Practices devoted to hitting

[Jackel2168]

Certain days during the year we have whole days devoted to hitting and when we are indoors for the winter every other Sunday is devoted to hitting. Assuming we have 11-12 kids and three hitting cages I generally do
1st cage- coach soft toss
2nd cage- live hitter/pitcher
3rd cage- tee drills

Depending on the players I have a few different drills going on.

I will have my slappers do their own drills going through progressions. (hitting position soft slap, step soft slap, full speed soft slap, hitting position hard slap, step hard slap, full speed hard slap all off the tee)
I will have my other girls go through their own progressions. (Bottom hand drill, hip rotations, matrix drill,top hand drill, face the fire, inside/outside tees, two tee drill, drive the ball into the next ball drill, and then hitting all four quadrants)

Does anyone else do anything different or would anyone change anything/add anything. I generally dislike the pitching machine unless we are doing bunting drills or teaching slappers the first few times.

 

[Coach Fastpitch]

We do a three plate drill with our front coach toss.

 

[lhowser]

Why dislike and avoid pitching machine. It is a ball coming on a line at a good rate of speed for hitters to time.

We have been doing some hitting only practices but now, rather that cycle through different things like tee, toss, live - I have everyone do the same thing at the same time. Various tee drills, various toss drills. Then and only then would go with pitching and I go front toss and machine if i have enough help. This allows more control on the tee and toss drills and it doesn't send anyone into the cage hitting live before they get to do tee and toss.

We really mix it up low and outside tee, two tee drill, deep tee drill with lots of explainations. Make some new things up to emphasize hips, hands. Anything to keep interest and keep a purpose and focus.

We let the girls do soft toss - high,low,in,out (repeat)

 

[David Carter]

Why dislike and avoid pitching machine. It is a ball coming on a line at a good rate of speed for hitters to time.

We have been doing some hitting only practices but now, rather that cycle through different things like tee, toss, live - I have everyone do the same thing at the same time. Various tee drills, various toss drills. Then and only then would go with pitching and I go front toss and machine if i have enough help. This allows more control on the tee and toss drills and it doesn't send anyone into the cage hitting live before they get to do tee and toss.

We really mix it up low and outside tee, two tee drill, deep tee drill with lots of explainations. Make some new things up to emphasize hips, hands. Anything to keep interest and keep a purpose and focus.

We let the girls do soft toss - high,low,in,out (repeat)

guess I am just misundertanding unless you mean every station is doing the same thing, don't think you mean all girls wait to do one drill.

I rarely do a whole practice but sometimes will do half a practice 45 minutes or so. I usually do hitting practice separate at a batting cage on an off day one machine then tee station off to the side. Right now since we have not started games yet two practices a week with one cage session for a month the we start playing games and that number goes down.

My stations are usually tee stations (sometimes two focusing on different things), whiffles balls, swing trainer, soft toss, front toss. I don't use every station every time just enough to break the girls into groups of about three never more than four, my biggest problem is having assistants I can trust at each station that is usually my limiting factor in how many stations I have going, sometimes followed by live BP.

Now during regular practice times I might have game situational time where we basically play out a half inning. Live pitching, catcher in gear, regular count, walks, steal, everything just like a real game then after 3 outs, maybe I give them another go if it was 3 up and 3 down but then rotate pitcher and other players out so different set of girls bat until we have gone through team, while the girls do hit I don't consider this hitting practice per se.

 

[coach james]

Very important to mix it up with a variety of looks and not just machine pitch...

 

[lhowser]

guess I am just misundertanding unless you mean every station is doing the same thing, don't think you mean all girls wait to do one drill.

yes, 4 stations. All girls doing the same drill at once in pairs.

 

[Jackel2168]

Pitching machines are bad for bats, the ball generally comes in on a line, it requires you to move it before throwing a different pitch, it generally only throws one pitch (unless it's a hack-attack) but even then they notice they you are changing something. Also, using a live pitcher gives the hitter the experience of looking for tells, look at grips, and feel out the situation as a hitter. Our pitchers have to throw to the hitters like it is a game scenario and and the hitters treat it like a game scenario.

 

[softballphreak]

Certain days during the year we have whole days devoted to hitting and when we are indoors for the winter every other Sunday is devoted to hitting. Assuming we have 11-12 kids and three hitting cages I generally do
1st cage- coach soft toss
2nd cage- live hitter/pitcher
3rd cage- tee drills

Depending on the players I have a few different drills going on.

I will have my slappers do their own drills going through progressions. (hitting position soft slap, step soft slap, full speed soft slap, hitting position hard slap, step hard slap, full speed hard slap all off the tee)
I will have my other girls go through their own progressions. (Bottom hand drill, hip rotations, matrix drill,top hand drill, face the fire, inside/outside tees, two tee drill, drive the ball into the next ball drill, and then hitting all four quadrants)

Does anyone else do anything different or would anyone change anything/add anything. I generally dislike the pitching machine unless we are doing bunting drills or teaching slappers the first few times.

Sounds like great practice to me. You're fortunate to have those faciiities. We are fortunate enough this year to have a JV that can compete with our Varsity, so we get real game practices. JV has a goal of beating the Varsity at least once this year. Probably won't happen but makes for good effort on both squads.

If I were you I would stick with your program. Don't see how it can be much better.

 

[Jackel2168]

My high school has amazing facilities, but we have good facilities for my club team also. We have slight variations at the high school because we have the huge field house and dividers so those whole practices are not devoted to hitting.

 

[lhowser]

Pitching machines are bad for bats, the ball generally comes in on a line, it requires you to move it before throwing a different pitch, it generally only throws one pitch (unless it's a hack-attack) but even then they notice they you are changing something. Also, using a live pitcher gives the hitter the experience of looking for tells, look at grips, and feel out the situation as a hitter. Our pitchers have to throw to the hitters like it is a game scenario and and the hitters treat it like a game scenario.

This is all true but then hitting off a tee is just hitting a ball sitting on a stationary object at a predetermined height and distance.

Point being, the machine has limitations but it is a tool. It helps a coach determine if the tee swing can be replicated with an object moving towards them at 45 - 60 mph. Hitting off live adds other elements still that you mentioned. The machine can give you high rates of speed at slightly shorter distances which is often difficult to replicate with live pitching. Just a thought.