Hitting in baseball v fastpitch softball

nanotech14 said:

The college part, I have no arguments, but as far as MLB players part are you saying that pro fast pitch players. don't work just as hard as the MLB players? The women don't have everybody babying them like the precious MLB players. MLB players don't even have to carry their own equipment. They might get a blister, so tell me again how much better your MLB players are. By the way this is a fast pitch forum, so take your baseball is superior attitude back to the baseball sites. Theses girls have to work harder, because they have to overcome this whole male attitude, still to this day.

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No, that is not what I was saying. I was asked if I was comparing MLB to college FP. I then made my comments. Read post 25.

nanotech14 said:

MLB players don't have to go to classes or have another job to do to make a living. They get to spend all their time practicing and working on their swing. Softball players don't make the kind of money MLB players.

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Nano, I know you were answering to a different question and thought, but I am going to steal your answer and use it to answer the question, why do you always use mlb swing models? Those guys have little else to do and the difference between great and just ok is several million dollars.

nanotech14 said:

The college part, I have no arguments, but as far as MLB players part are you saying that pro fast pitch players. don't work just as hard as the MLB players? The women don't have everybody babying them like the precious MLB players. MLB players don't even have to carry their own equipment. They might get a blister, so tell me again how much better your MLB players are. By the way this is a fast pitch forum, so take your baseball is superior attitude back to the baseball sites. Theses girls have to work harder, because they have to overcome this whole male attitude, still to this day.

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Nonotech14,

I understand your frustration. I would be frustrated too if I didn't follow the whole thread and know what I was talking about before posting.

I didn't start this whole thing BTW. I was responding to a post made that was talking about reaction time between MLB and FP and about Candrea not teaching swing down. The post I responded to said that Candrea's hitters had less reaction time then MLB hitters. I then asked if Candrea's hitters could handle MLB pitching. That is how this all started.

i know this is a FP site but don't tell me that these girls have to work harder. It simply is not true. I will tell you if you want but you all ready know, MLB players are head and shoulders, not even in the same stratosphere, with girls FP players. In fact they are head and shoulders above everyone that plays baseball or softball.

What does a male attitude have to do with how hard they work? It would only matter if they were competing against each other. I like hitting and I think hitting is the same for everyone. That is why I am here, to discuss hitting. I know this will come across as a bad male attitude and baseball is better then FP but it is what it is. I can tell you that I coach baseball at a HS and we have a pretty good softball team, girls going to Stanford etc... not trying to be offensive but they couldn't have played for our baseball team. They were good and I liked watching them play. I watched whenever the opportunity was available but they would have had a hard time playing on our baseball team.

One of our juniors, good hitter, faced off against their #1 pitcher. He swung through a few at first but once he figured things out, he put a few in the weeds and then we shut it down when he almost took her head off.

Could Candrea's hitters handle MLB Pitching? I just don't know. You have to keep in mind that a lot of the top players in FP grew up hitting baseballs as a part of their overall workouts. They also grew up hitting with wood. My child did and routinely hit off of a ATEC Baseball Rookie Machine set at top speed (60-65 mph) at around 35-40 feet. That would be getting it up there pretty good. Many of these college FP players will face on the D-I level (top programs) players throwing 65+ on a routine basis from 43 feet. Every now and then, they are going to have to face someone throwing 70+. My child did this summer, and to be honest, she said that she could barely see the ball. In fact, she understood that she had to get the bathead started and count on being able to check because if she waited to see the ball in flight, it was over. BTW, as an FYI to pstein and others, most college hitters use a -10 at the lightest and even more use a -9. A lot use a 33 inch 23 oz. My dd uses a 34 inch 24 oz Easton Stealth.

Having said all of this, I don't think that they would have success hitting a MLB Pitcher with any consistency. The size and break of the ball, the added dimension of the pitcher throwing from a mound, ... all would affect the FP hitter. I said once that I thought that many girls could hang with freshmen boys on a typical freshman boy's team. "Typical" being a team where the best freshmen boys get moved up to JV or Varsity. After that year, I just don't see girl's being able to compete with boys at the Varsity level. I've been a head coach in both baseball and softball and am trying to be honest here.

BTW, imo, it isn't about work ethic or strength gained in the weight room. Some of the FP teams that I coached had unmatched work ethic. These young ladies want to be successful and are not afraid of work. In fact, some take it personal if you try to baby them. I think that strength matters but I don't know the degree. In college FP, you can see who takes the weight room seriously and who does not. I think it matters in them being better hitters/players. However, I would not say that becuase they hit the weight room all the time or have great workethic that they can, in turn, hit a MLB Pitcher.

Finally, I'll wrap up by mentioning the video of Jenny Finch taking a BP session with Barry Bonds. Jenny is a well know pitcher but also has a very good reputation for hitting. In that BP, she did not make anyone ooh and awe over her power and ability to drive the ball. At least that is my opinion.

HYP said:

Nonotech14,

I understand your frustration. I would be frustrated too if I didn't follow the whole thread and know what I was talking about before posting.

I didn't start this whole thing BTW. I was responding to a post made that was talking about reaction time between MLB and FP and about Candrea not teaching swing down. The post I responded to said that Candrea's hitters had less reaction time then MLB hitters. I then asked if Candrea's hitters could handle MLB pitching. That is how this all started.

i know this is a FP site but don't tell me that these girls have to work harder. It simply is not true. I will tell you if you want but you all ready know, MLB players are head and shoulders, not even in the same stratosphere, with girls FP players. In fact they are head and shoulders above everyone that plays baseball or softball.

