Hitting and Hitters Discussion My freshman - hitting

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What do you think?

http://s74.photobucket.com/albums/i274/uplandhunter/?action=view&current=caseysswingofftee.flv

Thanks
straightleg

 

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Is there a specific problem? There are a few things I would mention but would like to know if there is something specific.

 

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I would like to hear them.
For the most part I am my daughter's hitting instructor. I do get information from rvp and a hitting intructor.

She does not drive the ball as much as I like. Pop ups to the outfield and infield.
Sometimes she hits the gap hard. Sometimes long foul balls.

So what do you think?

 

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It is really hard to get a good look with the flv file format because it strips out so many frames of video, it makes it hard to stop the video at the right moments. Having said that, I really like her swing a lot. You can definitely see the RVP influence and it also looks like a lot of what you'll see with Englishby.

I think that her swing is disconnected. She is starting her hands forward before initiating hip rotation. Key on her hands and front heel; you'll see that her hands are moving forward while it appears that her front heel is off of the ground. Compare that to Crystal...

With Crystal during the "negative" move her hands go back and stop going back at toe touch. She drops her front heel, initiating hip rotation, slots her back elbow and then her hands move forward in a semi-circular path (staying inside the ball) and explode into the ball.

 

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Isn't that Howard's garage? ?Maybe not....just looked like it.

 

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Isn't that Howard's garage? ?Maybe not....just looked like it. ?

No

 

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cshilt, I see the same thing. Her hands need to separate away from her back shoulder after / while she is moving to toe touch, her front heel is not dropping to start the swing and the front foot is landing square instead of at more of a 35 to 45 degree angle. Also her bat looks a little too upright at her stance position. I'll bet her bat angle thru the hitting zone is tilted down just a bit too much as a result which could be the pop up problem. The one other thing is her front foot is moving forward during her negative move which is causing some twist in her hips and torso that you probably don't want. JMHO

 

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cshilt: Don't we wish we could clone Bustos swing to our kids. Glad you posted this. I hope some of the
questions Howard (hitter) answers get a chance to watch this.

 

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Also, notice how Crystl's hands are pushing back towards the catcher as she is striding into toe touch. This is evident in all the MLB power hitters. IMO, practicing this does two things. First, it keeps the hands back and allows the hips to start rotating first, which generates MUCH more power than just using the arms to drive the swing. Hips - Shoulder - Arms. Then, at least for my kids, it helped keep them from getting their weight forward too soon on change-ups and offspeed pitches. It especially helped my son start seeing the ball longer, increased his bat speed, and nearly eliminated those "oops" check swings.

Hitting off a tee is great for the basic mechanics of the swing. But I'm a fan of live pitching for working on things like loading (getting those hands back) and getting to toe touch with good timing. Loading is a tough concept to grasp at first for younger hitters, because it seems like an extra step, and causes them to be late in getting around - at first. But, with practice, the timing will come, and you'll notice a tremendous increase in power - she'll hit the ball a LOT harder.

Shoot some video of her from the same side angle as above, but in a cage where you are pitching to her. Change speeds of your pitches too, and notice if she is loading. Don't let her cheat and NOT load. It takes a lot of work and LOTS of reps, but the payoff will put a smile on her face.

Check these swings out...

http://imageevent.com/siggy


P.S. Howard - I did get your PM, and I will respond soon. ?

 

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Watch the clip of Crystl's (beautiful) swing. Her hips rotate approximately 90 degrees from load to contact.

If you are striding/stepping with the front foot and making a conscious effort to "open" the foot, or point the toe at the pitcher, you are effectively "burning" those 25, or 35, or 45 or whatever degrees of rotation before the swing even starts forward. That is leaving a lot of rotational power on the table.

There are only so many degrees of rotation available to the hitter. You want all that turning to power the swing, not turn the front foot which contributes nothing to the swing.

If you watch a lot of video of good hitters, they often finish with their front foot pointing at the pitcher. But that is not where the foot is initially landing. There is a "cause and effect" relationship at play there. The almost irresistable power of their rotation causes the foot to roll over and point forward AFTER the ball has left the bat. What you are observing is an "effect" of the good rotation, not the "cause" of it. ?

