quote:
Short to it - Long through it
That's a great phrase coach - mind if I borrow it?
I love little phrases to help emphasize various points. Here are a couple very quickly before I get to my point.
"Hit the zone" - telling kids to stay inside the strike zone and not expand it. Helps to increase the discipline of not swinging wildly at pitches. If you hit the zone then your walk total will actually go up.
"Attack the fastball" - this is actually more of a philosophy. We want our guys to really attack and hit the first fastball they see in the zone. By having discipline to let the ball get deep and hitting the zone then you can usually hit the ball pretty hard which is what you want.
Now if there is a certain pitch they cannot handle then they take it even if it is a fastball strike. We still want them comfortable at the plate.
Anyway....
Another drill we do to help visualize the ball getting deep is our ABC drill.
The guys either stand over a home plate or draw one on the ground and get three balls. They get situated in the batter's box at the plate.
They lay the balls down
A - inside and out front of the plate
B - **** shot - pretty much middle of the plate
C - back leg like coach May said outside just off the back corner
We tell them to set up and visualize a pitcher. Coach says stride and they take a stride and freeze. Look to make sure they are landing softly and not shifting forward. We look at back leg - if it straightens then chances are they shifted forward. Also, you are teaching them to seperate the stride from the swing.
Then we call out "A" and the guys take a swing and stop the barrel at the "A" ball.
Then reset and do the same for each letter.
Basically we are showing them that they take the exact same swing for each pitch location. Only difference is you have to wait for it to get deep in order to hit it.
It's a really quick and basic drill but I feel it helps to visualize what you are teaching.