What does a male attitude have to do with how hard they work? It would only matter if they were competing against each other. I like hitting and I think hitting is the same for everyone. That is why I am here, to discuss hitting. I know this will come across as a bad male attitude and baseball is better then FP but it is what it is. I can tell you that I coach baseball at a HS and we have a pretty good softball team, girls going to Stanford etc... not trying to be offensive but they couldn't have played for our baseball team. They were good and I liked watching them play. I watched whenever the opportunity was available but they would have had a hard time playing on our baseball team.

One of our juniors, good hitter, faced off against their #1 pitcher. He swung through a few at first but once he figured things out, he put a few in the weeds and then we shut it down when he almost took her head off.

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Actually the post you replied to was that Candreas players have a shorter response time then baseball players hitting an 85 MPH pitch. It didn't mention MLB, in addition you and I both know that in the MLB an 85 MPH pitch is called a change up. No one is saying that the typical FP hitter is as good as the typical MLB hitter. And certainly not as good as Bonds, who frankly at the mid to end of his career was far and away better then he was in the beginning of his career (better living through chemicals).

I could never understand how people want to compare HS and college girls to MLB players, or to any BB players. Does it matter, they don't play the same game, the boys are on average 40 lbs heavier, stronger and faster... Of course a boy can hit a softball over the fence, he better be able to do that girls do it on a regular basis. So how does it give a baseball man any sort of comfort to say that his boys are better then someone elses girls? I never could understand that. Yes the fast pitch bats are hotter, yes the distances are shorter. So what, if you really think about it, the very center of the bat is still the very center of the bat and the correct spot on the ball is the same size when you hold it up to the bat. After all it is still hitting a round object that is moving and bending, with another round object. Its the hardest thing in sports, either way. Who cares which is harder, they are both damned hard to do.

Next we will be arguing about which end of the egg to crack

I omitted from my previous post that some "experts" have gone further and have take the position that 3/4ths of the players in MLB don't have a MLB swing. If you think about it, the majority of minor league baseball players can not hit at the MLB level.

What coaches and hitting instructors have to then determine is what path is best for their players to achieve success at the level that they play and then, naturally, the collegiate level. I don't think that an instructor should say that their player can't achieve a high level swing. Rather, what drills, level of competition ... should these players be exposed to in order to get them to the highest level that they are capable of playing.

When Casey was a soph. we were at the cages hitting in different ones. Baseball and softballs.
There was 4-5 boys and a coach in the fastest baseball cage. They were going to be there awhile.
All there swings were not mechanically sound and they were boys her age about 15

I asked if she could jump in and take a turn.
All of them were yaking untill she hit 4 or 5 balls and then it got quiet while they and the coach watched her.
She was smoking those balls off her bat and it was because of good bat path and sound mechanics. It totally sounds different off the bat when you have a good hand path.

I got a chuckle out of it when they got quiet.

I thought about it a few times getting the varsity starting pitcher to throw to her when in highschool but did not. I thought the extra 17 ft to look at the ball would make a difference.


SL

It’s kind of funny that you posted this we used to go to a facility in Chattanooga, TN (it’s closed now) they had the Irion Mike baseball pitching machines in three cages one at 55, 65 and 75 MPH at 60 feet. DD hit in all three cages at 38 feet and did well in all three. She got to where she was doing really good in all three even the 75, the facility owner asked her one day why she moved to 38 feet when she hit and she advised him that in FP the release point is somewhere around 38 feet and she tries to simulate what she sees in FP.

The phone rang one day and it was the owner of the facility who at that time coached the Chattanooga Lookouts, he told us that some of the boys were complaining that the 75 MPH was too fast for them to hit from and he told them a girl was hitting off the machine at 38 feet, of course they did not believe it could be done. He wanted to know the next time we planned to come up to call him so he could have them come up to see her. We called the next time and of course none of them showed up, but I thought it was cool.

She goes to cages that has 70 baseball and does the Bond’s Drill.

straightleg said:

When Casey was a soph. we were at the cages hitting in different ones. Baseball and softballs.
There was 4-5 boys and a coach in the fastest baseball cage. They were going to be there awhile.
All there swings were not mechanically sound and they were boys her age about 15

I asked if she could jump in and take a turn.
All of them were yaking untill she hit 4 or 5 balls and then it got quiet while they and the coach watched her.
She was smoking those balls off her bat and it was because of good bat path and sound mechanics. It totally sounds different off the bat when you have a good hand path.

I got a chuckle out of it when they got quiet.

I thought about it a few times getting the varsity starting pitcher to throw to her when in highschool but did not. I thought the extra 17 ft to look at the ball would make a difference.


SL

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Lenski said:

I love the Sports Science segments. I can watch them all day long.

[video]http://espn.go.com/high-school/softball/video/clip?id=6601121[/video]

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I would LOVE to see a sports science segment comparing men's fast pitch to baseball.

Not to add to debate, but this was too cool not to share. David Denson, high schooler from Cali, in Miami this weekend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8ZwMykE49I

sorry video won't allow me to embed it.