 

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Thanks for the reply.
I do see no seperation of hands on toe touch. We will work on that.
I do see her front knee open up on stride. Try to close that up some.

Bat angle? Not sure about that. Will have to think about that one.

That is my garage, but it is 36x50, who knows, howard might be living in there some where.

We will keep working on it. Any more thoughts?

Straightleg

 

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I think she has a very good swing, probably better than a lot of older kids. She's got a very good foundation to build on. I'd be thinking more in terms of adding things instead of changing. The linked clips can show you how the best hitters in the sport do it.

 

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If you are striding/stepping with the front foot and making a conscious effort to "open" the foot, or point the toe at the pitcher, you are effectively "burning" those 25, or 35, or 45 or whatever degrees of rotation before the swing even starts forward. That is leaving a lot of rotational power on the table.

Bretman. That is a good way of explaining it. I knew keeping the foot closed added power, but your statement really made me understand it better.

We will be adding seperation, closed knee, more load. Can do these.

The pop up part, too steep with the bat, dont get that yet.

Thanks
straightleg

 

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My DD was popping up a lot and we got the rope bat out and worked on the hands following the elbows. Just a guess, but I would think that the hands are dipping slightly below the path of the elbows. I've probably messed up the correct verbage, hopefully one of the others can give you the correct verbage if I've messed it up.

 

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Hitter,Sammy,Cshilt, I guess we are not speaking the same language. I see Bustros landing with her left toe pointed somewhere between home and first not "closed" or pointed at home plate. Her finish takes the toe towards the pitcher as her foot rolls over. I went back to RightView Pro instruction and reviewed the process of negative move to positive move to toe touch and all the players are landing with the front foot pointed slightly open. Candrea and Enquist reinforce this. Definitely landing on the inside ball of the foot to give a firm front leg to hit against.

 

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I have used RightView going on 3 years. The lesson information included with the package is very informative, and as a tool for comparison, RightView is as good as it gets for the price. The problem is, you can see WHAT they are doing, but the HOW is the magic part. For that, I turned to Englishbey and others. There are several professional "hitting gurus" out there, all with their own flavor of the Rosetta Stone of hitting. What worked for me was taking a little of this, and a little of that, then putting it all together. When I found something that made sense to ME, I used that, and discarded the useless stuff.

There's a ton more to developing good hitting, which is way more than just good swing mechanics. There's vision, timing, mental approach - etc. Emulating the good hitters is one thing, but you still need to study and understand a little bit about kinesiology, pitching philosophy, and all the things that make a hitter, well, GOOD. Just because Steve Englishbey says so isn't good enough for me. Because if it doesn't work for my kid, it's useless. His concept may be sound, but I may alter the teaching method to suit my needs. After all, it's the end result that counts.

Don't get too caught up in trying to exactly copy some other hitter's movements. Even the RightView lessons state that all the MLB hitters learned to hit in different ways, but they arrived at the same exact end point. Albert Pujols doesn't even stride, and he is one of the greatest power hitters ever! The key is finding how YOU can hit against a firm front leg, without your front side flying open too soon. Some hitters actually start pidgeon toed to force themselves to stay closed. Others don't even really think about it, and land at about 45 degrees. BUT they ALL have found how to hit for power. I mentioned loading in my first post, because I think this is one of the most overlooked parts of high school softball hitting. Very few actually do it! By contrast, almost every DI college power hitter loads well. But that's just one part of it.

My suggestion is to study as many elite softball hitters and MLB baseball hitters (only the greats) as you can. Figure out what they do, and how they do it. Video your DD often, especially in game hitting. Use lots of encouragement to guide her along. Let her watch the video, compare it to the elite hitters, and encourage her to make suggestions about what she might do to get better. Besides, that video will be priceless when she has kids!!

 

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Straight,

She needs to get into more of an athletic posture in her stance. Her forward momentum into rotation is not very strong right now and I think her front arm is just a bit low for my taste. I think that if she closes the front foot and gets the arms up a bit higher you will see a better swing plane and you will get the rising line drive instead of the pop up.

