Thoughts about a product

Welcome to Discuss Fastpitch

Your FREE Account is waiting to the Best Softball Community on the Web.

obbay

Banned
Aug 21, 2008
2,199
0
Boston, MA
I don't have one- are you talking about the new "swing away" that has the ball on cords and a net and they have been advertising during commercial breaks on ESPN?

A few years ago I belonged to a facility that had several. It was used as a hitting station and I don't recall seeing it being used effectively (batters taking hacks, didn't really see direct feedback relative to the quality of the swing) they started falling into disrepair and never seemed to work right once they needed to be fixed the first time. I would think that would be a problem if a whole team of high school kids was using it, even if you had several. After the first season I think you'd have maintenance issues.

While it's not perfect, I like the Zepp system for developing hitters. I've only just started using it last fall/winter so I don't know the long term benefits/issues, but it gets players a lot more interested in tee work and the batting statistics generated.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Dec 5, 2012
4,143
63
Mid West
They're decent quality and do serve a purpose in getting cuts in. However, you said you wanted quality cuts. The swing away gets more reps in a shorter time due to never chasing, picking up, or resetting balls.
Your best tee work is going to be long tee. That way the batter can make adjustments within their swing to produce the line drive they're trying for. The swing away doesn't give any feedback as to the quality of the hit.
 
Mar 19, 2009
946
93
Southern California
The Zepp has certainly caught my interest but I hear it can be difficult to use. I'm waiting for them to iron out the bugs first. Im sure I'll get one soon. Thanks for your Input .
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Oct 19, 2009
1,827
0
I am a high school coach and I was thinking of buying a swing away. We have tees and nets but I'm looking for more quality reps. Any thoughts on this using this product.

I went and watched DD college SB team practice and was disappointed at what I saw. They were, including DD, just going through the motion in their swings. They were soft tossing and front tossing just to get through a task and not taking quality swings designed to improve the swing. :mad:

I always taught every swing as good as possible, and these half hearted swing IMO showed up in the games as well.

Again my opinion no one device can make the quality of the swings better that is a coach and player's attitude and desire that can make it better.

10 quality swings are better that 100 half hearted swing just to get through the drill as fast as possible JMO.
 
Mar 3, 2015
142
0
Michigan
Its just like any product. If you arent analyzing what is going on, there is no purpose for any of them. I can hit a line drive off of a tee using poor mechanics. We use the swing away and video the session, go back and analyze. It's been very effective for my DD's especailly with limited space available. Anyhow, good luck this season!
 

Forum statistics

Threads
42,830
Messages
679,477
Members
21,445
Latest member
Bmac81802
Top