doesn't mean you should do wild hacks but you need the intent to hit the ball hard.

You can also do stuff like overload and underload training but the two biggest things are getting stronger and having the intent to swing hard consistently.

Also make sure mechanics are right. I don't believe in small fixes but make sure you get properly loaded in time, you land in balance and fire the body in a good sequence.

For example if your load is late and rushed that can lead to a swing that is out of sequence ( for example hands fire before hips to make up for the lost time).

"Prospect"

1. find a rubber ball [racquetball] squeeze daily [use both hands].

2. hang a tire from a tree, always swing thru

3. use a longer bat and choke up 2"

4. study Ted Williams hitting chart. get a good pitch to hit and swing hard with confidence and knowledge of the pitched ball. Study the pitcher warming up in the bullpen or on the mound. Can he control the fast ball, curve, change up. "take away pitches"

5. turn off the cell phone!!!!

Bob

There are two factors in hitting the ball harder:

1. bat speed (the faster you swing, the harder the ball will come off)

2. The efficiency of contact (matching the plane of the pitch and creating a "head-on" collision is more powerful than a chop swing that clips the ball). However, this is mechanical, so I will let this be and focus on improving bat speed.

To improve bat speed, as Dominik said, you must have the intent to swing hard. Especially right now in the off season, you can spend time focusing on that.

I recommend getting a blast sensor and paying the $60/year subscription so you can see all the metrics. By having a blast, you can track your bat speed and see if you really are improving the speed and make adjustments to see what's working and what's not.

I'm also a big fan of overload/underload type stuff, but they are pretty expensive. You could either buy them or add some tape to an old bat to make it an overload. No matter what it is, though, swing as hard as you can and have the intent to do damage.

BUT ABOVE ALL GET BIGGER FASTER AND STRONGER. THIS WILL BE THE MOST BENEFICIAL FOR YOU. I also didn't realize you were a 2025, so the finances may not be there to pay for blast/ overload underload bats. Get a gym membership, workout a ton, eat a ton, and whenever you swing a bat, swing it at near-maximal speed.

@2025prospect posted:

What can I do to hit the ball harder apart from fixing mechanics? Any tee drills, training tools, small tweaks? Any advice is appreciated thank you!

You are definitely thinking the right way. Loud contact is what gets attention, at every level.

My son is a D3 player. When he was in HS he got a ton of infield hits, ground balls up the middle, bunts for base hits etc. When he got to college his coach was not interested in any of that. He wants his players to hit the ball as hard as they can every time they swing the bat. 

Both comments above about intent are spot on.

For younger kids, I would bring old basketballs to practice, toss them underhand and tell the kids to smash them.

The back in the day drill for older kids was to hang a tire from a tree and try and swing through the tire. Was more for building up the wrists and forearms.

Along the same thought process I've found softballs in soft toss or front toss to force players to drive through the ball.  Nice thing is you can do this on a field and a player gets feedback.  Obviously, just a drill to incorporate as part of the process.  Depending on the age use the softball for women or men.  It is a low cost drill to give a try.