Help WithMechanics of Hitting the Inside & Outside Pitch

[PEPPERS]

I like thinking outside the box here is an article I copied off the Net a few years ago, it is no longer up but it is titled “Who teaches batters to hit like Ty Cobb any more, Nobody.” It is rather long but IMO gives the other side of stepping at the pitcher vs stepping at the pitch.

Going to have to post in stages.

Who Teaches Batters to Hit Like Ty Cobb? Nobody…
Recently, teaching hitting clinics, I began to teach pitching and hitting together. I wanted to do this to have better information for my hitters on how pitchers are trying to get them out, how they could make adjustments and be smarter at the plate. As a result, my theories on hitting shifted. I had one coach when I was in little league, Coach Morris, tell me to ‘step toward the pitch’ and every coach since then tell me to step straight toward the pitcher, adjust your swing.

Originally, we used a tennis ball drill to learn to hit inside pitches – I threw the ball inside at the batters and as they stepped out, I would correct them to step straight and swing earlier, the traditional method. This was an uphill battle because they knew the drill, knew the ball was coming inside and stepping out made it easier for them to hit the ball with the same head-on or square swing as a ball down the middle and put more of the ‘sweet spot’ on the ball. Likewise my outside pitch drills went the same way. As I was teaching my students the inside-out swing and I corrected my students not to step across to hit the outside pitch, but, I kept hearing that lone advice from old Coach Morris, to step with the pitch.

Well, as my hitters became smarter in the theory of pitching, it became apparent that they were becoming as smart as the pitchers on pitch selection. As they began anticipating a pitchers next pitch, they began to become more successful at hitting inside and outside pitches because they ‘guessed’ it was coming. This put the kink in traditional theory – what if a batter has anticipated the pitch?

Now, after defining the inside pitch as the ‘Money Ball’ because it can be hit more solidly and pulled for more distance and power resulting in home runs and extra base hits; we then began calling the outside pitch the ‘hero pitch’ because when there are baserunners in scoring position at 2nd and 3rd, an outside pitch can be taken the other way by a right handed batter, scoring those runs. My batters, wanting an inside pitch may go up to crowd the plate. A batter looking to drive in a couple of runs will stand a little farther from the plate and step into the pitch to take it to the opposite field.

Here are some notes on hitting and the step theory:

The Zone:
Foremost on the list, pitch selection. This is easiest to define because it is spelled out in English, and probably Japanese, by all baseball and softball associations worldwide – it’s called THE STRIKE ZONE. Down south we have a saying, “If it ain’t in it, don’t hit it.” Enough said.

But seriously, pitch selection can be defined as ‘your pitch’ or the area you are most comfortable in hitting the ball. For most hitters it is about belt high, slightly inside. For great hitters, it is the official strike zone, plus an inch all around. A great hitter can put the bat on the ball in this whole zone – but the areas in particular that make a coach very happy, and a team successful are the inside pitches, and the outside pitches. I call these the ‘Money Ball’ and the ‘Hero Pitch’ as I mentioned earlier.

In Step with Tradition:
One could say that the great Ted Williams is a hitter that has defined tradition. Of course, you don’t get to be called great without the statistics to match:

Williams was a two-time American League Most Valuable Player (MVP) winner, led the league in batting six times, and won the Triple Crown twice. He had a career batting average of .344, with 521 home runs, and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966. He is the last player in Major League Baseball to bat over .400 in a single season (.406 in 1941). Williams holds the highest career batting average of anyone with 500 or more home runs. His career year was 1941 he hit .406 with 37 HR, 120 RBI, and 135 runs scored. His .551 on base percentage set a record that stood for 61 years.

And, it helps to write a book titled “The classic guide to “the single most difficult thing to do in sport” – by the greatest hitter of all time…

The book is ‘The Science of Hitting,’ first published in 1970. Ted Williams, known as a pull hitter, had a great eye for the ball. There is no doubt his patience and intelligent approach at the plate made him the successful hitter that he was. But, like many players, great players are often not great coaches…. of course, there are exceptions.
This blog is concerns hitting and the methods of the greatest hitters of the game in comparison to the traditional methods of instruction that are the norm today. More in detail, the step or direction the batter takes in the drive that precedes the pivot of the hips, putting the bat to the ball, making contact, etc.

