start position with the head and eyes

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May 17, 2012
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My daughter does a lot of tee work, and when it comes to how the batter holds there head and eyes, we focus on keeping the nose on the ball at the point of contact.

At the cages the other day I noticed something interesting, and something perhaps we may be lacking in our training.

While my daughter was in the cage, she had her head level looking square at the release point of the machine. However when the pitch came in there was almost no headmovement to bring the head down towards to ball. So in the end while swinging she was not in a nose on the ball position but more looking straight ahead. oddly enough she hit the ball fairly well, but I imagine not as well as she could if she did it properly.

So I got to doing some research.

I really haven't had much luck finding a good descriptive definition of how the head and eyes should be facing when the batter is in the box awaiting the pitch.

Looking at pictures it seems to me like the batter has there head turned just enough to see the release point of the pitcher with both eyes, but not more then that, and the head in enough so that transition to looking at the ball at the point of impact requires little to no head movement.

Anyone know of any good articles or good advice on how the head and eyes should be facing when the batter is in the box, and how that transitions to the point of impact?

Here was a cool gif I found that points out head position. If you notice, his head start position is not staring directly straight ahead. It is almost like he has is nose pointed maybe slightly in front of the point of impact and the as he tracks the ball only slightly moves his head.

2lm3y4h.gif
 

rdbass

It wasn't me.
Jun 5, 2010
9,131
83
Not here.
The Most Valuable Skill in Baseball!

VISION:

Hello, Chas Pippitt, aka Captain Obvious, here to tell you about the most valuable skill in baseball: The ability to watch the ball.

If you can’t see the ball hit the bat…what are these guys looking at? Now, I’m sure some eye doctor will say ‘it’s physically impossible to see the baseball hit the bat’ and someone else will tell the story that Ted Williams could read the words on a spinning record as it played… I want to be clear, I’m not saying you need to actually SEE THE BALL HIT THE BAT, I am saying that you must be able to visually judge the PATH of the pitch, and see that path in your mind so you can get the bat barrel in the way of the baseball.

Eyes down in the zone, behind the ball, barrel in the way of the path of the pitch
Now, EVERY SINGLE KID has had EVERY SINGLE COACH tell him to ‘watch the baseball’ in one form or another. From ‘keep your head still’, to ‘you can’t hit what you can’t see’, to ‘watch the ball hit the bat’, the expressions are endless…and so is the mistake of hitters pulling his or her head to see where the ball goes before the ball makes contact with the bat.

How is it possible that the ONLY THING ALL COACHES AGREE ON (the need to watch the ball) is not only the first thing that kids are taught, but also the first thing that kids forget the second they get to the field?

A young hitter pulling his head/eyes away from the hitting zone…his results are clearly suffering.
Is it immaturity? Impatience? Stupidity? No. It’s simply that coaches aren’t doing a good enough job PROVING to kids that keeping your ‘eyes on the ball’ is the only way to survive in this terribly difficult game.


There are many ways to do this. I ask my kids all the time, ‘have you ever heard of the blind major league baseball player?’ Of course, the answer is, ‘no.’ However, I then tell them that there are off balance players all the time, fooled hitters, fielders who make errors, there have been midgets, one handed men, short and small guys like Dustin Pedrioa…

Dustin Pedrioa taking his eyes down to the baseball and into the hitting zone.


and Giant tall guys like Randy Johnson. Fat slow guys like Cecil Fielder and skinny fast guys like Tony Campana (he’s a buddy of mine and he’s only 5’8’’ 150…I don’t care what his bio says!). But never a blind guy…and the second you pull your head out towards the pitcher during the swing, you BECOME A BLIND HITTER!

Prince Fielder with his eyes down in the PATH of the baseball. He’s not just picking the spot the bat will hit the ball, he’s seeing the PATH of the pitch, and swinging ON THAT PATH! Super Advanced!
Now, again, whether you think I’m right (I am) or wrong (I’m not) about ‘down and through’ mechanics vs the different mechanics we preach and teach in The I.T.S. Baseball Hitting System, you can’t argue that vision, or the act of watching the baseball, is NOT the most important thing whether you are in the field or at the plate.

