So our team has had an optional batting practice the last couple of weeks and I thought it’d be interesting to share what works and what doesn’t. It hasn’t been a rushed batting practice before our game like the photo – if you watch a big league game the players go in and out very quickly just to get them dialed in for the game.
My practices were focused on teaching and each one we only had a 2-3 players and we had an hour. So what got done and what works and what doesn’t?
Well, at ages 7, 8, 9 the players are often scared of the ball. So we set up the machine on low speed and had them just play catcher for a while. If they jump out of the way they are never going to hit a ball. They have to resist the FLIGHT urge when a hard object is coming towards them. A machine is great as it just keeps throwing to the same spot.
Once they are not jumping then we tell them that they will now be catching the ball with their bat (credit to the famous Dusty Baker — You can Teach Hitting https://a.co/d/hMi757B)
They we have them bunt — not that they’ll bunt in our games — as we want them hitting, but to get the feel of the ball meeting the bat it’s a good thing.
Then we have them swing and freeze after the swing.
Today we were at a catch that had a wonderful piece of wood that was about a foot wide and 3-4’ long. So it’s designed to have batters stand on it and make sure they step to the pitcher.
I used it today and it was great.
I have them freeze at the end of the swing, and we can talk about balance.
Hitting is interesting as there is so much to diagnose and the key is that you can’t sit around and correct 100 things a session. Find one or two things you want to fix and focus on those.
Last week I had a player whose head was moving all the time — -I had them try cement feet — swing with feet stuck in cement — so no lower half of the body. The head really stays still when you do this. Then return to moving feet and see if the head keeps moving. I talk to them about how hard it is for the brain to track a moving pitch as it is and if you move your head it as the ball is coming it’s even harder.
Today I have players —spinning out on their front foot. Instead of just stride and then rotate hips, it was stride, rotate hips and spin front foot so the toes point to the pitcher. This is an extremely unbalanced stance and happens because the lower half just isn’t strong enough to stay stable. I talked about pushing down into the ground as the front foot lands to keep it stable, but I also suggested daily single leg squats (I ran a strength and conditioning station at our practice yesterday and prescribed some single-leg squats — note that body-weight exercises are all you for kids under the age of 13).
We also had some kids hitting off a pitching machine today and having them really think about how loading the weight on their back foot made a difference as the ball is coming to them.
I don’t like to teach too much about the load for players that are young as they often lose balance but thinking about more weight on their back leg clearly helps.
I recommend lots and lots of hitting off a T before trying anything in a batting cage, but we are close to mid-season, and we’ve done a lot of work off the T so this blog is more about what you do when the ball is coming.