The Step:
Traditionally, the step is taken directly ahead or toward the pitcher. In doing so, to hit an inside pitch that comes in on the batter, the batter is taught to swing at an inside pitch earlier, using a faster swing, meeting it with the bat out in front of the front foot and pulling it toward the batters side of the field – right hand batter to left field. Then, to hit an outside pitch, the batter is taught to wait a little bit longer, letting ball come just past the front of the plate, using an inside-out swing, which when hit will punch the ball to the opposite field – right hand batter to right field. The result of all this is that the batter is taught one stride and three swings and the batter has .04 seconds to decide which one.

 

[PEPPERS]

Here is part 2.

TY COBB:
Ty Cobb, nicknamed “The Georgia Peach”, was born in Narrows, Georgia in 1886.

Ted Williams, the only hitter to hit over .400 in the modern era (.406 in 1941) and called the greatest hitter of all time, called Ty Cobb, “the smartest hitter of all.”

Ty Cobb’s Baseball Hitting Accomplishments:
Highest Lifetime Batting Average in Baseball History - .367
Led the American League Hitters 12 Times. Nine in a row from 1907 – 1915 with the Tigers
He hit over .400 in 1911 (.420) 1912 (.409) and 1922 (.401) – Only batter to come close in recent years has been
George Brett in 1980 with an average of .390

Unique about Ty Cobb:
He was a slashing hitter, similar to slap hitting; he choked up on the bat and ‘kept his hands about 4 inches apart on the bat.’ (Jeez, who teaches that? Nobody…)
Ty Cobb used to say the direction of the batters stride depends on where the pitch was – inside pitch, you’d bail out a little; outside pitch, you’d move in toward the plate. (This is a movement even Ted Williams proclaimed wrong because “the batter had better make his stride before the pitcher releases the ball”) BUT, when teams recognized Ted Williams pulled the ball 99% of the time, in 1947 they started using the Ted Williams shift, which is where the whole defense basically plays on the pull side of second base like they do today on pull hitters like Adam Dunn; and to beat this Ted Williams proclaims in his book ‘The Science of Hitting’ that “When I beat the shift, I did it by taking my stance a little farther from the plate, striding more into the pitch.”

Likewise in Mr. William’s book, the names of players that also stepped toward the ball and taught this were names like Rogers Hornsby – who Williams calls “The Greatest Right Hand Hitter of All Time” along with other great hitters like Al Simmons, Mel Ott and Vern Stephens.

Rogers Hornsby:
Lifetime .358 hitter with 302 home runs – Led the National League in batting 7 times, six times in a row from 1920 to 1925. He hit .400 three times

Al Simmons
Simmons hit 307 career home runs, also compiling more hits than any right-handed batter in American League history until surpassed by Al Kaline. A deadly clutch hitter and a favorite of manager Connie Mack, Simmons won batting titles in 1930 and 1931 to help the A's to consecutive pennants. He recorded a .300 batting average and 100 or more runs batted in (RBI) in his first eleven major league seasons.

Simmons' accumulated 2,000 hits in 1,390 games, which remains the shortest number of games needed to attain that mark in major league history.

Mel Ott
In his 22-season career, Ott batted .304 with 511 home runs, 1,860 RBIs, 1,859 runs, 2,876 hits, 488 doubles, 72 triples, 89 stolen bases, a .414 on base percentage and a .533 slugging average.

Vern Stephens
One of the strongest-hitting shortstops in major league history, Stephens compiled a .286 batting average with 247 home runs and 1174 RBI in 1720 games.

THE VOID?
One might ask, what happened in the years between 1922 when Ty Cobb hit .401 and 1941 when Ted Williams became the last player in major league history hot .400 or better? The answer may have impacted the void between 1941 and today; the void of 69 years without anyone doing it..

ANSWER: George Herman (Babe) Ruth

Babe Ruth may be the most influential man in baseball; with what brought crowds so large that New York had to build a new home for the Yankees. Babe Ruth brought the home run, the long ball, the crowd pleasing crack of the bat and the long flight of the ball into the lucky souvenir seeking fans hands.

The influence Babe has had on hitting since has weakened the batters desire to hit a base hit. Period.

Coaches like Earl Weaver built teams of long ball hitters. Power is the game. I won’t go into that realm. Let’s continue with how to hit; the discussion of stride straight or stride to the pitch.

 

[PEPPERS]

Here is part 3.