I’m going to tell you that when talking to Johnny Narron, Josh Hamilton’s personal hitting coach, he told me that he thinks the difference between the truly great hitters like Josh, A-Rod, ManRam, Bonds, Mays…the list goes on, from an all-star player was ‘two feet of vision’ during a pitched ball.

Josh Hamilton practicing off a batting tee…Totally focused on his vision.
Now think about that. 2 feet of vision in a pitch that travels roughly 54 feet (taking 6 feet off of 60.6 for the stride and release of the pitch) that is less than 4% difference!

4 Percent! He went onto say that the difference between the all-star player and a bench guy in the majors was another 2 feet…So Barry Bonds was only 8% better than Joe Shmoe Major League Flash in the Pan Guy! That’s a pretty bold statement in my opinion, considering that Joe Shmoe was about 100000% better than me…or anyone else who plays at a high level and can’t make it!

So I started to really think about this idea, on how to train kids to ‘Value their Vision’ as their main tool to be as good a player as they can be.

NL MVP Joey Votto with his eyes perfectly in the hitting zone, behind the baseball, and in the path of the pitch.
Here’s what I came up with: Joey references a ‘broomstick’ drill on swing smarter.com where you swing the broom and hear where the sound is. I prefer a Lacrosse stick with no head on it. They are roughly 4 feet long and have an open end. I tape up the handle thicker, more like a wooden bat handle, and the kids swing it. First, they pull their head, the sound the stick makes, when swung hard, is loud and noticeable. That sound also has a ‘direction’ or a ‘location’. It’s in front of the hitter because as the head pulls, the hands and shoulder follow along with the head. In essence, the knob of the bat pulls and the barrel is NOT accelerated sideways into the zone…it’s not accelerated period until too late.

Do the same drill with a ball sitting just off the outside corner of home plate. Now, STARE at that ball while you swing as hard as you can so that your head stays still and your NOSE points down at that baseball and NEVER MOVES forward away. Swing just as hard as you did before…and change nothing…Where was the sound? Over home plate you say? GREAT! Isn’t that were the ball is when you’re hitting? The sound is BESIDE YOUR BODY and over home plate instead of IN FRONT of your body in the batter’s box? A great example of this idea is this picture of Josh Hamilton.

Yes, I know this picture is the same as the one above…BUT REALLY LOOK AT IT! The Baseball Hitting Rebellion is a training site…we want to show you not only how these guys hit in games…but what it takes to GET THERE!
He’s really focused BEHIND the ball with his vision, and his head will STAY there to finish off his extension.

Keep in mind, you’ll watch tv and see guys pimping homeruns and ‘watching the ball leave the yard’ and you’ll think, Chas, those guys aren’t keeping their heads still. I’ll say two things do that:

First: Yes they are, INSIDE the swing they are motionless. The swing truly ends at full wrist snap and extension. So those guys are ‘finished’ before their swing finishes…because the early acceleration finishes their swing with no effort.

Robinson Cano keeping his head still DURING extension and AFTER the contact…once he finishes (at maximum wrist snap and extension) he will allow his head to raise. Do Not let your son/daughter raiser his or her head after contact…ever. It only leads to pre-contact problems and balance issues.
Second: Players at that level, the MLB level, who are on SportsCenter for hitting homeruns and making millions of dollars, are literally IN CHARGE of what they’re doing on the field. The major league and minor league coaches I talk to about ‘suggestion’ instead of ‘teaching’. When a big leaguer gets a hit, he doesn’t pick up his first base coach…he watches the ball into the outfield and makes a decision on a single or a double. An example of this was Ryan Braun in the low minor leagues and hitting coaches. Those coaches were directly instructed NOT to talk to Ryan about hitting…let that sink in…Because the upper level guys didn’t trust those low minor league level coaches to make adjustments to Ryan Braun’s swing. The only thing he WAS allowed to say to Ryan was, make sure you’re seeing the ball.
 

