Other than mechanics

I've always been big on reminding a batter to "read' the defense before he steps into the box.

'See what they're giving you' is the cue.

If the third baseman is playing back, push a bunt down the third base line. You may even cause an overthrow and get an extra base.

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Originally posted by baseballpapa:
one must spend time speeding up the sequencing of the swing to get the hitter to the next level. The coach must teach the hitter to have the intent to swing either "quick" or "fast", not hard. Work "quick" drills.

Generally, I see this do more harm than good. In order to work the drill, people try to remove their stride, throw their hands, etc. They get real good at the drill and real good at hitting ground balls to 2B.

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3. Pitch recognition is outside of mechanics and must be taught. There should never be a drill where a player swings at everything.

I agree totally.

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9. Spending too much time teaching opposite field hitting is a non-mechanical (yet the intent is better mechanics) issue that can have negative results.

Agree. You can only teach hitting pitch locations, ie. inside, outside, etc.

On the speeding it up, I don't teach to shorten, don't rotate, and punch. I teach the entire sequence but try to get it quicker. I use drop drills and rapid toss (buggy whip), but don't let them just punch. I try to get them to get quicker, quicker, etc. In a cage, I tell them to wait as long as they can before triggering.

One must make the distinction between having a 'quick swing' and having quick preswing actions. A quick swing is obviously superior to a slow swing, but I get killed in the box when I'm too quick with my preswing (stride, "load", etc.). In fact I try to make this as slow as possible. I don't really have a good explanation for why slower preswing is better but I'm sure it is (at least for me) from my personal experience.

I've never bought into drop drills and rapid toss (buggy whip) because it exactly encourages the quick preswing that I do not want in the box.

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Originally posted by baseballpapa:
A few things I teach outside of mechanics...I have a lot of theories about how to swing, but the above seems so left out of the hitting forum. I thought I would solicit thoughts on other-than mechanical issues that relate to a hitter's success and get comments from the above.

You solicited them so here are my thoughts:

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1. Bat speed is correlated to success. The bat speeds need to approximate the ball speeds.

I completely agree that bat speed is crucial to success at the plate. But I don't understand the last part where you say bat speed need to approximate ball speeds. I believe that more batspeed is always better because more batspeed equals more ball exit speed which helps both average and power.

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3. Pitch recognition is outside of mechanics and must be taught. There should never be a drill where a player swings at everything.

Not saying you're wrong, but I do swing at just about everything in bp. Then again I strike out a lot so maybe you're right. My philosophy is that by swinging at everything in bp I can constantly and unconciously learn how to make adjustments to location. Also I figure I'm going to swing at at least some balls in the games so I might as well not waste a bp pitch that could be used for practice for that situation when I get fooled or what not.

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4. There is an inverse relationship between changing a hitter's mechanics (even when it is necessary) and rhythm and timing (in the short-run).

Is this an absolute truth that holds for all the universe? I think with proper thought process and teaching the inverse relationship can fall apart, though I kinda agree with you that it is a hard thing to do.

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6. Size does matter, as does flexibility and agility. A player must be conditioned to meet peak performance. Give them suggestions or work them out.

Mostly agree here, all other things equal, the stronger player will hit better. I'm extremely skeptical on how much agility or conditioning play into hitting ability, but I believe more strength does increase batspeed given the same mechanics. I say strength and not size. I don't really see how size alone can affect hitting ability. You can talk about lengths of lbody levers and all that but I think that is mostly negligible compared to the overall strength of the hitter. I guess I can see where flexibility can come into play but I doubt that many ball players are so inflexible that it truly hinders their hitting. I think as long as you have some amount of "base" flexibility you will be fine.

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7. Taking pitches until there is a strike can diminish potential success of any hitter.

Completely agree. Never understood taking a strike in any situation. This only limits your options as a hitter. The number one rule of hitting is get a good pitch to hit and this lowers your chances of doing that.

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8. Working drag bunts with slow players takes away valuable time for all hitters.

Completely agree here too. I hate the 'bunt round' of bp and would much rather get another hitting round that does a lot more to prepare me for the game. The ratio of bunting practice to bunting attempts in the game is very high. In my opinion too much time is spent on this small part (and non-existent part for slow players) of the game.

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9. Spending too much time teaching opposite field hitting is a non-mechanical (yet the intent is better mechanics) issue that can have negative results.

I can't speak for every hitter, but I work almost exclusively away/up the middle with every pitch when I take bp. That is my personal path to success. I feel like it naturally grooves my mechanics even though I pull a majority of my actual hits in the game. Hitting the other way forces you to focus on keeping the barrel above the hands longer and staying inside the ball though the hitting zone. This counteracts two of my major consistent problems with my swing. Again that's just me.

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10. Not teaching a hitter how to read a pitcher can take away from a hitter's potential success. (Pitcher's can get predictable in certain counts. Also, all pitchers tend to miss in certain areas. The hitters can be taught to look for a pitch where the pitcher misses.)

This can be taught somewhat but I think a lot of it comes with experience, especially experience at higher levels. At lower levels I feel like pitchers struggle to just execute throwing strikes so it kind of takes out an element of the game between the hitter and the pitcher.