DOES ANYONE AGREE ON ANYTHING?
Ted Williams admits that hitting success is based on an individual’s approach – or style. Even when it comes to bat selection, all the great hitters are different – Babe Ruth used heavy 40 to 54 ounce bats, Ty Cobb a 40 ounce bat most of his career, dropping to a 35 ounce in his later years. Ted Williams used light bats, 35 inch bats that weighed 33 ounces; he preferred light lumber to help with bat speed.

Bat Speed:
This is a critical component of this entire blog – to be able to step toward the pitch as some of the greatest of great hitters did, you had to step after the pitch was released and you recognized where the pitch would be coming in and for this to happen and still have time to step and hit the ball, the key is bat speed.

Anticipation:
“GUESS? YES!” is the title of the chapter Ted Williams has on anticipation or reading pitchers. The other option a batter has on being able to step into a pitch, if indeed he doesn’t have the bat speed, would be to know or guess what pitch is coming. I teach hitting and pitching together – a batter that knows pitching theory has an advantage, also a batter who pays attention to the pitchers rhythm of pitches can make good guesses. Example – a pitcher only has two pitches, a fast ball and changeup – the batter has a 50/50 chance. Or, another example, a batter that crowds the plate can expect a pitching coach and catcher to call for an inside pitch to ‘brush’ him back.

ADVANTAGES OF THE STEP:
Stepping toward the ball increases the size of the ‘sweet spot – notice that a bat at an angle as shown in Ted Williams book on page 54 decreases the sweet spot from 4.5 inches to 2.87 inches – a 1.63 difference! Also, the angle of the batter to the ball in a step brings the swing more of a head-on, or straight down the middle type of swing and contact – one swing! Not three; one swing for inside pitches, one for down the middle and the inside out swing for an outside pitch. Williams even denotes that a “not more than 10 degree step” in or out is permissible until he had to face the “Ted Williams Shift”

“GOOD PITCHING BEATS GOOD HITTING, AND VICE VERSA”
If the pitcher has multiple pitches, is in his groove and everything seems to be coming over the plate, how can a batter anticipate anything? What is the alternative to anticipating the pitch to make your step to the pitch?

According to the book “The Physics of Baseball” the first .10 second feet are needed for the batter to pick up the ball from the pitchers hands, and the last .15 second is needed to swing to meet the ball; then that means the .15 seconds in between is where the batter must decide where the ball is coming in, and therefore stride.

Mathematically, that’s it. Traditionally, as Ted Williams says, the step should take place with the pitchers step, and then there is a lag between step and swing. This time is spent seeing the ball. But, doesn’t a step and swing work better mechanically if one follows the other? In other words, see the ball, step swing instead of step, see the ball, swing?

Taking on tradition:
How many kids actually decide in .40 seconds on one of three swings? How many decide to swing early on an inside pitch or inside-out on an outside pitch? Likewise, how many kids are taught to hold the bat as Ty Cobb did?

Traditionally, the stride or stepping with the pitch is straight toward the pitcher. There are great names in baseball that follow this method – DiMaggio, Musial, Killebrew along with most baseball players today.

The key is bat speed and teaching hitters how a pitcher thinks – teaching pitching and hitting together. Why can’t pitchers hit? Some of the great heads in baseball pitching were decent hitting pitchers, Babe Ruth for one, and in modern times, John Smoltz. The key is seeing the ball, making the decision with the step, not step and make the decision. A see, step, swing is a more fluid motion. It’s the combination of batters and pitching; batters knowing more about the strategy of pitching, knowing their opponents and anticipating. Then again, it’s just the batter and the ball, like Yogi Berra said, “You can’t think and hit at the same time.

When as the manager of the Washington Senators, Ted Williams says, “Nobody ever studied that little game between the hitter and the pitcher more than I did.” It was this statement that says volumes on his success as a hitter.

Could Ted Williams be wrong? Of course, Ted Williams was quoted by Henry Aaron as telling him, “You will never be able to hit off the front foot.”

Henry Aaron:
OK - No Stats and No asterisk needed. =]

Is there one way? Of course not. But there is one objective – bat to ball. The individual’s concentration, vision, thought mechanics, reaction time and ultimately ability to swing the damn bat determines success. Success itself is different since Babe Ruth; batting .250 with 25 dingers is judged success. But the skill of hitting just hasn’t been done successfully since the era of Ty Cobb. It hasn’t been done 40% of the time successfully since Ted Williams in 1941.
Tags: baseball, cobb, fastpitch, hitting, inside, instruction, outside, pitch, softball, ty

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Replies to This Discussion
Permalink Reply by Dion Chamar Owens 1 day ago
Hey, I just hit the ball where it's pitched, & take my chances.
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Permalink Reply by Coach Andy Collins 18 hours ago
When I saw the title, I thought it would be about the split hands, so I'll talk to that, but your case is well stated, not saying I can buy in yet without more thought, but it was thorough.

