Into the Briar Patch: Hitting and Why It Is Important for Answers Instead of Arguments
"We are going to make things as simple as possible for you guys. Our hitting philosophy from now on is see the ball, hit the ball." - Coach Stephen Pritchard
It seems like ever since the beginning of baseball there have been arguments on hitting "the right way." It is a discussion that causes more arguments than answers. This is a costly endeavor for a coach to do because it can hurt your student-athletes careers if you are cookie-cutting your teachings. The arguments for years have been discussions on linear hitting or rotational hitting. Things are starting to change a little with new data and analytic programs, but the arguments are still the same. But the question that should be asked is what are some answers? The simple answer is this, everyone is unique and their body must tell you what they can and cannot do. As you read this, I have tried to keep things as simple as possible. I find the basics to be a big key to success when we go from the practice setting, and into the game setting. I would also recommend that you all consider getting either a Rapsodo or Blast Motion system. This gives us coaches even more information to understand our athletes so they can maximize their potential. I hope you all enjoy!
Balance and Rhythm
The first key to hitting is to be balanced. Before we can get ready to hit, we must be find a comfortable stance that we can be successful with. There are many stances out there, some more comfortable than others, but the key is, is that YOU must be comfortable with your stance. Your balance must have some bounce in your knees. You can stand tall, or look like you're guarding someone in a game of basketball, but you must have some bounce in your knees so you can be athletic, since hitting is an athletic movement after all. The next key that you will need is some sort of movement or rhythm. It is a fact that an object that is in motion, will stay in motion. Any athlete that has some sort of movement will be quicker reacting or getting to a certain point. So have a little movement in your stance, but not so much movement that it takes away your balance in your stance.
Pitch Recognition
(The two areas of pitch recognition)
Possibly the most important tool for any baseball player is the ability of vision. You can have the prettiest and smoothest looking swing ever imaginable, but if you cannot see the ball you will not be successful. The key to quality pitch recognition is finding the arm-slot window of the pitcher. The key to finding that arm-slot window is by finding a focal point. The focal point area that I really like is anything on the baseball hat. Whether that is the cap insignia or hat bill, it really doesn't matter as long as you can pick up the arm-slot window. Another thing that is important for pitch recognition is going from soft focus to hard focus. Focusing on the cap is the soft focus in the pitch recognition scheme of things. Then once you find the arm slot that is the hard focus on things because your eye sight is condensing things down to one general area. Here is another key that I have found useful for pitch recognition, if your hitters see the ball first, then the pitch will be a curveball. If your hitters see the wrist of the pitcher in the arm-slot window then the pitch will be a fastball.
Weight Transfer
Any aspect of movement in the game of baseball has weight transfer. If there is no weight transfer then you're going to have minimal success with baseball. There is a quote that goes, "To move forward, you must go backward." Well that is true in baseball. It doesn't matter what position you are playing, if you are throwing, pitching or hitting there must be a weight transfer. That weight transfer must have a load. That load must have your weight going backward, then you are exploding your momentum forward which has your spine, hips, and back leg weight all going forward to your front side. Your front side must end up firm. A firm front side means that your front leg must become firm because it is taking the brunt of all of that momentum and weight. As a hitter, your back leg will either come off the ground at contact, or will be slightly off the ground. Here are two examples of this. Let's go to the all-time greats for evidence shall we?
As you can see, Joe has what most hitters will have at the swing's finish. But notice the front side of both swings, both legends have a firm front side. To go forward, you must go backward then forward.
The Palm Up/Palm Down Principle
"Before you swing you want to pretend that the bat you are holding is like a tube of toothpaste, at contact you want to squeeze the tube of toothpaste." -Coach Lawrence Nesselrodt
The first hitting lesson that I ever took was with the coach that I quoted, and I still remember that aspect of the lesson so well. But there is so much truth to that statement. At contact we want both hands to be holding the bat firmly. So many hitters only have their bottom hand firmly on the bat at contact and all the way through the swing. That can really hurt your swing as a hitter. Most often it causes the hitter to not stay long through contact. The hitter will be short to contact and short through contact. We want to be long through contact. So, you want both palms at contact (palm up and palm down) to be firm at contact.
Swing Path
"You want to be short to the zone, and long through the zone."- Coach Sean Loyd
Speaking of coaching points that I have always remembered, this one comes from Coach Loyd. I can thank him and Coach Cal Bailey for getting me into the great game of baseball as a young kid at the age of 8 at WVSU's summer baseball camp. Some of my best memories of my childhood were spent at that camp, and I always couldn't wait to get the knowledge of all of the coaches and the players. One of the first hitting lessons Coach Loyd gave me at the camp was that when you swing you want to be short and quick to the ball, and after contact you want to be long through the zone. This allows the hitter to extend through the zone to give maximum force into the swing to hit the ball as hard as possible. The last part of the swing is so important in my opinion because wherever you barrel up the ball, that force will put the ball in either the air or on the ground. As for my advice on whether to swing up or down on the ball, I suggest instead to hitting the middle of the ball. Another point that Coach Loyd taught me. If you hit the middle of the ball you will have a slight upswing. As Ted Williams said, "A slight upswing is best." So if we are thinking about this, the head of the bat will be even at contact and the follow through will cause the ball to be hit in the air and also hard. But I do not think hitting the ball on the ground is necessarily a bad thing. In situational hitting, hitting the ball on the ground can be useful, especially if you have speed on the bases and a runner on first, you may score a run from first if the grass is a little high on that specific field. So much gets lost in the argument of wanting the ball hit in the air or on the ground. In my opinion, I would rather have the ball hit in the air, hard. Key word, hard. The reason being is that even a miss-hit of the ball leaves the hitter more room for success. A ground ball hit hard has more of a chance for that batter-runner to reach base. And a ball hit hard in the air has a chance to reach a gap or go over the fence.
Mission and Approach
(As you can see we want to be ahead in the count, so that the pitcher has to come at us and give us something good to hit.)
"Get a good pitch to hit." -Ted Williams
The last point that I will tackle is in my opinion the second most important weapon that a hitter must have besides eyesight, an approach. Many people bash the analytics side of baseball, but if you break things down with the analytic movement, it just makes sense honestly. When I read "Moneyball" I fell in love with it. Why? Because it was smart baseball. Why were the A's on base machines? Because of their approach. They taught their hitters to simply get a good pitch to hit. To dive even deeper into this, the A's taught their hitters what pitches they hit the best and where. Until they got to two strikes, they looked for that pitch. It makes so much sense. Rod Carew had a similar stance on hitting. Until he got to two strikes, he waited for his pitch. This allows the hitter to be aggressive in his zone. If you apply this approach on base percentage will go up, and your hitters will not get themselves out due to over-eagerness.
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