This is one of my students Alex. On this particular day we were working on just what I was mentioning in the paragraph above. Forward momentum into rotation. In this case we were doing what I refer to as a modified Soriano. By that I mean all I am having Alex do here is lifting her leg a little and landing in the exact same spot much like Soriano does with his swing. The difference being Soriano lifts his leg much more. I dont want Alex loosing stability during her swing. With young hitters that is important. You get them striding all over the place and they will find ways to introduce slop into their motion. Which often shows up in a poor swing plane to the ball.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbSWGUVR8G4

This particular swing was pretty explosive and very quick for Alex. We also had her hands back and her front arm locked into that position. This is called pulling the bow string. When this is done you have to be careful that the hitter doesnt close down the front shoulder. (Turn it inward) If they do then what happens is the bat wraps behind the head and they trap the hands behind the body. This is a formula for disaster against a fast pitcher at any level. They need to just extend the front arm back a few inches.

This is what Sammy alluded to when he was talking about big league hitters loading the hands back. I will not teach that to a young hitter. Tends to get very sloppy and instable for them to pull off at the younger ages. ?To do so will cause the swing plane to be inconsistent into the stike zone. So the alternative is to pull the bow string and hold it. Young players can pull that off without impacting the swing plane.

Straight compare this swing to your daughters swing and look at the differences. With that as a basis for discussion we can talk about how to get your daughter quicker to the ball.

Right after we made this clip Alex played in a select tournament and went 8 for 10 with 3 walks and one HBP. No strikouts. Has a nice bruse on her elbow now. It was her best weekend as a select hitter and player. She works hard on her game.

She plays 12U ball here in Texas.

Elliott.

 

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What about that weight transfer from toe touch to the front heel? Seems to me it's pretty light to get a real turn and drive into and through the ball.

There is also the possibility that she is swinging nothing like this in the game. Recently I did some slow-mo of my kids in a game and rarely did they resemble their practice swings.

 

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Howard - Now you've got me thinking! I actually have a shot of Albert as wallpaper on my work computer, but it's just a still. If memory serves me, he also maintains a very closed front foot, indicating he doesn't open his front side at all. The still I have shows him just after contact completely up on his back toe, back leg is bent to about 45 degrees, front stride leg is absolutely straight, front stride foot is rolled up on it's outside edge at about a 45 degree angle. Absolutely classic! I love this stuff...

When I get home I'll do a refresher and review video and give my opinion.

 

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Howard,

You are correct Al does stride. It is not big but it doesnt have to be as he is already in a wider stance than most MLB hitters starting out. Its what happens before he strides that really sets him apart from most hitters. Albert is what I term a pure Toe to Toe hitter.

When you watch him his front foot will raise completly up on its toe. What you have to pay attention to with Albert (In very slow motion) with this action is how he shifts his weight into the back hip and loads his core. This vertical loading is very subtle and if you dont watch it closely it will be missed by the average eye. You cannot see this at full speed. In short he is winding (creating Tension) in the core with this movement.

At the point he drops his toe he starts unloading that back hip and goes into a vertical motion forward. (Small Stride) This happens before full foot plant. At full foot plant his forward momentum from the vertical shift goes into full rotation and all H**L breaks loose with his bat acceleration from unwinding the hips and the core. By the time Al has his weight over dead center his back foot is coming off the ground. This is not a forced action but a result of him starting his hip rotation before he is at full footplant. A common trait of many high level hitters if you watch them closely.

This is not something I would even consider teaching a young hitter. This is a very high level movement that requires a serious amount of core strength to pull off and be efficent with full rotation. That wide stance will hinder most young people from rotating in a manner that will help them be quicker to the ball.

While I love to watch him swing in slow motion I would have to have a very strong athlete before I would go there with what Albert does with his swing. I have tried it with a couple of my better students and they still didnt have the strength and stability to pull if off in a consistent manner. They more often than not would loose connection and break the swing plane to the ball.

Elliott.