rdbass

It wasn't me.
Jun 5, 2010
9,131
83
Not here.
Sammy Sosa…Seeing Contact?!?
Another example of this was when Josh Hamilton broke his shoulder this year, he threw his coach under the bus for telling him that ‘no one was covering home.’ The Rangers backed the coach, after Josh complained about that being a ‘stupid decision’, and said it was actually Josh’s decision to go…This proves that the PLAYERS are truly the ones making the decisions on the field, as they are the ‘valuable commodities’ people pay to see. Most of the time, the only coach on the field who impacts a game is the third base coach, and even he, as in the Hamilton story, only ‘suggests’ what players should do on field.

Now, after that slight tangent, I’m back to vision. Now, at I.T.S. Baseball, we literally are ALWAYS looking for new and fun ways to teach kids to hit.

One way we did this was with our fun idea we affectionately call the HeadRight HeadLight. The HeadRight HeadLight forces kids to ‘GET YOUR HEAD RIGHT’ when they hit. We turn the lights off, so it’s pitch black dark, and we hit. How does that work? Well, we strap a light to the hitter’s head, above his nose, that we can angle down at a ball sitting on a tee. The light doesn’t ‘bend’ and the light doesn’t lie. If the hitter moves his head, the ball goes from ‘lit up’ to ‘dark’ and the hitter misses or miss-hits the baseball. Also, with this HeadRight HeadLight drill, the light once the ball leaves the tee, should be shining just above where the ball WAS sitting on the tee. This is true even AFTER the ball is gone.

Joey from SwingSmarter.com’s Two Cents: I love this drill and can’t wait to try it with my students! This will be one of the new Top 5 Drills at Swing Smarter.com. Seeing the ball is so important, as Chas says, and the idea of keeping the head still will actually help with kids grasping the ITS Baseball Drive Developing System. Down & Through causes kids to have a lot of head movement (which I see on video quite a bit), and this is one of the major reasons for a lower batting average. ITS Baseball Systems and the “Nike Swoosh” swing is the wave of the future.

Carlos Gonzalez with great visual discipline. Eyes behind the baseball, bat in the path of the pitch.
We at I.T.S. Baseball have done this crazy drill with kids as young as seven (they LOVED IT) as well as professional level players. Now, I will say this, the pro guys looked at me like I was crazy…and maybe I am a little bit, but bottom line, once they did it even they were shocked at how much head movement they had before and after contact! One said ‘you can’t argue with the light.’ It’s either still…or it isn’t…the proof is right there. The more still the light, the more efficient and accurate the swing will be.

At I.T.S. Baseball (which stands for Innovative Training Systems for Baseball) and the Baseball Hitting Rebellion, we are tired of coaches who regurgitate information that is tired…old…and in most cases, incorrect. Our own research into bio mechanics, muscle activation, kinetics, and HD video study proves our stances on what we teach and why we teach it. Our challenge is translating the video into a systematic approach that is understandable, learnable, enjoyable, and accurate. Try these drills and enjoy the results! And for goodness sake, KEEP YOUR HEAD STILL AFTER CONTACT!

How to Fix NOT Seeing the Ball: The HeadRight HeadLight Drill - Chas Pippitt
 
Oct 16, 2008
164
18
SE Michigan
As I mentioned in another thread, I've started using 3 tees when doing tee drills. The 1st tee is at about 40 feet, the 2nd tee is about 18 feet and the 3rd tee is at the desired plate location...a ball is placed on each tee...we call it the tracking drill. Depending on what we work on, we have verbal cues associated with the hitters vision passing from one tee/ball to the next. For example, coil/hands/ fire or coil/heel/fire. It seems to help link the mechanics with the vision tracking and sequencing. It's also fun to keep it interesting by moving the middle and plate tee to pseudo simulate pitch types...drops, curves, risers etc....obviously has major limitations but seems to be an improvement over traditional tee work.
 

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