Pre-teen hitting talent

I started learning situational hitting when I was in LL Majors at the age of 10. That was back in the early 80's.

I know that our team practices on "going with the pitch" but we are still happy to just hit it hard.

IMHO, the majority of balls put in play in LL are to the opposite side because kids are just too often too late on their swings. They make contact w/ the ball while the bat is still descending, as well as deep in the zone - hence, the ground ball to 2B.

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Originally posted by Sandman:
IMHO, the majority of balls put in play in LL are to the opposite side because kids are just too often too late on their swings. They make contact w/ the ball while the bat is still descending, as well as deep in the zone - hence, the ground ball to 2B.

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I agree with Sandman. That has been my observation as well in most cases at this level.

I brought this subject up because my 11 year old and I had been discussing it. He is pretty much a line drive hitter that sprays the ball all over the field. There are times when he has hit behind the runner with some success but when I asked him if he did it on purpose he said "no, I just hit it and it goes where it goes". His feeling as a contemporary of these boys is that they are doing the same thing he does.

I agree with Sandman, that most young hitters hit to the opposite field due to timing (or lack of) rather than purpose.

I will qualify it though. I believe that a young hitter can become at least "aware" of how it feels to hit to the opposite field given enough batting practice.

Many of you have seen my sons "uppercut" swing that he has always had naturally and a swing that he has worked on for the past few years. Well, after Cooperstown this past June, he has worked on "nothing" but line drive hitting and hitting to the opposite field on outside pitches.

Our goal was to improve his batting average because many of those deep fly balls that used to result in doubles now simply get caught.

He hits 200 bp pitches or 200 front-toss pitches with "full effort" each session 2 or 3 times a week. It is easier for me to control the strike zone with front-toss, particularly for opposite field drills but regular bp is necessary to keep his timing.

If he pops up, fouls or hits a deep fly ball he runs a pole! He ran a lot of poles in June and July! He is becoming extremely effective hitting powerful line shots. He is less effective on the outside pitches to the opposite field but he is improving. I firmly believe that younger hitters can learn to go with the pitch if they see enough pitches. An added benefit for my son is the running!

We started working on "going with the pitch" on my AAU team at age 11. At that age, you get pitchers with the ability to paint the outside corner regularly and hitters struggle trying to pull the ball. Also, at the 12/13 year old level your hitters will start to see more and more CB's on the outside corner. They must learn to stay back and let the ball get deeper and drive the ball to the opposite field or they will be forced into the many pop-ups and weak ground balls that come with trying to pull the outside pitch.

One of the most important things for a batter to develop is the ability to see pitch location.
It will take a lot of time and BP to develop. The best way by far is like it has been said do a lot of front-toss because you can control it better.
If they can learn to reconize location, they will greatly improve there ability to hit to all fields.

See location first, then hit it with a purpose.

I have been trying to teach "zone hitting" to my 9 year old with some success.
I try to get him to look for a pitch in a location and go with it. In this way he's trying to get a quality pitch to swing at with his first strike.
When I pitch batting practice I specify situations that have him look for the ball in various locations. His goal is to hit it the appropriate way.
With this approach he can work with a pitcher who is trying to hit the outside corner most of the time.
He manages to do this in practice most of the time and in game situations some of the time. I'll have to see how he developes to know if this approach works.
Steve