Hitting and Hitters Discussion Timing drop drill

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After you have determined your hitter can swing with a hand path that is inside the path of the ball...stand out to the side of the hitter so you are positioned to drop the ball over the middle of home plate and about 2 to 3 inches in front of home plate.

The hitter measures off from the back corner of home plate by laying the bat down so the end of the bat is exactly on the outside corner of the plate. Line up your lead foot at the knob of the bat and adjust your stance to 1.5 times the width of your shoulders plus or minus 2 inches.

The person feeding the the ball or dropping it will stretch out their hand with their palm facing down with the ball in hand and start in the middle of home plate and slightly ahead of home plate to start with...as they flex their wrist downward the hitter loads and the person drops the ball. Remember the person dropping the ball continues moving their hand upward to keep their hand out of the zone. I have never been hit doing this drill in 20 years but I have soft tossing from the side!

Do not have the height of the ball any higher than eye level as it would be unnatural to have the head turned upwards as if it, the ball is dropping out of the sky. I have seen people stand on ladders and 5 gallon buckets and this is not a natural position for the head or eyes to be tracking the ball from in my opinion.

At first they will think they have to rush to hit the ball before it hits the floor so be patient with them and explain to them to keep using their proper mechanics...slow to load soft to step on a flexed front knee and to separate the hands slightly at toe touch and they will hit the ball before it hits the floor. It is a simple matter of timing and rhythm and they will figure it out. Just give it a few times and they will get the hang of it.

Once they master hitting it over or up the middle of home plate then move towards the back corner and drop it exactly on the outside corner of the plate however remember to keep your hand outstretched and not to have your body positioned ahead of your hand. They should be able to hit the ball to the opposite field and keep it in fair territory. If they are over rotating or the belly button is facing the pitcher when trying to hit a ball to the opposite field the ball will not go to the outside field as the ball has a side ward spin or rotation. We call this our window so they know visually where they can hit it or at least foul it during a game situation. They must remember to rotate as needed and for the belly button to be facing in the direction of where they intend to direct the ball and to release earlier on an outside pitch as to wrist release. Think of the forearm as a hinge and the wrist as another hinge and always make a good first move with the lead arm elbow while leading with the lead arm elbow about 2 to 4 inches on every pitch.

Once they master this move up in the box and position yourself to drop the ball inside and slightly ahead of home plate. I like to determine what we call their window by seeing where they can hit the ball and keep it in fair territory. Once you determine that try to place it there every time. We like to mark our nets to determine what is fair and when outside they visually see where the ball has landed versus where I drop it so there is a direct relationship and they have instant feed back.

Once they have mastered these techniques start at the inside position and drop a ball then up the middle and then outside and repeat. We want them reacting to inside and adjusting away. By making a good first move with the lead arm elbow they will not have their hands over the plate or casting away from their body which would make it next to impossible to swing across their body to hit the inside pitch once they committed their swing by the hands moving away from the body or what we term a bad first move over the plate.

For the advanced hitter start to vary the height your release however never higher than eye level and to continue moving your hand upward as you drop the ball. Always have them looking forward through the net and they will see your wrist flex down out of their peripheral vision. Boulders dad that means out of the corner of your eye. We do not want a huge movement of the head and try to minimize the head movement and maximize the eye movement.

 

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thanks for typing slow as i dont read fast

 

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At the clinic people kept asking if Chris and I were brothers and if you were adopted...now that was funny when I told them the whole story and they even got a bigger laugh after that.

Who loves you brother!

 

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Howard do you know how many words that was some people cannot pay attention for that long !! LOL I am glad I can.

 

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Howard, You stated "They must remember to rotate as needed and for the belly button to be facing in the direction of where they intend to direct the ball and to release earlier on an outside pitch as to wrist release." Clarify this for me. Are you saying at contact the belly button is facing the direction they want to direct the ball or at finish after contact? The sequencing of the swing would be vastly different depending upon your answer. Thanks.

 

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We always think inside or in, in, in and adjust away.

In order to hit an inside pitch you must catch it in front of the plate and get the hips open and we think of the belly button as an indicator of where the hips are. We want the hitter to think on an inside pitch the belly button is facing the shortstop or even the third base man depending how inside the pitch actually is. Sometimes to point it out even more have them take the draw string on their shorts and hang it outside their shorts and get on the other side of the net and have them hit a pitch away and see where the string is and where did the ball go? Was it a sharp hit or a glancing blow? When you see a foul ball as a right hander hooking to the right with side spin you know they are swinging around the ball and the belly button is probably facing the pitcher because the bat is pulling away.

In order to hit a ball to the opposite field we have to wait longer to allow the ball to get deeper in the box or what we term depth in box however we must release our wrist angle sooner in the swing to allow the bat to be angled in that direction so we can drive the ball off the bat with force and this means keeping that forced directed to the area we are trying to drive the ball with our hands inside the path of the ball.

We demonstrate by holding the bat as a hitter and placing the bat head at the students belly button as if the bat is at the contact position....now do not move the hands and only rotate your belly button (hips) and the bat will move away from their belly button because the hips were over rotated which is why we say we rotate the hips as needed.

Then without moving our feet we repeat only this time we rotate as needed and point our belly button to right field and direct our hand path and we can hit them in the ribs and push them away from us so they get the idea. We want the belly button to be pointed in the direction of the second base man.

This is why we teach how to hit up the middle first, then away next as we feel anyone can pull a ball however do you the patience and timing to drive it to the opposite field? You must be able to teach bat control and how we make the ball go where we want it to go based on the balls depth in box, hand path and rotating as needed to hit the ball.

Our net is marked so we know if it went in the direction we had the tee positioned or if we soft tossed it we know where the ball should go versus how they hit it and how far the hips rotated.

Additionally we have a chalk line on the floor to make sure they are always stepping on what we term our line of force with a closed flexed front knee and foot.

This is also why we measure off from the plate the way we do. Some coaches think we have a hole in our swing inside and some outside it depends on who you ask...just keep throwing where ever you think the weakness is and we will adjust and they will hit it.

I hope this answers your question.