As far as the split hands go, when a beginning hitter is learning to hit, I see how the kid naturally holds the bat without the influence of "dad" or other "daddy coaches" and if he has them split I work with the other parts of the swing first, like getting the kid to track the ball with his eyes and getting his hips/torso involved so that he (she) has the best possible chance for success.

Nothing breeds success like success, so for beginners, putting the bat on the ball is paramount, we've got years to turn him into the professional homerun hitter he's destined to become and who can argue with .367 lifetime?

Coach Andy
Baseball and Softball Hitting Tips by Andy Collins the Internet Hitting Coach
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Permalink Reply by Richard Todd 14 hours ago
Let's start with the separated hands... "Quick" question... which moves quicker, the elbow or the wrist? You do not generate bat speed by extending the elbow forward and punching the bat at the ball. You generate bat speed by whipping the wrists into and thru contact.

As for stride, and accepting your math of .4 secs, I have never worked with a ballplayer who could get his foot down in time if he did not start his stride before the ball left the pitcher's hand. I just completed a report on hitting and there's a quote in there from former major leaguer Jesse Barfield. "When do you pick up a curveball? ...before it leaves his hand." You need to anticipate - that part can be correct if well taught, but you can't wait. You can't pick up a foot and put it down in the time available. And if you don't have that foot down firmly to swing against you've lost both speed and power.

Perhaps the Ty Cobb question could be matched by another question: why don;t instructors teach kids to swing like Valdy Guerrero?

 

[CoogansBluff]

I expect my players to do as their told without reservations or judgements and if they don't, they will never be a starter, or possibly even find themselves cut off the team.

I'm sure your instruction is good, but I don't ever want my daughter to suspend reservation or judgment. Maybe I'm taking this too literally. If you're talking about bunting when you're told to bunt, I get it. But I wouldn't want to mute a child's expression of ''this doesn't feel right'' or "I don't get it.''

 

[Madsofball]

I just want to clarify that this is not a Head Coach. I used HC in the original post as Hitting Coach. My apologies... So to be clear, this is a Hitting Coach that we are paying for private instruction.

 

[rdbass]

6 different pitch location. Bottom half didn't change. Top half changed for the different pitch locations

What would the coach have your DD do on this pitch. Step on the plate?

Also Gif is a good example of a hitter timing the ball vs timing the pitcher.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

Not many, if any, instructors will change their minds very easily on what they believe. It would be even harder to convince an instructor through opinions read on a hitting forum.

Give her a link to this forum as the reason for your concern and ask her to reassure you.

It takes a lot of time to teach someone to hit. There is no room for doubting your instructor. The student must have complete trust in the instructor. As much as I hate to say it, I believe you have to make a choice to go with her instruction or change instructors.

While I believe the knowledge on this site to be very good, it's not the only way to get the job done. Look around your area and see how other coaches are teaching.

Even better, post some video of your DD and get some opinions from here.

Ask the instructor to demonstrate striding, with direction towards the pitch, against full game-speed pitching. When they are done feeling foolish they will have a new mindset. They will learn first hand that the time constraint doesn't allow what they are teaching (unless they correctly guess the location of the pitch). They will learn that the ideal time for their COM to be moving forward is on the pitcher's release, a point in time when they don't yet have information as to where the ball will be. They will learn that if they wait until they stride, until after determining pitch location, that they will be late. They will learn that changing the direction of the stride, mid-stride, negatively impacts their load. They will learn that they errored, and while it seemed logical to them, that their failure to test what they were teaching led them to move hitters in the wrong direction.

Yes ... it does take a long time to teach someone to hit ... especially when the instructor is wrong, doesn't use the Hanson Principle, and doesn't test out their theories with time in the box. Always doubt your instructor to the extent that you seek confirmation of what is being instructed.

 

[Jim]

6 different pitch location. Bottom half didn't change. Top half changed for the different pitch locations

Also shows that the pitch doesn't have to be right down the middle of the plate to be a good pitch to hit.

He is so good because he has a large area of coverage that he can do the ultimate damage on.

This would be a good clip in the "first pitch swinging" discussion.